First of all counting calories is the only way to lose weight. Only way. There’s not a ‘special food’ or magic diet pill that makes you drop 10 pounds in a week. With that said, I will explain what a calorie is.

Many people associate a calorie with food, however, a calorie is just a unit to measure how much energy something contains.

For example, a gallon of gasoline contains 31 million calories. A calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius.

A kilocalorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius. So what’s the difference between a calorie and a kilocalorie (abbreviated = kcal)?

1 kcal = 1000 calories

So when you see a granola bar at the grocery store that says it contains 125 calories, they’re really talking about kcalories. So that granola bar contains 125,000 calories or 125 kcal. Same with exercise. If you burn 100 calories with running for x amount of time, you really burn 100,000 calories, and 100 kcal. If you’re confused, feel free to ask me to explain a different way.

When I talk about calories, assume I mean kcal.

Now on to what your body does with a calorie.

You hopefully know that your body needs energy to survive - pump blood, breathe, move. You get that energy from digesting food and using it in the respiration process.

Carbohydrates = 4 Calories

1 g Protein = 4 Calories

1 g Fat = 9 Calories

A gram of any carbohydrate has 4 calories, 1 gram of protein has 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat has 9 calories. Foods are made of these three building blocks. If you know how many grams of each of these are in your food, you know how many calories it is.

Here is a very simple explanation by Kelly M. from foodiefiasco:

“First, some interesting/dorky background on biology and the composition of calories. The four major classifications of biological molecules are proteins, carbohydrates, lipids (fats), and nucleic acids (but we won’t be dealing with these today). You probably encounter the first three a lot in everyday life, especially on nutritional labels.

The calories in food come from proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. A gram of protein has 4 calories, a gram of carbohydrate has 4 calories, and a gram of fat has 9 calories. With a bit of simple math, you can verify that on any food label. Sometimes there is a discrepancy, and I always honor the caloric product I got after I plugged in my formula.

Let’s practice! This is a nutritional label from Regular Better ‘n Peanut Butter.

http://i.imgur.com/UQOURne.png

Does it work? Grams of protein x 4 (16) + grams of carb x 4 (52) + grams of fat x 9 (18) = 86 calories! Sometimes there are actually fewer calories than stated because the company overcompensates. That’s very respectable of the company, and a happy accident for us consumers!

However, it doesn’t always work like that. Here is a label for Fiber One Original.

http://i.imgur.com/mD1OM5T.png

Let’s try it again: Grams of protein x 4 (8) + grams of carb x 4 (100) + grams of fat x 9 (9) = 117 calories. Hmm. That’s way off from the stated 60! Why is Fiber One allowed to say that? The FDA allows for a 20% discrepancy in food labeling, but this is much farther off than 20%. What gives?

So back to biology, there are many different kinds of carbohydrate molecules, and saying that they ALL have 4 calories a gram is simply incorrect. One of the reasons celery is such a low calorie food is that it contains a significant amount of cellulose, a fibrous carbohydrate that is indigestible by the human body. Therefore, if your body cannot break something down, it can’t absorb any energy from it. Calories that your body actually absorbs are called net calories.

You know how fiber is nature’s broom? That’s true too. Fiber “sweeps” through your system, cleaning out any unneeded particles and, because your body does not break fiber down, it goes out the other end. Your body does not absorb the calories from fiber either.

However, the traditional calorie counting formula does not take this into account. It would multiply ALL of the carbs in the product by four, instead of just the ones your body actually absorbs (total carbohydrates – dietary fiber). Behold, my modified and correct calorie counting formula!

http://i.imgur.com/L1IFXvw.png

This concept is relatively widely accepted here in the US, but the FDA has not taken a stance on the subject. (For reference, here is a Hungry Girl article on this very topic.) In the meantime, this gives companies selling products in the United States free rein to take the initiative and use this concept to their advantage. Some companies, such as Fiber One, do just that.

http://i.imgur.com/1aZbTCS.png

And now for your first application of your new favorite formula. Please contain your enthusiasm and hold your thunderous applause until the end. Grams of protein x 4 (8) + grams of fat x 9 (9) + grams of total carbohydrates – grams of fiber x 4 (44) = 61 calories (rounded down to 60 on the label). Whoa. Considering we thought the exact same serving of the exact same product had 117 calories just a minute ago, this is big. Huge.

