Average intake figures for kcal used to be cited as 1800 female and 2400 male. All food labels I have seen now cite 2000 kcal as an average adult intake. This could be an industry agreed figure or one imposed by a faceless bureaucrat.

The NHS publish the following data on the subject: https://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/1126.aspx (new window) which is 2000 for women and 2500 for men.

For interest I ran identical height, weight and other data through the NHS website application, for both male and female hypothetical people. The following results emerged:

Both male and female BMI was identical at 30.2. Both suggested weight ranges for that BMI presented as: 52.5kg - 71.3kg.

However, the suggested kcal data for the purposes of our CONSUMPTION spreadsheet differed as follows: Male = 1830 - 2353 and female = 1604 - 2062.

As far as I am concerned this resolves the question and my own experience fully agrees with the NHS data. You may wish to raise some obvious questions but that is up to you. Nothing is set in concrete but you must have a benchmark to work to. You need to know exactly where you are and where you are going. Once you get to where you are going you can decide what to do when you get there.

The ball is always in your court. You and you alone are in charge of your own destiny.