Teens, how many calories do you eat?

Usually for girls its about 2000 cals recommended.  Just wondering how much the average teen actually eats?

I'm trying to up my calories and metabolism since i've been eating 1200 cals so long!

There was already a post like this, but it was full of people eating under 1,200... some as low as 400! Good grief, can't those idiots see what they're doing to themselves?

Having a fast metabolism is definatley a bonus girl! You build muscle and burn fat more easilly, and plus, you can eat more as long as you keep it up and stay active! Upping your calories as well as strength training and running intervals will all help. Eating frequent meals is also a huge booster, as is eating more protein and less processed food.

I eat 3,000+ to gain, and about 2,600-2,700 to maintain.

yeah I run 5km + weight train, OR, I have soccer pratcie/games, and I'm active like this 6-7 days a week.  And I burn ~2500 or more a day and I eat only 1200.  I thought I was being really healthy but I really wasn't so I'm trying to fix that.  I wasn't losing anything, so thats when i realized how messed up my metabolism was!

To gain weight, my dietician suggests that I eat at least 2500, and on active days (which is basically everyday) to eat around 3000.  Unfortunately, the anxiety from my ED continues to make meeting this goal consistently quite difficult, and I'll go from eating 3000-4000 to only about 2000, thus I'm often just gaining and losing the same weight.  But most active teenage girls, from my understanding, should at the bare minimum be eating 2500.  Of course, some girls aren't as tall, or some are very tall, so calorie needs will always vary from person to person.

twilitwing for your health's sake, you seriously need to eat WAY more than 1200 a day.  Or at least cut out the excercise.  I know you probably feel as if you're being stronger by working out consistently and eating very little, (trust me..I've been there), but all you are doing is harming your body.  If you're not already there, you are just going to end up weak, cold, pale, with a very slow metabolism, and a loss of your periods which can lead to infertility and osteoperosis at a young age.  Imagine working out when you're 25 or so and breaking your hip because you've let your bones weaken so much; imagine never being able to have children---imagine how hurt your friends and family will be if you die just because you wouldn't take care of yourself.  That kind of restriction goes deeper than you just wanting to lose weight.  Please talk to someone you trust, and start getting help.  Honestly, the sooner you do that, the better.

I eat 1800 cals per day. I work out a few times a week and am pretty active during the day rushing around. When I start to maintain I'll probably eat about 2200-300

Please remember to those that reply to this, The minimum intake for a sedentary female under 21 is 1500 per day, and a sedentary male under 21 1800 per day. And believe it or not, that’s only the sedentary minimum. Unless you are very, very short and small, and/or if you are working out it is very likely you will need even more calories than those minimum guidelines.

If you are under 21, CC's tools are inaccurate and you should use this calculator instead: http://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/bodycomp/bmiz2.html as you are still growing. Yes, even in the later years - there's more going on inside of you that you simply can't see.

Eating too low a calorie intake, or having a deficit from your BMR greater than 1000 results in something called "survival mode", where your body holds every last thing it can get in expectance of a famine. Water, food, calories. Explained:

• Dieting & Metabolism - This article explains starvation mode and why undereating is counter productive.
• The Body Neglected - This is what happens when you undereat for an extended period of time. 
• "Obesity on 700 Calories" - A tale of starvation mode's devistating effects, and proof you don't have to be underweight to be starving.
• From Ask Mary, the segment provided by our CC nutritionist Mary Hartley: On the dangers of undereating and what it does to your body.

The physical dangers that come with undereating are numerous. You put yourself at risk of osteoporosis, of loss of fertility if you lose your period, hair loss, electrolyte problems, a weakening of the immune system, low blood pressure, blood disorders such as anemia, heart problems, and even death. The mental woes that come alongside can be just as devestating. Depression is common in undereaters, as well as distorted perceptions and problems like Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Crash dieting will do nothing to help you lose weight as the weight will likely come straight back on, and undereating can easily do more damage than good. Think about it - your health or your vanity? Weight is easily lost if you do it in a healthy and sustainable manner which is what CC is all about. You should also seriously evaluate if you actually need to lose weight. At a young age, you are developing and really need to take care of your body so you grow in full both outside and inside. Undereating now can lead to serious complications in the future.

