Is 800 calories a lot for a meal?
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It depends on your day. On 2,400 calories over three meals, 800 is right in the middle of a normal plate. On 1,600 it’s half the day in one sitting. And what’s in the 800 decides whether it’s a good one: a burrito bowl at about 800 grades A in our checker, and a burger, fries and a soda at about 740 grades D.
People usually ask this after seeing a number on a menu. 800 feels huge if you’re used to 300 calorie frozen dinners, and it feels small if you just looked up the burger you had last week. Both reactions skip a step. The number only means something as a share of your own day.
We’d check it in two steps. First, is it inside your plate window (your day over your meals, give or take a quarter)? That’s the Energy job. Then, how does it do at the other five jobs a meal does, from protein to blood sugar? The six jobs of a meal has the whole list.
An 800 calorie meal is like a $40 dinner. On one budget it’s a normal night out, and on another it’s a splurge.
How big is 800 on my day?
This is for three meals a day.
| Your day | 800 is | Your plate window | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,600 | 50% of your day | 400 to 670 | Big |
| 2,000 | 40% | 500 to 830 | Normal, at the top |
| 2,400 | 33% | 600 to 1,000 | Normal, right in the middle |
| 2,800 | 29% | 700 to 1,170 | Normal, on the small side |
The is this a lot calculator does this for any number and any day, and shows two very different plates at your calories, both graded.
Two plates, almost the same calories
| Plate | Calories | Protein | Added sugar | Grade on 2,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burrito bowl: rice, black beans, 4 oz chicken, salsa, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, 2 oz avocado | 800 | 57 g | 0 g | A |
| A cheeseburger, small fries and a 12 oz soda | 740 | 20 g | 41 g | D |
| A fried chicken sandwich, small fries and a 12 oz soda | 960 | 28 g | 43 g | D |
The bowl has nearly three times the protein of the burger meal, 13 g of fiber and no added sugar. The burger meal is almost all ultra-processed food, and it clears only the Energy meter. In a 2019 NIH study, people eating that kind of food ate about 500 more calories a day than when they ate unprocessed food offering the same nutrients, so a day built on that kind of food tends to end up bigger.
On a 1,600 calorie day the same bowl drops to a B, because it’s too big for that window and misses Energy. Our checker’s one change there is to leave off the cheese, which makes it a B+.
Is 800 big for a restaurant?
Not really. Tufts researchers measured 364 of the most ordered meals at 123 non-chain restaurants in Boston, San Francisco and Little Rock, and the average was about 1,200 calories. By that measure an 800 calorie restaurant meal is on the light side.
What to do
- Check the share of your day with the calculator.
- If it’s big for your window, box part of it, or eat a lighter plate at the next meal.
- If it’s inside your window, spend the 800 on protein, beans and vegetables, and skip the soda.
3 sources
- Urban et al., Energy contents of frequently ordered restaurant meals and comparison with human energy requirements and US Department of Agriculture database information: a multisite randomized study, Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 2016pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Hall et al., Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: an inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake, Cell Metabolism, 2019pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Gebhardt and Thomas, Nutritive Value of Foods, Home and Garden Bulletin 72, USDA Agricultural Research Service, 2002ars.usda.gov
