Ok, so I had this long discussion with my doctor about how many calories is too much. I was explaining to him how in body building circles people eat up to 5000 calories per day when on cycles. He seems to think that for the majority of people out there 5000 calories is entirely too much. He said a good way to measure if you are eating too many calories for the amount of work you're doing is to get a blood test and measure your triglyceride level. If you're munching on 5000+ calories a day and you come back with levels around 300, guess what, a lot of those calories are not being used. The amount of unused calories directly affects the tryglyceride level in your body. This is a great indicator to see if your calorie intake is too much.
He was saying to get blood tested every week while on a cycle may not be very practical but once a month, if possible, would be beneficial. Just thought I'd throw this out there.