Take a look at the following link if you haven't before: An Unofficial Calorie Count Guide to a Fad-Free 2009. It covers the basics of calorie counting, largely in how to do so safely and sensibly without resorting to drastic methods. And please remember:

Posting Guidelines

Calorie Count's mission is to promote healthy and sustainable weight management. Please help our moderators follow this vision and respect the following guidelines.

• Your post is subject to modification or deletion by our moderators. Repetitive, off-topic, disruptive, and frivolous posts will be removed. We will take down any posts that violate either the letter or the spirit of any of these rules.
• Promotion of starvation diets or habits that exhibit signs of an eating disorder ("pro-ana", "pro-mia", etc.) is prohibited.

If this thread goes the way of others like this previous it will be locked.

- Ellie
Calorie Count Volunteer Moderator

I am eating about 1500 calories a day to lose weight. I am short and lightly active and I burn around 2000 calories a day.

I think forums like this ultimately do more harm than good for most teens.  Many adolescents are uneducated about how many calories they truly need, but they're SURROUNDED and BOMBARDED with fad diets and ads promoting weightloss for adults who generally need far less calories.  Perhaps, many of these adolescents think they're being "smart" by looking at adult weightloss sites with 1200 calorie diets, and so they follow them instead of going to an adolescent weightloss site.  Then maybe after they begin to lose weight and feel accomplished, or want to learn how to lose more, etc. they eventually join sites like this where they can discuss these topics.  And then you get forums like these, with active teen girls confidently posting that they eat only 500 or whatever little number of calories a day, and then other doubtful, uneducated teens read their warped posts and think that THEY are doing the wrong thing by eating more than 2000 to lose weight.  It starts seeming almost like a competition for how little you can eat and screw your body up rather than about healthy weightloss. 

I don't know though... jessiexo seemed to simply be interested in learning to fix the mistakes she'd made before, but I notice that alot of girls with EDs seem drawn to these posts.  Its like some kind of private way of reassuring themselves that they aren't taking as much as others are, or something.  I never used a calorie counting site when I was starving myself, but I know that thats probably what it would have been for me. 

Anyway, you people that are eating so little, even if it scares you, please let yourself eat more.  I know how hard it is, but thats the only real way to get your life back. 

Original Post by lizzel:

Heyy

This is probably gonna sound weird but i eat between 700 to 900 calories per day, most of the time 800 calories. Im trying to lose weight even though im at a healthy weight. I weigh 56 kg (i think thats about 125 pounds...) im 1.68m tall and i just turned 15. I run a few times a week and each time I run about half an hour, i do it because its fun and when im tired i stop. I think i don't eat so many calories because i eat only 3 times a day, 4 at most. I just do so much in a day that i forget and see that its time for lunch or dinner. My breakfast is about 200 calories, lunch also and dinner changes every day. Its not like i eat like this EVERY day, its just now because its summer. During school it can be different, I sometimes eat 600 calories and the next day im at 1000 or more. I don't do it on purpose. I gain reaaally fast, maybe because i used to be overweight... . I don't eat like this on purpose, i just lose my appitite whenever I see the amount of calories in something and wait for lunch or dinner. In my family its really annoying... my oldest sister is always busy with foods and everytime i eat something she just HAS to say; You really gonna eat that?? You'll get fat again y'know?? It just makes me so mad! She keeps telling me that im huuuge because she weighs like 4 kg less than me. IF i snack, which i rarely do, i like to have an apple or something i really don't know the name of in english.. in Dutch its a 'rijstwafel'.. something with rice and its delicious and low in calories. I think its just something i deal with because of my annoying family...

 

xx

 Did you not read the moderator's post? Or the forum rules for that matter? Please don't post about starvation diets when you know that no one wants to hear about it.

