What is a Calorie? How many Calories are in a Food? Basic Knowledge Center

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What is a Calorie? | How many Calories are in a Food? | Basic Knowledge Center

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This is a common question we hear around fitness freaks.

How many calories are in food? How many calories do we burn while exercising?

What is a Calorie and how many do we require for wellbeing?

Remember whenever you are eating any food you are consuming calories and those calories give you energy which we extract through digestion.

How much energy you will get from a serving of food that is generally written on the label?

Calorie is a unit of energy. Scientifically speaking one Calorie is equivalent to the amount of energy required to heat 1 kilogram of water by 1degree Celsius.

In our diet, we get our energy from 3 macronutrients, Proteins, Carbohydrates and Fats.

In terms of energy, fats are the densest form of calories consuming 1g of fat can give 9 kcal.

Another macronutrient is Carbohydrates like sugar which gives 4 calories per gram, although there are exceptions like polyols which give approx 2 calories per gram, and fiber which give 0 calories per gram fibers do not get absorbed in the body.

And the last macronutrient is protein which gives 4 cal same as carbohydrates.
Also, Consuming alcohol also gives 7 calories per gram.
Everything we consume has a calorie count.
A normal ice cream cup has approx 145 kcal, an apple has approx 72 kcal and bread 1 slice has approx 66 calories. This energy is released during digestion and stored in other molecules that can be broken down to provide energy when the body needs it.

Humans generally are interested in calories as generally we count them to relate to our weight.

If you burn the same amount of calories in a day as how much you consume you will stay the same weight, if you burn less and consume more calories than you will gain weight and if you burn more calories than consume then you will lose weight.

Calories in the human body are used in 3 ways:

The third usage corresponds to your basal metabolic rates (BMR), a number of calories one need to survive if one is not eating or moving around., add in some physical activities and digestion, and one can arrive at an estimate of how much calorie does an individual requires.

The amount of energy utilized in a day differs for each individual. Age, gender, height, and weight in addition to gut bacteria, genetics, and body composition affect the body’s ability to extract energy from food.

With so many contributing factors there is no one diet that may suit everyone’s needs.

So Calories are important to produce energy which is important to keep us alive.

If any questions then write in the comment box.

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