How many calories and carbs should a person eat?!

How many calories and carbs should a person eat?

This person is a female 5' 6" and weighs 180lbs

It depends. Does this gal want to lose weight or maintain her current weight?

If she wants to lose weight, she can do so safely at about 1400 calories a day. This is without any exercise. If she exercises moderately, she can still eat the same amount of calories and excel her weight loss and tone up at the same time. She can expect to lose about 5 lbs. in the first week and 1-2 lbs. a week from there on out.

If she does vigorous exercise 4 times a week for an hour a day, she needs to increase her caloric intake to about 1600 calories on those days.

After she loses about 15 lbs., she should drop her caloric intake to around 1200 calories a day (w/out exercise). She will continue to lose about 1 lb. a week this way until she reaches her goal weight. She should NEVER drop her caloric intake below 1100 calories a day without first consulting a doctor.

I can attest to the above formula of calories for this height and weight because I was almost 200 lbs. at 5'7" when I started Weight Watchers 3 years ago. I'm currently holding at 150 lbs. which is considered within the healthy range for my age and height. The calories represented above are rough estimates based on the WW "Points" system.

Now, if your friend wants to *maintain* her weight at 180, then she can probably do so consuming about 1700-1800 calories a day, depending on whether she's active or sedentary. (By active, I mean she walks around more than she sits around. This doesn't mean she's getting regular moderate or vigorous exercise.)

The best way for her to find out the right amount of food to consume daily is to keep a food journal of everything she eats in a day, paying special attention to the amount she eats (i.e. if she eats a serving of rice, is she eating 1 cup or 2 cups? A sandwich: what kind of bread, how many slices, how many calories?). She needs to do this for at least 1 week. She needs to calculate the number of calories for everything she eats, calculate the total for the week, then find the daily average. If she's maintaining her weight on this amount of calories, then she needs to do nothing more. If she's gaining weight, she should start decreasing her daily intake by 100 calories until she stops gaining, but doesn't lose weight. If she's losing weight but doesn't want to, then she needs to up her caloric intake by 100 calories until she stops losing, but doesn't gain.

It sounds a little complicated and time-consuming, but with a few days practice, it becomes almost 2nd nature.

Now about carbs: Don't worry about them. As long as you're eating *COMPLEX carbohydrates vs simple ones, there's no need to keep track of them. Calories are all that matter. Weight loss/gain/maintenance is purely and simply a matter of calories consumed vs calories expended. Period. The only time carbs may become an issue is if a person is diabetic, in which case, they should be consulting a doctor.

*Examples of complex carbohydrates:

- whole grains: 100% whole wheat, rolled oats, brown rice, buckwheat, whole barley, oat bran
- fruit: apples, dried apricots, strawberries, oranges, grapefruit, pears, plums
- vegetables: carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, eggplant, cauliflower, zucchini, asparagus
- lentils: pinto beans, soybeans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, navy beans, black beans, split peas
- dairy: low-fat yogurt, skim milk

Examples of simple carbs:
table sugar
corn syrup (and anything that contains it)
fruit juice (unless it's 100% pure juice NOT from concentrate)
white bread
white pasta
white rice
candy
most packaged cereals (esp. those with added sugars)
all baked goods made with white flour
cake
cookies
and pretty much most desserts and pastries
soda pop