Nutritionist measure the amount of heat produced by metabolizing of food in units called kilocalories. A kilocalorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree on a centigrade (celsius) thermometer at sea level.
In common use, nutritionists substitute the word calorie or kilocalorie. This information isn’t scientifically accurate: strictly speaking, a calorie is really 1/1000 of kilocalorie. But the word calorie is easier to say and easier to remember, so that term you see whenever you read about the energy in food.
All calories, regardless of where they come from, give your energy. If you take in more energy (calories) than you spend each day, you’ll gain weight,
If you take in less than you use you, you’ll lose weight.
This nutrition rule is an equal opportunity, one size fits all proposition that lies to everyone.
Nutritionists divide the amount of energy withdraw each day in two parts:
- The energy need when your body is at rest
- The energy you need to do your daily “work”
To keep your energy account in balance, you need to take in enough each day to cover your withdrawals. As a general rule, infants and adolescents burns more energy per pound than adults do, because they’re continually making large amounts of new tissue.
Similarly, an average man burns more energy than an average woman because his body is larger and has more muscle, thus leading to the totally unfair but totally true proposition that a man who weighs, say, 150 pounds can consume about 10 percent calories than a woman who weighs 150 pounds and still not gain weight.
The Calories
