The calorie is a measure of the energy in food. A healthy weight loss plan requires you to monitor your caloric intake in order to achieve your weight loss goal. The calorie count of a particular food requires you to know the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat in that food. Nutritional labels typically provide this information, but bulk or generic foods may require you to calculate their calorie content.
Step 1
Locate the nutritional information for the food. You can obtain the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat in food from a nutrition database like the Nutrient Data Laboratory. The United States Department of Agriculture maintains this database for many generic foods and some brand name foods.
Assume your food contains 4g of protein, 7g carbohydrates and 3g of fat for this example.
Step 2
Calculate the number of calories that come from protein in your food. Each gram of protein has four calories, so you must multiply the number of grams of protein in that food by four.
The food in this example contains 4g of protein, so 4 x 4 = 16 calories in the food come from protein.
Step 3
Compute the number of calories that come from carbohydrates in the food. Each gram of carbohydrates has about four calories, so you must multiply the number of grams of carbohydrates by four.
The food in this example contains 7g of carbohydrates, so it provides 7 x 4 = 28 calories from carbohydrates.
Step 4
Derive the number of calories that come from fat from the amount of fat in the food. Each gram of fat contains nine calories, so you must multiply the number of grams of fat by nine.
The food in this example contains 3g of fat, so 3 x 9 = 27 calories in the food come from fat.
Step 5
Calculate the total number of calories in the food. This is the sum of calories from protein, carbohydrates and fat.
The food in this example has 16 calories from protein, 28 calories from carbohydrates and 27 calories from fat. The total number of calories in this food is therefore 16 + 28 + 27 = 71 calories.
Things You'll Need
- Nutritional label
- Calculator
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