If you’ve read any of the latest issues of People magazine, you may have noticed their weekly celebrity “What I Eat In A Day” feature.
While it’s always fun to get a glimpse into the real lives of our favorite celebrities, I think this particular column is not only misleading but also quite dangerous.
Many of the featured celebrities are listed as eating somewhere around 1200 calories per day, making it seem like this is what anyone who wants a body like theirs should also do.
In one feature where the celebrity actually did eat a higher amount of calories, the nutritionist recommended she scale her portions back—even though the celebrity in question leads a highly active lifestyle and is far from overweight!
By only showing one day in the life, with no disclaimers about how much these women are consuming on average in a week or month, I think the article unintentionally sends out a dangerous message, especially to impressionable kids and teenagers wishing to emulate their favorite celebs.
The featured women look healthy and vibrant, which most likely means they’re either eating more than they claim or are just not giving the full picture by mentioning occasional splurges on drinks, dinners out, or other indulgences to account for the extra calories keeping them properly fueled.
(While 1200 calories per day may be healthy for some individuals, the USDA lists a much higher number as the average caloric needs of a young and active woman not looking to lose weight.)
I wanted to publish today’s post as my answer to the “What I Eat In A Day” feature; to show an alternative to the Hollywood standard of eating. Not all healthy women are eating the way Hollywood would like you to believe, and no one should ever make you feel guilty for eating a less-than-“perfect” diet or indulging in dessert.
When I read the weekly features, I’m shocked at how clean these girls eat. Eating clean is great… but eating should also be fun. Unless you get enjoyment out of eating only steamed veggies and proteins every day (which is perfectly fine if you really do), you’re missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures.
(For more on this topic, see my post on Orthorexia – The New Eating Disorder.)
*Disclaimer: As always, be sure to listen to your own body or ask a doctor or nutritionist if you’re concerned about how many calories and other nutrients you should be eating.
Just like the magazine feature shouldn’t be used as a guide for how much to eat for your own ideal health, today’s post is also just showing what works for one person.
So many people write to me and ask for meal plans, and it scares me because bloggers on the internet—unless they are also certified nutritionists or health professionals—should not be writing meal plans for people they’ve never met. This is an alarming way that some bloggers seem to be making money, so please be careful and trust your health only to a professional.
**To clarify: The photos in this post were taken either before or after eating. They were styled for food photography purposes and do not show the actual portions eaten.
What I Eat In A Day
As a teenager, I loved sleeping until noon. Now I somehow wake up naturally around 4 am, and I immediately go looking for food!
There really isn’t a typical day for me in terms of variety; but the amount I eat stays pretty constant. Exercise includes running once or twice a week (sometimes more, sometimes less) and walking quite a bit since I live in a city.
I enjoy being outside and am not really a gym person.
Morning:
I’ll usually grab a small handful of raw nuts, seeds, or some coconut butter.
Today my hand found the bag of cashews. If I’m going running, I might make a cup of coffee and eat a bit more. Otherwise, I just sip water as I make real breakfast.
Breakfast:
Breakfast this morning was a giant bowl of peanut butter oat bran.
I cooked 1.5 servings of oat bran with unsweetened cashewmilk then stirred in some peanut butter and melted a piece of a 95% chocolate bar.
If you happen to run into me at 9 am, I’ve probably already eaten chocolate at least once.
Lunch:
Lunch is usually comprised of whatever leftovers I can find in the fridge.
Some mornings are so busy that I have to pull something from the freezer. I often will make huge batches of recipes so I can keep the freezer well-stocked at all times.
And by well-stocked, I mean things may or may not fall out when you open it…
Lunch today was rice, white beans, and homemade Coconut Curry.
Snack:
Snack was one of my favorite things – I call them “Extra Melty Gooey Brownies.”
They are so fantastically delicious… but I’ve never posted the recipe because they are so gooey that they often fall apart! Plus, I know not everyone is as big a fan of super gooey brownies as I am.
*Edit: By popular request, the recipe can now be found in my brownie recipe archives: Healthy Brownies And Baked Goods
If it’s a baking day and I’ve eaten a lot of samples, I’ll sometimes just sample my way through snacktime and never actually sit down for a real snack.
