Choosing a Generous Calorie Ceiling

What is a Calorie Ceiling?  It's the amount of calories that you are able to eat without being hungry, feeling deprived, or quickly gaining or losing weight.

In other words, it's the amount of food that's neither undereating (dieting)  or overeating (binging, pigging out, stuffing your face).   It's just plain normal eating.

How to choose the Calorie Ceiling that's right for you?

Here is how I chose mine:

I knew a guy whose Calorie Ceiling was 2000 calories a day, and tried that.  But I found that while 2000 calories was possible for me, it required a certain amount of willpower to keep it going.   That means mental stress, which in respect to food, must always have an eventual reckoning (that is, quitting the "diet" for a binge).  Also, I was losing weight on 2000 calories, a pound or two a week. So this amount of calories was, for me and my metabolism, just a bit too low to be a reasonable and effective Calorie Ceiling.

So what did I do?  I decided to add on 500 calories.  Now my Calorie Ceiling was a COMFORTABLE 2500 daily calories.

Choosing a comfortable, do-able daily calorie limit MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD!  Having a calorie limit of  which that I was fearlessly confident took all the stress away from the idea of limiting how much I ate.

But what about you?   How will you find your own Generous Calorie Ceiling?

The first thing is to realize that not everyone has the same metabolism.   A petite female professional who has a fairly sedentary job is going to have a much lower Calorie Ceiling than a tall construction worker.   So there is no way I or anyone can say that there is a Calorie Ceiling number that is right for everyone.

Should you use one of the online "Calorie Calculators" that, with inputs on your age, gender, and height, purport to tell you how many calories you need?

I have checked out several of these calculators, and in my opinion,  they were all wildly inaccurate regarding what works for me.

So here is what I suggest to begin, right now.

If you're male, begin with 3000 calories as your Calorie Ceiling.

If you're female, 2500 calories a day as your Calorie Ceiling.

Probably some of you are saying "that is too high!"  (Also, some of you are saying it's too low!)  But these are good initial Calorie Ceilings for virtually everyone, whether you're built on the small side, largely sedentary, or whether you're a very active 6' 6" guy.