About meeting daily calorie target

[hergxia]

Hi guys, I am thrilled to be a part of the whole-food-plant-based diet family. I have been reading up on Dr McDougall's published materials like the starch solution lately and am now practicing the starch-based & lots-of-veggies diet myself now.

One thing that I still dun quite get is how I can possibly eat enough to meet my daily calorie need. I am an Asian male currently weighing 80kg (~173pounds), am 185cm tall (circa 6 feet, 0.83 inches) and so my recommended daily calorie intake should be in the band of 2000 - 2500 kcal. Take sweet potato for example, I would have to eat 3kg plus of sweet potatoes (100g sweet potato equates ard 70 - 80 kcal) every day to meet that requirement, which is quite insane just looking at the numbers. I have tested on myself, and I can never bring myself to eat more than 1kg of sweet potato (because they are very satiating and after a while I just can't have anymore of it) on a daily basis. Even though I have supplemented each meal with lots of veggies it doesn't boost my calorie intake that much either. It's pretty much the same story with brown rice, becuz even though it provides more calories than sweet potato, I will still need to consume over 2kg of brown rice to meet my daily calorie requirement.

I may be wrong, but I think at some pt somwhere Dr McDougall says one need not worry too much about how much calorie they are consuming as long as they are following the starch based diet, but I believe he also says in the Starch Solution that one still needs to eat enough to meet their required daily calorie intake.

Really appreciate if any experienced mcdougallers here can enlighten me on this. Thanksss!!

[frozenveg]

Hi there, and welcome! I am sure you will really enjoy this way of eating.

Let me try to set your mind at rest. First of all, you are correct--McDougallers don't count calories. That is not our emphasis. And you can pretty much trust your body to find its ideal weight by eating this way. Secondly, calorie-counting is very inexact and hard to use as a guideline. For instance, the calorie counting website I use (Cromometer) has 255g of sweet potato at 229 calories--so instead of .7 calories per gram, it's listed at .97 calories per gram. That's a big difference over a day.

The beauty of this plan is that we can eat the foods we eat until satisfaction and not worry--especially if we aren't trying to lose weight. If you are satisfied with your servings of starch and vegetables, then I would suggest not worrying unless you feel that you are losing too much.

(I, on the other hand, have no trouble eating 400 calories of oatmeal and fruit at breakfast, 500 calories of sweet potatoes, plus all sorts of veggies, at lunch, and repeating or having 500-600 calories of rice/veggies at dinner. Really more calories than I need at 5'3"!)

Here is a link to some info on calorie counting, courtesy of Jeff Novick: http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/E ... ories.html

You have come to the right place, and chosen he healthiest way to eat! Keep us posted on your progress!

[hergxia]

Thaaaaanks! That really put my mind at ease. I looked up the research Dr Jeff Novic did and also watched his video on Calorie density, and they are very helpful. From now on I will focus more on satiety than meeting calorie target. Can't wait to see the transformation I am about to go through!