How many calories a day for monks?

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No_Mind
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How many calories a day for monks?

Post by No_Mind »

Monks are on a OMAD (one meal a day) diet.

While on this regime they sometimes perform extremely strenuous work - building monasteries, walking long distances etc. They also study.

How many calories a day do they consume?

From YouTube videos it does not appear that they get more than 2 cups of glutinous rice (200 cal), one cup lentil soup (100 calories), a piece of meat protein (200 calories), one egg (70 calories) and maybe some fruits (say 300 calories at most).

Add on four cups of (sugar and no-milk) tea (150 calories) it barely touches 1000 calories.

How correct is my assumption?

Some Caucasian monks (such as Ven. Dhammanando) are big in stature. Their BMR is at least 2000 calories. How do Buddhist monks survive?

Ven. Dhammanando is absent (due to vassa?) or I would have pinged him. If anyone has any insights would be glad to know.

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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by DNS »

Actually only a small percentage do OMAD. I believe most monks do two meals a day, one in the morning and one at around noon.

However, even those that do OMAD, the meal is very large. Many monks are overweight and some are obese. (I think we have some previous topics about that). Lay people typically like to bring the most tasty foods for the monks out of respect and then the monks end up getting overweight.

And then there are a number of monks who even eat in the evenings, taking tonics which are allowed if they feel ill, but from what I've heard, often it's just being very hungry and justifying eating some things in the evenings that way.
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by DNS »

About half of Thailand's monks are overweight.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/ge ... overweight

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No_Mind
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

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DNS wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:04 pm Actually only a small percentage do OMAD. I believe most monks do two meals a day, one in the morning and one at around noon.

However, even those that do OMAD, the meal is very large. Many monks are overweight and some are obese. (I think we have some previous topics about that). Lay people typically like to bring the most tasty foods for the monks out of respect and then the monks end up getting overweight.

And then there are a number of monks who even eat in the evenings, taking tonics which are allowed if they feel ill, but from what I've heard, often it's just being very hungry and justifying eating some things in the evenings that way.
I see. Thank you David, for the clarification.

I have been doing two meals a day for past two years. Dropped a lot of weight (35 lbs in 24 months) without exercise but feeling weak. Now I found my total calories add up to 1600 per day.

I should add calories and exercise I guess.

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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by DNS »

No_Mind wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:14 pm I should add calories and exercise I guess.
That should do it; just add some calories but also add exercise so your weight doesn't go up. My wife and I have been doing OMAD for many years and feel good and stay at or very close to our ideal weights.

Once we went to a temple in the evening and saw some of the monks sitting down to eat some shrimp and we thought "we're lay people and we're more ascetic (in regard to food) than these monks."
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by santa100 »

DNS wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:13 pm About half of Thailand's monks are overweight.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/ge ... overweight

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Man, that's A LOT of food there. They'd better incorporate some of the physical training/chores elements their Zen counterparts have been doing. Definitely gonna fix the obesity issue in no time...
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by DNS »

One thing I've discovered over the years through trial and error with OMAD, is that the human body does not need a ton of calories to maintain the same weight. When I first started with OMAD, I was concerned that I'd get hungry at night, so ate quite a bit in the one meal, sometimes 3 plates of food, which is easy to do at a Las Vegas buffet. :mrgreen: My weight went up quickly until I learned to limit my intake to about 2 plates or even less.
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by Samvega86 »

DNS wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:04 pm Actually only a small percentage do OMAD. I believe most monks do two meals a day, one in the morning and one at around noon.
This is the case with the Ajahn Chah branch monasteries here in the UK. Few of the monks I’ve encountered here have been overweight or obese but the food choices are much better. Still, I do wonder how many calories they take in on average.
DNS wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 7:53 pm One thing I've discovered over the years through trial and error with OMAD, is that the human body does not need a ton of calories to maintain the same weight. When I first started with OMAD, I was concerned that I'd get hungry at night, so ate quite a bit in the one meal, sometimes 3 plates of food, which is easy to do at a Las Vegas buffet. :mrgreen: My weight went up quickly until I learned to limit my intake to about 2 plates or even less.
I’m curious how many calories that equates to roughly? I’ve lost weight switching to 2 meals per day (breakfast and lunch) though I wasn’t overweight. I eat a whole-food plant-based diet and exercise 45 mins daily (bodyweight exercises and Ashtanga Yoga) so getting enough calories can be difficult (I’ve typically been getting around 1850 but trying to hit around 2000 as I’m not sure I’m eating enough for adequate recovery from exercise).
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by SarathW »

No_Mind wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:14 pm
DNS wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:04 pm Actually only a small percentage do OMAD. I believe most monks do two meals a day, one in the morning and one at around noon.

However, even those that do OMAD, the meal is very large. Many monks are overweight and some are obese. (I think we have some previous topics about that). Lay people typically like to bring the most tasty foods for the monks out of respect and then the monks end up getting overweight.

