When people talk about the calories in food, what do they mean? A calorie is a unit of measurement — but it doesn't measure weight or length. A calorie is a unit of energy. When you hear something contains 100 calories, it's a way of describing how much energy your body could get from eating or drinking it. Calories aren't bad for you.
Eating too many calories and not burning enough of them off through activity leads to weight gain. Most foods and drinks contain calories. Some foods, such as lettuce, contain few calories (1 cup of shredded lettuce has less than 10 calories). Other foods, like peanuts, contain a lot of calories (½ cup of peanuts has over 400 calories). Consider yourself a calorie expert? Here are five facts you may not know:
1. Calories
from fiber don't always count: Your
body doesn't absorb calories from indigestible fiber. So when you chomp on a
65-calorie cup of raspberries, you're only really taking in around 35 calories.
On some high-fiber products, these indigestible calories have already been
subtracted from the total calories listed:
To determine if the calories
from Fiber One Original Bran Cereal have already been subtracted, just multiply
the number of fat grams by 9, the number of carbohydrates by 4, and the number
of protein grams by 4. Add those up to get the total calories. If that number
is significantly higher than the calorie count listed, there's a good chance
those fiber calories have already been subtracted.
If not, go ahead and subtract 4 calories for
each gram of insoluble fiber. Sugar alcohols are another source of indigestible
calories like the kinds in certain low-carbohydrate and sugar-free
products.
2. The
numbers on food nutrition labels are allowed to be inaccurate by up to 20
percent: This one is a bit unsettling, but it's true:
The US Food and Drug Administration allow the nutrition facts on packaged
foods to be up to 20 percent off. That means your 350-calorie
frozen meal could have more like 420 calories. What can we do with this
information aside from cooking every single thing we eat from scratch?
Trust your instincts if
something seems too good to be true especially when it comes to companies providing
diet-friendly statistics. Supporting small business is great, but big brands
often have better resources to ensure accuracy. And here's a smart way to check
the accuracy of multi-serving snacks: Weigh out a portion to see if it matches
the serving size listed on the label.
3. You
burn calories doing nothing: Even if you were to just lie
around doing nothing but existing all day long: you would still burn some calories.
That’s because your body still needs energy to do things like breathe and
circulate blood. Think of it this way. If you consume around 1,800 calories per day and maintain your
weight, that means you're burning about 1,800 calories per day even if you're
not exercising. Everybody's resting calorie rate (Basal Metabolic Rate, BMR) is different.
4. Sometimes,
a calorie isn't just a calorie: A Mango Coconut Soyjoy Bar and a can of
regular Coca Cola both have 140 calories each, but one of these items has protein and fiber, and
the other is basically sugar. Protein and fiber will keep you full much longer
than those sugary calories. Similarly, healthy
fats (like
avocado) and complex carbohydrates (like
whole grains) are the types of calorie sources that will stay with you for a
while. On the other hand, refined simple carbohydrates like corn syrup and
white bread won't keep you satisfied for long. Keep these ideas in mind when
selecting your snacks or treats.
5. Reduce
your calorie intake by too much, and you could stop losing weight : Cutting your calorie intake
down to a low number might sound like the fastest way to drop pounds, but
that's not necessarily true. When you consume too few calories,
your body can go into "starvation mode," storing fat to conserve
energy.
In other words, your
metabolism may get super slow, causing a stop in your weight loss. While
there's some debate on this subject, most experts agree that dropping below
1,200 calories per day is never a good idea.
“Exercising
would be so much more rewarding if calories screamed while you burned them.” (Somee Cards)[i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“5 Things You Didn’t Know about Calories” by Hungry
Girl
·
“Basal Metabolic Rate” from Wikipedia
·
“Learning about Calories” by KidsHealth
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