What Does 4,000 Calories a Day Look Like?
The average American consumes almost 4,000 calories every day and counting! That’s anywhere from 1500 to 2500 more calories than the average man or woman really needs (children and athletes have different needs).
Translation: 3500 calories is equivalent to one pound. If you’re an “average American”, you could be eating anywhere from 12 to 15 excess pounds every month, adding fat to your body, increasing the pressure on your heart, and stressing your organs (not to mention the environmental impact of all this gluttony).
But why are we eating so much?
I decided to see what it would be like to eat the way the average American supposedly eats.
Breakfast: How about McDonald’s? That’s a typical choice for millions of Americans every day.
If you want to exceed 400 calories at every meal (a no-brainer for stressing out your organs and getting fat) just be sure to eat a breakfast like this one. To be an average American, you need to eat at least 700 calories and up to 1300 calories at each setting. McDonald’s can help you with that. Another tip: it helps to drink your calories, so remember to wash it all down with a big slosh of soda or juice! Or a nice venti mocha will do the trick.
Lunch: I know Burger King is bad. I’ll go for Subway. Subway is fresh, so I’m sure whatever I eat there is going to be good, right?
Well, maybe if you get a 6″ whole-grain sandwich with vegetables or a salad. But according to Subway, the most popular Subway item in the world is the toasted steak and cheese sandwich. This will give you a very generous 400 calories per 6″ section. Don’t forget the chips and soda (an extra 300 calories!), and you’re easily on your way to 4,000 calories today! It’s nice that convenience chains are offering slightly more healthy options these days, but it’s still disingenuous counter-marketing to offer it along side the regular high-calorie fare. Eat fresh, indeed.
Dinner: Pizza and burgers are beloved American foods. Sign me up!
Carl’s Jr. says there’s only one thing that can “slay the hunger of a young guy on the move”. Hey, that’s me! I can even get their burger for breakfast. But wait, am I really that starving that I need to be slaying my stomach? The six-dollar burger with a large Coke and a side of fries will round out my day with an additional 1,200 calories (give or take a few).
(Honestly, I’ve always thought it’s sort of sad that the most famous American foods – pie, burgers, pizza, hot dogs, French fries – are all junk foods. The French get cheese, wine and sauces, and Asia’s got vegetables down cold, but when it comes to cuisines of the world, we can sure be proud of our corn, salt, sugar and trans fat, all right.)
Conclusion:
I thought it would be a little bit of a challenge to eat 4,000 calories, but thanks to the vast majority of what’s available at every restaurant these days, it’s actually pretty hard not to consume twice as many calories as you need – and that’s the whole problem. It shouldn’t require a degree in nutrition or hours of online research to know what’s reasonable to eat and what isn’t. Stopping in at Subway to eat lunch shouldn’t be an obesity challenge.
Of course, what really helps is all that soda! We each drink approximately 50 gallons of soda every year. We eat twice as many calories daily as we need by some estimates, and about 1,000 excess calories a day by more conservative estimates (seems a little more accurate to me, but then again…) Whether we’re overeating a lot or overeating a lot, it’s not healthy and it’s no wonder the majority of Americans are overweight.
That’s why I’m giving this month’s Impossible Calorie Award to the Standard American Diet!
Tomorrow Mark will be bringing you the second installment of his new syndicated column, Primal Health, which covers fitness, diet and nutrition issues from a biology buff’s evolutionary perspective. And Sara will be dragging the Fuming Fuji kicking and screaming into yet another review of sneaky marketers’ attempts to toxify the seedlings. (Good luck with that, Sara.) I’ll be back Thursday with another round of 3 More (Sorta) Healthy Fast Foods. Stick around for the daily news bites!
What do you eat in a day? Tell us!
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Posted By: Aaron
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I agree with overconsmption of Americans. The overconsumption is partly due to the unhealtthy calories, carbs, and sugars. The unhealthy sugars lead to sugar addiction and overeating.
I’m from america & I agree we do eat too much bad food, because it’s extremely cheap & available to us. I can tell you I used to eat 10,000 calories a day I could eat 2 whole boxes of sugar loaded cereal in 1 day & weighed less than 99 pounds still, but I always felt very bloated & drowsy. Not all americans eat this way though, some eat very healthfully. But I agree they should start making things on our menus more healthy, or maybe use lean beef for our burgers, & more reduced fat substitutes in resturaunts & fast food chains.
Most Americans are not gaining 15 pounds every month so your number of 4000 calories a day is ridiculous . Some people gain like 15 pounds per year, or someone quiting a diet might gain pretty fast, but 15 pounds per month for a average American is just plain wrong.
I am 42 years old.
305 lbs
*hang my head*
I found Mr. Sisson’s website by accident,….simply searching,
“What DO 4000 calories look like?”
Why?
In an attempt to become more accountable for my actions,…my jouney began at CalorieCountersplus.com. There I saw the science for the first time;
Take your body weight, divide it by 2.2, which will equal your weight in kilograms….then..x 30 will give you the results of how many calories you are consuming to maintain that amount of weight.
Results?
In order to maintain my weight at the time, I would have to be consuming 4,240 calories on a regular basis.
*stunned silence, followed by denial*
With a raised eyebrow, I decided to use their calorie calculator.
Total calories?
4,100 and change.
It…..was…..true.