And then there are a number of monks who even eat in the evenings, taking tonics which are allowed if they feel ill, but from what I've heard, often it's just being very hungry and justifying eating some things in the evenings that way.
I see. Thank you David, for the clarification.

I have been doing two meals a day for past two years. Dropped a lot of weight (35 lbs in 24 months) without exercise but feeling weak. Now I found my total calories add up to 1600 per day.

I should add calories and exercise I guess.

:namaste:
Exercise is the key to generate energy. I eat three meals a day but maintain the same weight. I do 30 minutes exercise per day and feel very energetic.
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by DNS »

Samvega86 wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 5:26 am This is the case with the Ajahn Chah branch monasteries here in the UK. Few of the monks I’ve encountered here have been overweight or obese but the food choices are much better. Still, I do wonder how many calories they take in on average.
That's what I thought about the Ajahn Chah monasteries so glad to hear that confirmed.
I’m curious how many calories that equates to roughly? I’ve lost weight switching to 2 meals per day (breakfast and lunch) though I wasn’t overweight. I eat a whole-food plant-based diet and exercise 45 mins daily (bodyweight exercises and Ashtanga Yoga) so getting enough calories can be difficult (I’ve typically been getting around 1850 but trying to hit around 2000 as I’m not sure I’m eating enough for adequate recovery from exercise).
It depends on your height / BMI what your ideal weight will be and how many calories you need. For me, I eat approximately 1500 to 2000 per day. A BMI of about 20 to 22 is ideal.
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educat ... micalc.htm

And it also depends on if you do exercise. I do some exercise everyday. For those who are completely sedentary, you only need about your body weight in pounds times 10, so for a 150 lb. person, that would be only 1500 calories. Any more than that would result in weight gain, which could be why there are so many overweight monks.
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by simsapa »

Exercise is the key to generate energy. I eat three meals a day but maintain the same weight. I do 30 minutes exercise per day and feel very energetic.
I tend to feel that exercise requires a lot of energy. Interesting to hear it described differently.
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by samseva »

DNS wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:13 pm About half of Thailand's monks are overweight.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/ge ... overweight

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The study was done by the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. So the monks that were used as the sample for the study are likely all monks from the greater Bangkok area.

And the sample size is probably minuscule, in comparison to all of Thailand's monkhood (and even for Bangkok):
Bangkok Post wrote:She [leading researcher of the study] did not reveal how many monks were involved in the study.
It would also be interesting to see if the monks that were part of the study are long-term monks, or short-term monks, such as the many thousands who take up the robes for merit for 3 months each year—meaning such monks would have gotten obese before entering the monkhood, not because of it.

If you take the whole of Thailand, it's definately not 48%—probably closer to 20%. The article should be titled "Almost half of monks in Bangkok are obese."

It's still a problem, though. And there are long-term monks who are in fact obese.
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by User1249x »

With rice and oil for base one can easily get up to 1000+ calories on 200g food. Add some fatty meat, coconut or nuts for protein and you are closing in on 2000 whilst still under 500g of food, a relatively small meal that will barely fill you up.

What you don't want is a lot of is vegetables, berries, potatoes etc. These fill you up and do little to nourish so one loses weight very fast which is not a problem if you are a monk but you will be very skinny if you do omad on these foods.

Iirc textual guidelines say that 3/4 should be staple food and this work out well with rice.
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by lostitude »

No_Mind wrote: Sat Aug 15, 2020 2:54 pm Monks are on a OMAD (one meal a day) diet.

While on this regime they sometimes perform extremely strenuous work - building monasteries, walking long distances etc. They also study.

How many calories a day do they consume?

From YouTube videos it does not appear that they get more than 2 cups of glutinous rice (200 cal), one cup lentil soup (100 calories), a piece of meat protein (200 calories), one egg (70 calories) and maybe some fruits (say 300 calories at most).

Add on four cups of (sugar and no-milk) tea (150 calories) it barely touches 1000 calories.

How correct is my assumption?
I think you are forgetting all the oils, sauces and fats that come along with the rice, lentil soup and meat. Fat is about twice as calorie-rich as starch.
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Re: How many calories a day for monks?

Post by lostitude »

DNS wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 3:26 pm For those who are completely sedentary, you only need about your body weight in pounds times 10, so for a 150 lb. person, that would be only 1500 calories. Any more than that would result in weight gain, which could be why there are so many overweight monks.
This sounds extremely low. Resting basal metabolism is measured on an empty stomach and lying down on a bed. A person who stands up and sits down, walks and digests food needs several hundred calories more than their basal metabolism.
Granted, metabolism can be gradually slowed down as an adaptive process when the body is constantly faced with severe intake restrictions, but that’s not the default mode most people operate on (unless they have a history of drastic dieting), and it might not be the healthiest either, as the more you restrict your intake, the harder it becomes to get enough essential nutrients packed in small meals.
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