Back to Basics: Calories Explained

FitSugar — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:00:00 PST

We talk, or at least think, about calories almost daily. You cut calories. You count them. You burn them. But do you know what a calorie is?

Simply put, a calorie is a unit of energy. When you eat, you're fueling your body with potential energy in the form of calories, which your body uses not just for exercise but for vital functions like breathing. Basically, a calorie is the amount of energy it takes for the temperature of one gram of water to increase by one degree Celsius, or 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. However, when we talk about calories burned or calories consumed we are technically talking about kilocalories, each of which equals 1,000 calories. Kilocalories are most often referred to as calories for short. Scientifically speaking, the term is capitalized, but in most literature about food and exercise "calorie" is written in all lowercase and it's assumed we are all talking about the same unit of measurement.

Foods are made out of mixtures of macronutrients: protein, carbs, and fat. Protein and carbs each contain four calories per gram, while fat contains nine calories per gram. These caloric amounts represent the amount of potential energy these macronutrients provide.

To see how the body burns calories, just

read more. The body uses calories for three distinct categories of activities. One is your basal metabolic rate (BMR), or how many calories your body burns just to keep the basic operations going - heart beating, kidneys functioning, lungs breathing. Sixty to 70 percent of all calories go toward just keeping your body operational, kind of like overhead expenses. The body also needs calories for physical activity, be it washing your dishes, walking your dog, or running a marathon. The third component of calories burned is the thermic effect of food, or how much energy it takes to digest your food to turn it into energy. Your body burns 10 percent of overall calories consumed to fuel the digestion process of those calories you just consumed. Food is energy, or calories, that you put into your body to fuel all your activities for the day. If you do not use all that fuel, your body stores the fuel just in case you need it during a famine, and you gain weight. If you use more fuel than you have consumed, by burning more calories than you have eaten, you will lose weight. The Health Guide has some pretty cool tools to help you understand your personal relationship with calories. To see how many calories your body requires to maintain your weight, check out this Nutritional Needs Calculator. To see roughly how many calories you're burning during a variety of activities, visit the Calorie Burner Calculator. Source

Foods That Send Metabolism Soaring

Prevention — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:21:01 PDT

We are excited to share one of our fave stories from Prevention here on FitSugar!

Power up your fat-burning engine with every bite!
Excerpted from The Active Calorie Diet book by Leslie Bonci, R.D.

A calorie is a calorie, and cutting them is the best way to lose weight, right? Not so fast. New research shows that eating certain types of foods can rev your metabolism, curb your appetite, and help you drop more pounds than others. The Active Calorie Diet, an eating plan based on this research, explains how some foods take more work to eat so you burn more calories during digestion. In fact, just the act of chewing foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean cuts of meat can increase your calorie burn by up to 30 percent!

In this diet plan, foods are broken down into four types of "active calories" — chewy foods, hearty foods, energizing foods, and warming foods. Here's how each one encourages your body to burn more calories.

Burn More Calories By Eating

Chewy Foods (lean meats, nuts, whole fruits and vegetables)
These calories make your body work right off the fork. To maximize the chew factor, choose food in its most "whole" state — apples instead of applesauce, for instance. High-protein foods really are your best ally in the Active Calorie Diet because they take more work to chew and longer to leave your stomach so you take more time eating—and have more time to register that you're full.

Hearty Foods (fruits, vegetables, brown rice, whole grains and cereals)
In addition to being chewy, these active calories are packed with fiber, so they take up more room in your belly (compared to other foods with the same number of calories), and leave less room for second helpings. Foods that take more work to chew literally make your mouth work harder (ramping calorie burn by 10 percent!) and increase the thermic effect of food, the calorie-burn bump we get from eating and digesting any given type of food.

Tasty Ways to Get More Fiber

Energizing Foods (coffee, black and green tea, dark chocolate)
You can get metabolism-boosting caffeine in coffee and black tea; just be careful not to load them up with milk, cream, or sugar. Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant, so your daily java or black tea can boost your metabolism by 5 to 8 percent - about 80 to 128 calories a day. Green tea doesn't have much caffeine but it does contain catechins, an antioxidant that raises resting metabolism by 4 percent (about 80 calories a day). Dark chocolate contains both catechins and caffeine, but stick to one ounce per day to limit fat and calories.

8 Secrets for All-Day Energy

More foodie tips to rev your metabolism after the break.