Do you need to count your calories?

Have you ever wondered;

1) how many calories do you need? 

2) how many you are eating? 

3) What is the consequence of eating extra calorie? 

4) How many extra will make you 1 KG fat. 

Just to give you a heads up each 7700 extra calorie makes you 1 kg heavier...!

Well... your daily calorie need depends on the metabolism of your body. Metabolism is the pace at which your body consumes energy. You can compare it to mileage of a car. Some cars run 10 miles per litre while some runs at 20 miles per litre. It depends on the size of the engine. Similarly, metabolism of your body depends on size of your body apart from other factors (like exercise, drinking enough water, proper rest etc) through which you can boost it. Taller you are, higher would be your metabolism. Typically, 6 feet tall and 82 kg weight person will have 1800-2000 calories of resting metabolism (energy required in state of rest). Further for physical activity another 200 calories are required which can be boosted by another 300-500 calories by doing exercise and by being physically active. Therefore, total calorie requirement with exercise would be 2400-2600 calorie. Typically, female’s metabolism is lower and for males it is higher as males are taller and bigger. For understanding and rough estimate, you can presume for each 1-inch decrease in height calorie requirement would fall by 100 generally. Hence for 5 feet 7-inch person calorie requirement in rest would be roughly 1500 which can be enhanced by physical activity and exercise by another 300-500 calories. If you do not exercise, it will boost only by 200 calories required for general movements in daily life. These are rough estimates. For accurate measurement you need to measure on a machine.

Having explained your calorie needs a million dollar question is how much you actually eat? A mac Donald’s meal (a burger plus French fry + coke) would contain roughly 800 calories and two slices of pizza contains 550 calories. Dairy products, oils, sugary foods, fatty meat have the highest calorie. Its clear that today we generally eat higher than required calorie. How much extra we eat varies from person to person. If we eat outside food or junk food or sugary/oily food, then it’s very much possible that we would be eating much higher calorie than required.

What are the repercussions? Whatever extra calorie is consumed higher than your metabolism is converted into fat by your body and stored as fat. Each 7700 extra calorie you eat becomes 1 kg fat in your body..! The person becomes obese. Also, when you are eating extra calories it’s quite possible that you are eating junk, oily and sugary food. With foods along with obesity you get high cholesterol, fatty liver, diabetes as free offer.

But remember not all calories are bad. Some people become too calorie conscious and starts to avoid even nutritious food if their calorie content is higher. Empty calories are bad which is there in oily foods, sugar, simple carbs (bread, pizza, pasta etc) candy, cola etc. Any food having nutrition should not be avoided even if it contains calories. A right approach is be aware about nutrition (protein, vitamin, minerals) you are consuming per calorie in any food that is nutrition density of food…. Eating less is not the solution eating right is the way out…!