Understanding Calories
We talk about calories a lot, especially if we are trying to lose weight. How many calories does that have? Is that a low calorie food? How many calories did you burn? It is important to understand what a calorie is and why we need them. The definition for calorie is the energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. The best way to think of calories is energy.
Calories fuel our body and give us energy to get through the day whether we are sitting at our desk or running a marathon. Our bodies need calories just to function and keep us alive. Yes, it’s true, if you eat too many calories, you will gain weight and if you eat less calories, you can lose weight. According to science, calories in vs. calories out is accurate, but nutrition and weight loss is not that simple. You can eat the right amount of calories and still not be healthy so what you eat is just as important as how much you eat.
The first important health tip is to make sure you eat enough calories for your body to do its essential functions like heart beating, body temperature stabilizing, and lungs breathing. This is called the resting metabolic rate (RMR), how many calories your body burns at rest. The RMR is the least amount of calories a person should be taking in. Then you need to take into account your activity level throughout the day. If you are trying to lose weight, you may just want to take in this amount so there will be a deficit at the end of the day.
If you eat less than your RMR consistently, you are messing with your body’s metabolism. Metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories. There are many factors that affect this, like age, gender, activity level, and diet. The more you exercise, the more muscle you have, and the healthier your diet, the faster and more efficient your metabolism is. A fast and efficient metabolism equals long-term weight loss and healthier lifestyle. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn when you are exercising and at rest. One pound of lean body mass burns approx. 30-50 calories daily and stores 450 calories of energy while one pound of fat burns approx. 6 calories daily and stores 3500 calories of energy. This fact shows that exercise and an active lifestyle is just as important as food and nutrition intake.
We tend to count calories without paying attention to nutritional value and health. When we revolve our diet around calories we tend to eat a lot of processed foods because these foods have labels that list the calorie amount. Frozen “healthy” meals, 100 calorie snack foods, diet drinks and bars are targeting people who want to lose weight. These foods, although calorie and portion controlled, are not as healthy as they seem. Why eat a couple of oreos that are 100 calories when you can have 100 calories of fruit instead? A piece of fruit has nutrients that our body can use while oreos are empty calories that will either be burned or stored as fat. A meal replacement like a shake or a bar is a temporary fix to lose weight. Ask yourself are you going to have these shakes or bars for the rest of your life? A healthy diet consists of “real” foods that our body is equipped to break down efficiently.
We need to focus more on why we are eating certain foods and what it does for our body instead of labeling foods as good and bad. Food and calories have an emotional tie with many people so it’s not easy to find balance. If you would like help with meals and still eating fresh, try Bistro MD for delivered meals.
Calorie intake is important but so is calorie burning. You are doing both of these things daily. Make the calories that you take in useful for your body by providing it nutrients to do its job. Burn calories the healthy way by staying active and having a consistent exercise regimen. Consistency is the key. If you eat healthy 1 week and unhealthy the next 2 weeks or exercise everyday for a week and then be sedentary for the next 2 weeks, you will not have that efficient metabolism to help you lose and maintain your weight. Balance is what you should strive for. You don’t have to eat perfectly healthy every minute or exercise 2 times a day to meet your goals. Find a lifestyle regimen that works for you and stay consistent with it. It’s most effective to find a healthy weight and stay there then to go up and down and be extreme. We are a society that wants immediate gratification and quick results. We need to be patient, think positively, and live a healthy lifestyle.