Posted on October 1, 2009 | Category: Buzz
You all may have wondered, “What do calories have to do with weight?” Well, in order to address this question we must first clear up what these words mean. I think it’s safe to skip weight and head right on over to the calorie, which is a “unit of energy.” Also, you need to know that when nutritional labels and doctors mention how many calories are in a food or the number of calories burned in a form of exercise, respectively, they are actually talking about “kilocalories,” whereby each calorie is really 1,000 calories. So for the sake of simplicity, whenever we mention a calorie in this article we are referring to a kilocalorie.
If a calorie is a unit of energy, then what does it mean when we see that a certain hamburger has 600 calories, for example? It means that if we were to light the burger on fire completely, the REACTION that takes place would create 600 calories of energy…not…that you should ever eat a burger this way…unless you’re a pyro…
Now that the complex science is out of the way, here’s the golden rule: If you take in more calories than your body burns, then you gain fat and if you take in less calories than your body burns, then you lose fat. Since fat is the body’s way of basically ‘saving energy for a rainy day,’ that excess fat will stay until it’s burned off some how.
Some of you may be wondering, “Well then what’s the point of doing an all protein or low carbohydrate or low fat or other diet if all I have to worry about are calories?” Good question and the answer would lie more readily in PREFERENCE. You see, one gram of carbohydrates has 4 calories, one gram of protein also has 4 calories and one gram of fat has 9 calories. If you were to go on an all protein diet, but consume more protein calories than you burn, then chances are you’re probably still going to gain fat and, hence, weight.
There are other radical schools of thought that may beg to differ on the efficiency of a protein diet versus a low carbohydrate diet, but we are simply clearing up the calorie in this article – and taking in less calories than one burns is an almost surefire way of losing fat or weight regardless of the specific diet. Interestingly, in February of 2009, a clinical trial led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and Pennington Biomedical Research Center of the Louisiana State University system found that, “diets that reduce calories lead to weight loss, regardless of carbohydrates, protein or fat content.” Regardless of diet, it was found that not only did weight drop, but also waist circumference.
So whether you really want to fit into your favorite clothes or simply want to lose some weight and don’t want to be too picky about your diet, the very least you could do is keep track of those calories and start burning away – just try not light anything on fire except for maybe the barbecue, stove or oven okay?
-Health Pistachio
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