Dinner:
Giant Monster Salad:
- 1 Large Avocado
- Raw Almonds
- Frozen Raspberries
- Raw Pumpkin Seeds
- Homemade Sesame Ginger Dressing
- Trader Joes Organic Kale
Tahini and a baked sweet potato, cooked extra long until it is all sweet and caramelized.
How To Cook Sweet Potatoes – 3 secret tricks
Night Snack:
2 servings of Creamy Pistachio Ice Cream – One of my top 5 favorite recipes from my new cookbook.
Surprise! For once, it’s not chocolate!
(Photo credit: Probably my mom, back in like 2005… I found this picture buried in a folder on my computer.)
Daily Total: 2,958 calories
(15g total added sugar for the day, and it easily meets the RDA for protein, calcium, and other nutrients vegans are always being asked about. I don’t worry about protein but do take daily Vitamins D, B12, and an Omega 3 supplement.)
Edit due to popular request: Link To Full Nutrition Facts
Thanks so much for sharing this! I think it’s so important to have these conversations especially with so many people dealing with eating disorders and body issues. Also, I would actually LOVE the recipe for your extra melty gooey brownies if you’d be willing to share as I love gooey brownies and don’t mind if they fall apart. 🙂
That Extra Melty Gooey Brownie…. um, you really need to post that recipe. Trust me when I say that you are not alone in loving them exactly like that! 🙂
Thank you for sharing your day with us, Katie… and now please share that brownie recipe!
Thanks Katie! Please post the recipe for those yummy brownies. I love brownies that gooey! 🙂
I get it from greens, broccoli, other vegetables, blackstrap molasses (a great source of iron as well), beans, tahini, nuts… Eating large enough servings of these things, it really adds up quickly. Also, Silk cashewmilk is fortified, so that definitely helps.
Thank you for sharing katie! I loved this post and all that you said about a realistic healthy lifestyle. Love your posts!!
Katie, thank you so much for this post. As a recovering orthorexic, it is hard to me to get it in my head that I NEED calories to do all of the wonderful, active things I enjoy doing. Thank you for such a great post.
Please, please, please publish your Extra Melty Gooey Brownies recipe. It sounds amazing!!!!
Thank you very much for this post and the positive message, Katie. As a person fighting with ED, I’ve found myself looking for “what a person eats on a day” on YouTube. There are way too many bloggers eating too tiny portions, surviving out of tropical fruits smoothies and tiny salads… And seeing that made me feel I was eating too much and I may even have to cut my calories MORE. My body started panicking, asking me not to starve it even more. I’m happy to see what a normal healthy person eats. I’m very active, cycling and doing yoga everyday and going often to the gym. So yes, I should listen to my body and eat healthy and filling foods when my body asks for it 🙂 I’ll try my best!
Katie, thank you so much for this post! As someone who was overweight, lost a lot by obsessively counting calories and have now gained it back because of the stress, your words are a god send. I’m currently trying to make healthier choices that nourish my body rather than choosing foods just because they are low calorie. This post has really inspired me to look at my new habits as a lifestyle change and not compare what I eat against others so much. It is so true, many people need different amounts of calories to function and we shouldn’t judge others on how much more or less they eat. Also, where is the fun in never ever eating dessert 🙂 ? X
I adore your blog, you are such an inspiration to me! Thanks for sharing your experience with us!
I would definitely be interested in the super gooey brownie recipe!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH for this article. I was mislead by those articles when i was a teen and i think it was a part of what caused me to have an unhealthy body image, which later played a part in me becoming anorexic (now I am healthy and have recovered). I’m not trying to blame the articles, but I do I think it’s time for a more realistic image of what a healthy woman eats in a day- thank you, Katie!
Thank you so much for this post! I consistently eat 2,500-3,000 calories a day due to a super fast metabolism. I often feel that I eat so much more than my friends and constantly have to remind myself that everyone is different and I just need more. It’s good to know that there are other women out there like me! ? Also, I would love the recipe for those gooey brownies!