900 of those calories were from wine. (Envisioning myself as some sort of sophisticate…..I would have a evening nosh of wine, fine cheese, imported crackers…After all it wasn’t a bag of Cheetos. Alas, no amount of mental SPIN can conceal “over-comsumption”.)
Normally, as a very overweight person, I would do anything(!) to escape exposing myself to this sort of public criticism….. Most overweight people want to scream the comforting words, “YOU PEOPLE JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND!!!” This time, after reading your posts I felt the need to confirm the facts with a true confession.
Please do not feel the need to post anything letting me know how horrified you are at my lack of personal control. I look at myself everyday. Your verbal disgust could not hold a candle to looking in the mirror. I, myself, once was a thin, attractive, overly-opinionated person about the subject of weight…… I cringe at remembering my over-simplification of the subject. Trust me, save yourself the embarrassment.
In order to be the weight I desire, I will have to consume 1800 calories a day, and learn to control my insulin levels by food choices. Balanced exercise routine. Build muscle.
Period.
If I do not, I will either maintain this weight, destroying my knees, feet and back,
or,
I will die, most likely in the next ten years.
Mr. Sisson, I want to say,”Thank you!” for exposing the facts. There are those of us out here who are
LITERALLY dying
to be told the TRUTH.
This is a very powerful explanation of our health problem. I had read the 3790 calorie a day number yesterday and mentioned it to my husband at dinner. He was in shock. He said that’s almost double the “recommended amount.” Sure, and plenty of people weigh twice as much as they should (both of our fathers).
Tools like this visual explanation of calories per day and the calorie calculator are so important to understand so that we can take control of our health.
I really appreciate information and support of healthy diets rather than criticism of a person who is “too fat” or “to skinny.” Neither is productive. We can not compare ourselves to others or pass judgment so easily. Obviously the portions at restaurants and even the sizes of clothing available are not a good indicator of where we should set our goals.
For me, choosing to eat foods that make me look and feel good has often alienated me from friends and family and made restaurant dining much less enjoyable. Food will always be a tough issue until we are all doing the math.
@ no more inertia- you are inspiring! I wish you all the love and support that you need to accomplish your goals. It is not easy, but you can do it.
Since when is eating over 400 calories in a meal a sure way to stress your organs? That doesn’t make any sense. Everything I’ve read says that I (250 lb woman) should eat 1600-2000 calories/day to lose 1-2 lb/week, which is what I am doing.
If I ate less than 400 calories a meal, I’d be getting less than 1000 calories/day, which is not enough.
To follow up, here is what my menu looked like yesterday. Very healthy, around 1800 calories:
B:
2 eggs, scrambled
Ezekiel toast w/tbspn butter
Orange
L:
1/2 cup brown rice
Can of tuna
Tomato sauce
Two cups of salad veggies with small amt of vinaigrette
Snack:
String cheese
apple
D:
Chicken breast, grilled
small potato, tbspn butter
half a head of broccoli, steamed
Snack:
100 calorie bag of popcorn
It seems irresponsible to suggest that a 1600-calorie diet would be too much.
Hi Sarah.
I don’t know if you are familiar with Marks’ site.. I’m just reading through his posts now, but his perspective is basically paleolithic in nature. So… no grains, higher in fat and protein.
So your sample day doesn’t really jive with his message and perspective on what constitutes a healthy diet from the actual foods perspective. So, the toast, Just letting you know, not sure if you were aware.
But yeah, 4 meals x 400 calories is only 1600, which wouldn’t even be enough for me.
Subway? Whole grain? Look up the nutritional info on their bread. Their “wheat” bread is not whole wheat.
I am a 29 year old American male. 5′10″ and I have been underweight pretty much since birth. I used to think I could eat whatever, whenever, just to stay at my current weight. I gained ten lbs a year from 7th grade to graduation. I graduated High School tipping the scales at 120.
I had all but given up on actually gaining any real weight. My wife took me into the clinic one day and had my cholesterol tested. And while I was sitting at 130 lbs, almost looking like a Holocaust survivor, my cholesterol was in the “Dangerously High” category. I changed my eating habits, eating more healthy, eating at home (and not from a hamburger helper box). I switched to chicken and salads in total fear that I was going to vaporize into the ether. I stopped stepping on the scale because I didn’t want to see me getting lighter and lighter.
A year passed. I moved, and when I weighed in for my new driver’s license… I was at 150! I couldn’t believe it! Here I was eating healthy and GAINING weight! But then my wife left me, and I dropped 30 lbs like it was last week’s Wal-Mart fashion… I couldn’t eat or sleep. (My friends call it the “Stress Diet”, really it is a dangerous crash that will land you in the hospital!)
Today I am divorced, and dealing daily with the problems of forcing myself to eat. I just found out I need 4,000 calories a day, (balanced properly of course, not all from soda or anything like that…) to get back to the right weight for me, which is 170. (Of course, I also have a very labor intensive job in the construction industry, so you desk-job types who may have problems similar to mine, adjust your intake accordingly.) I am 30lbs light right now. But I am resolved to doing it right, and I really appreciate sites like this.
Onoe thing is for sure, if you want to be the right weight, just eat right and exercise. (FYI, I live a kosher diet as a religious choice…) It takes will power and a lifestyle change for sure. Surgery in EXTREME cases. But we all can be healthy… if we choose to be.