I m may not be a teen girl but I'm a teen guy

and I eat 1800 on un-active days and 2000 + calories on active ones which is BASICALLY 6 days a week.

If this seems low then lets just say I just changed my diet from a 1200 one to the current one if you know what I mean =P

Working on getting more in.

This site is good because I THOUGHT I was doing good by eating so low of calories (I will not say how low though, it is kind of digusting knowing how much I should have been eating)

NOW I'm TRYING to get up to 3,000 something. I am very active and am trying to gain weight. Hopefully I will soon. gotta keep upbeat about these things, yeah?

I eat 1500 a day :)

Well, I'm 18, 5'7, and trying to maintain.  I generally eat between 1800 and 2300, depending on how active I've been throughout the day...lately it's been more along the lines of 1900, though...it's summer, and other than working out a few times a week, I don't move anymore haha.

ummm... Gosh, there are alot of STUPID people in this thread. I was reading the warnings about not promoting 'starvation' on this topic and I was thinking "That's not really nessisairy, no one is going to exonerate their horific eating habits." and then I see a post where the person is eating 425 CALORIES!!! People sometimes make me want to scream!

BTW: I eat around 1900-2100 cals a day.

I feel bad for the people under-eating because, well, I've been there done that. I'm so over it (Been for a looong time.)

I'm not even going to post my caloric intake just because, well, I'm just an anonymous person. No one here knows me and likewise.

Original Post by ruthie2442:

ummm... Gosh, there are alot of STUPID people in this thread. I was reading the warnings about not promoting 'starvation' on this topic and I was thinking "That's not really nessisairy, no one is going to exonerate their horific eating habits." and then I see a post where the girl is eating 425 CALORIES!!! People sometimes make me want to scream!

BTW: I eat around 1900-2100 cals a day.

Well instead of degrading their intelligence why not 'help' them...

"Well instead of degrading their intelligence why not 'help' them..."

I agree, I mean do you think it's ever helped a fat person to call them "stupid" for eating too much?  I'm sure that most of these teens are trying to do the right things, but they haven't realized that the "right" thing for one person probably isn't the "right" thing for everyone else.  In general, an active teen doesn't need to eat a super low calorie diet (1200) to lose weight.  MOst of these super low calorie diets are geared towards inactive adults, and even some inactive adults can lose weight on more than that.  To lose, maintain, or gain weight, you have to find out what's right for YOU, not for someone else.

Exactly...I can speak for myself when I say I was dellusioned into eating 1200 calories because I trully thought it was good and that my body wouldn't starve. Though I may have a problem...but I"m working on it =P

Though the point still stands, alot of people are mis-informed about dieting these days.

Original Post by mr_omario:

Original Post by ruthie2442:

ummm... Gosh, there are alot of STUPID people in this thread. I was reading the warnings about not promoting 'starvation' on this topic and I was thinking "That's not really nessisairy, no one is going to exonerate their horific eating habits." and then I see a post where the girl is eating 425 CALORIES!!! People sometimes make me want to scream!

BTW: I eat around 1900-2100 cals a day.

Well instead of degrading their intelligence why not 'help' them...

And how would you suggest I do that? I was commenting on the blatant disregard for a very specific request (do not post low calorie numbers). To clarify I think people who do this are sad and attention seeking. I understand the emotional upheaval that goes along with under eating but their is no excuse for boasting about it on a public thread!

I don't think they are bragging...

Until you've been there you can't really relate to what their intentions are. I wish them well, and I hope you can have faith in them.

Original Post by ruthie2442:

 

And how would you suggest I do that? I was commenting on the blatant disregard for a very specific request (do not post low calorie numbers). To clarify I think people who do this are sad and attention seeking. I understand the emotional upheaval that goes along with under eating but their is no excuse for boasting about it on a public thread!

 

You can't really sterio-type things, cuz generalizations are horribly in-accurate. Help them as in...tell them that what they're doing is wrong. They're obviously mis-guided, as anyone who is doing something wrong.

Though I hope your able to be more sensitive when dealing with them, and I don't mean any harm when I replied to what you said.