I really appreciate this post… but it may have put things into perspective for me! You eat nearly 500 calories more per day than I and I workout twice daily. I’m curious if my lower calorie intake contributes to certain health issues that come along with it!
Thank you for this post, and for referencing that not=so-wonderful feature in People Magazine. I specifically recall the one actress’ average daily diet and the response to cut back the portions. It angered me, because when I diet, I am for 1700–2000 kcals, and here’s this perfectly healthy actress being chided by some “expert” that she was eating too much.
Bottom line is that we all have different set points, different metabolisms and different exercise levels. It’s just best to figure out your own caloric level and consume wholesome, high quality proteins, fats and carbs to meet your caloric needs, and leave the judgment about someone else’s caloric needs to their MD or nutritionist (especially that “expert on People!).
Hi Katie,
I loved this post and loved that you proudly shared your daily calorie count and that it was higher than most people expected. I think most people dramatically underestimate how many calories they consume in a day. Have you ever read the book Why Calories Count by Marion Nestle? It’s so eye opening. She writes about how calorie counts are just estimates, they are often off by as much as 10%, and that it’s impossible to truly measure the calories in food because the way food calories are measured in a lab is by burning them and figuring out how much heat they produce, which is completely different than the way our bodes digest and absorb food. Calories burned exercising are equally hard to measure (they can only be measured accurately by measuring the amount of oxygen we burn exercising — good luck doing that outside a lab!) and vary widely person-to-person. And our bodies’ efficiency absorbing calories from food is genetic, as is our response to a food-restricted diet Dieting is counterproductive because it just makes our bodies digest food more efficiently, so we start absorbing more calories from the same amount of food — not a good thing for weight loss. Also, eating disorder expert shave recently figured out that some people are biologically programmed to have severe starvation responses to calorie restriction that can lead to anorexia and binge eating even without any psychological preconditions (meaning eating disorder symptoms like obsessive thoughts and uncontrollable food cravings are actually the effects of calorie restriction rather than the other way around). Anyway, sorry to go on and on, the book is really good, I highly recommend it. I know you don’t care much about calories and don’t typically count them, but after reading that book you may even start finding calorie counts laughable, as I do. I roll my eyes when I see calorie counts as precise as, say, 273 calories for a protein bar (because there is no way to accurately measure calories with that kind of precision — they should just round to 300 and call it a day). You’re so right that every body is different and we all need to figure out what works best for us — screw what works for other people!
Another thing that’s really cool about the book (I promise this is the last thing) is that it turns out that the average woman (average weight, height, age, etc.) should be eating about 2,500 calories a day, even for those of us who aren’t extremely active. It’s an average, so some days we can eat more and some days less. I used to try to eat 1,800-2000 calories a day and couldn’t understand why I was always hungry. Most of us require 1,400 calories just to keep our heart beating and brain functioning day-to-day. Nobody should be eating below 1,400 calories a day on a regular basis.
Sorry, I hate getting all preachy!! I love your blog and think you’re amazing. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Oh — and ditto everyone else’s request for the gooey brownie recipe! Please please!!!
I’m usually a silent reader, but I was reading through the comments and I just had to reply to you, Amber!
I couldn’t agree more with everything you wrote, and I’m so, so glad there’s more people out there who find the entire calorie obsession ridiculous.
It makes me so sad when young, growing girls think they have to eat 1200 cals (or less!) on a daily basis to stay “healthy”. Nobody can exist on such small amounts.
And also, I agree wholeheartedly with the theory that energy restriction CAUSES anorexia symptoms to flare up in certain people. I should know, I’ve been there more than once. Including while pregnant, which was possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to conquer.
I still care about what I put in my body, but not in terms of quantity. I now eat however much I need to feel satiated and I don’t waste endless thoughts on arbitrary numbers. If I had to guess I’m averaging around at least 2500, some days I will reach well over 3000. On a different day I might not be as hungry. That’s another thing wrong with a set calorie amount – nobody needs the exact same amount of energy every. single. day.
I haven’t read Nestle’s book, but I’m thinking I’ll have to order it ASAP! Thanks for a great reading recommendation!