High-fat, calorie-laden diets are linked to weight gain and obesity, which is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes and heart disease. If you are trying to lose weight, restricting the number of calories you eat may help you. You can do this by choosing lower-calorie foods and controlling portion sizes. Lowering your overall caloric intake can result in better health.
What Is a Calorie?
The term calorie is actually a shortened version of the word "kilocalorie," which is a thermodynamic term that represents the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of water one degree centigrade at sea level. In food terms, a calorie is a unit of energy that the food supplies. When you look at calories in a certain food, you are finding out how much energy your body will have available to burn if you eat that food.
How Calories Affect Weight
Your body uses calories from food for energy. Every single body function requires energy. Your body receives that energy from two places: from calories in the foods you eat or from energy stored in fat and muscle. Your body uses calories from food as its primary source of energy. But when that energy source is unavailable, it will rely on stored energy. If you don't supply your body with enough calories from foods to meet its needs, then stored energy is used. The result is weight loss.
Basal Metabolic Rate
Your basal metabolic rate is the rate at which your body uses energy to sustain just basic functions, such as respiration, circulation, cell repair and growth. As you add activity such as sitting, standing, walking and eating, your body's caloric requirements rise. There are many online basal metabolic rate calculators that use your height and weight to determine a rough basal metabolic rate. Your age, sex and body composition may also have an effect on your basal metabolic rate.
Daily Caloric Requirements
To determine your daily caloric requirements, you need to factor in your basal metabolic rate, your physical activity level and thermogenesis, which is the amount of energy required to process the foods you eat. You can do a rough calculation using the Harris-Benedict equation, which is a multiplier based on your activity level.
Low-Calorie Diets
If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. Approximately 3,500 food calories make up one pound of weight, so you need to create a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a single pound. To accomplish this, you can combine a low-calorie diet with an increased activity level. Limiting calories to about 500 fewer a day than you need will result in about one pound of weight loss per week.
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