Now you can start applying this to your daily life! Remember not to eat too much fiber as that is very hard on your GI track (and gives you plenty of gas; fun for all!), and do this, as well as everything else you do, in moderation.

I’m not going to lie… it still is pretty fun to do. You’re like Sherlock with a nutritional label. (I told you tweed would look awesome with your eyes!) Let’s take another look at the peanut butter label!

http://i.imgur.com/F3N8SEs.png

Grams of protein x 4 (16) + grams of fat x 9 (18) + grams of total carbohydrates – grams of fiber x 4 (44) = 78 calories. People. That’s 39 calories a tablespoon. Go forth and preach, grasshoppers.”

http://www.foodiefiasco.com/how-to-correctly-count-calories/

So hopefully that helped you guys understand a bit more.

Now on to losing weight.
Although, weight loss is a lot more complicated than what I can fit in this chapter, the bottom line is calories out > calories in

The simplest way is just eat less calories than you need to maintain your weight.
But how many do you need? Here are a few calculators to figure out how many you need to lose weight, or maintain it. Note: the heavier you are the more calories you need. Same for burning, you burn calories faster.

This calculator calculates how many calories your body needs to maintain your weight. It will also tell you how many calories you should eat to lose, and gain. Note: If it presents a number lower than 1000 calories, please do not eat that many. It is extremely damaging to your health, and it could be fatal!

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html?ctype=standard&cage=15&c=f&cheightfeet=5&cheightinch=1&cpound=105&cheightmeter=180&ckg=60&cactivity=1.55&printit=0&x=0&y=0

A pound of fat is approximately 3500 calories.
Any calories you consume above your suggested daily calorie intake will cause you to gain weight, while consuming fewer calories than your suggested daily calorie intake will cause you to lose weight.
That means if you burn 500 more calories a day than usual, over the course of a week, you will lose one pound!
*You will lose weight faster if you are overweight*

For example, I’m 5“1, 105 lb, female, and moderately active. I need 1,800-1,900 calories to maintain my weight, so I just eat 500 less calories a day, and exercise a bit, and lose 1-2lb a week!

Now that you know how many calories you should eat, how do you eat them?
While this might seem like a silly question, it’s actually important to know how to track them.

You’ll need:
a scale, to weigh yourself each week;
a journal or notebook to write down what you ate, how many calories it contained, what exercise you did, and how many calories that burned.
and patience. You won’t see results overnight, or even in a week sometimes, you just need to be patient.

To find out how many calories a certain exercise burns, here are some calculators:

http://www.prohealth.com/weightloss/tools/exercise/calculator1_2.cfm
http://www.caloriescount.com/getMoving.aspx?Aspx
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/lookup
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calories.htm

To find out how many calories a food has, look on the label like I just showed you, or look it up. Simply Google ‘how many calories does __ have’ or use something like this:
http://www.calorieking.com/foods/

Note: Be sure to keep the portions exact!

Also, for more info, check out these sites:

http://www.uta.edu/faculty/sawasthi/Lecture%20Notes%20Chem1451/Calorie.htm
http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-to-count-calories/
http://www.foodiefiasco.com/how-to-correctly-count-calories/
http://www.acaloriecounter.com/calorie-counting.php
http://www.scientificpsychic.com/health/count-calories.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Count-Calories
https://www.fitwatch.com/blog/how-to-count-calories-to-lose-weight-the-basic-blueprint
http://greatist.com/health/yoni-freedhoff-count-calories
http://nutritiondata.self.com/tools/calories-burned

AN:

Okay, that about sums it up! If you have any questions, put them in the comment section~ <3
(Next chapter coming soon!)