All About Calories

Most people have heard the familiar saying "calories in, calories out" but what does that really mean? A 2010 study by the Food Information Council Foundation found that only 12% if Americans were able to accurately estimate how many calories they should be eating on a day to day basis in order to lose or maintain weight. Here is some simple information for understanding calories and how they effect your waistline.

A calories is simply a unit of energy, and if you take in more energy then you expend, you will gain weight. It is a fairly simple idea, but one that becomes more complicated when you introduce things like nutrients, macronutrients, sugars, sodium and all the other additives we have in our foods today.

Your body is constantly burning calories, even if you just sit around all day. The lowest amount of calories your body burns is called your Basal Metabolic Rate, (BMR) which is what your body would burn if you laid in bed all day. Your Active Metabolic Rate (AMR) is what you r body burns when you factor in your average amount of activity (not including exercise, which is added on top of that.) Take me for example, I am 21, 5'3" and 115 pounds. My BMR is about 1350, but since I move around during the day at work or at home my AMR is about 1600-1700. Then, if I also exercise that day and burned around 300 calories, I add that to my AMR and I get about 2000 calories that I would need to eat that day in order to maintain my weight. If I wanted to lose weight, I could eat about 1500 a day and count on having a deficit of about 500 calories a day, or a pound of weight loss a week. 

That is the basic idea of calculating calories. Now in addition to understanding what your body burns, you also have to understand what you put into your body. There are many free calorie counting websites available, and most food has nutrition information clearly labeled on it. However, you have to make sure that you pay attention to the serving size indicated on the label, as that can drastically effect how much you should be eating. 

Another important aspect about calories is that they are not all created equally. If I ate 1500 calories a day of cupcakes and Twinkies, I might still lose weight, but I would be nutritionally deficient and my body would not lose weight like it would if I ate a diet that incorporated fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. 

So although counting calories is an important component of weight loss and maintenance, you also have to pay attention to what it is you are putting into your body and not just the number on the label. Thinking carefully about what the food you eat does to fuel your body effectively and efficiently is important for creating a sustainable healthy lifestyle.

Do you count calories? Or do you have another method for keeping track of how you eat?