The calorie count of the foods in your daily diet should reflect your physical activity level. If your intake exceeds what you can burn off through activity and exercise, you'll gain weight, a major factor in premature deaths. The Office of the Surgeon General reports that hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved every year if Americans maintained healthy weights. To reduce your risk for diet-related diseases and extend your life expectancy, move toward a sustainable calorie balance.
Consequences of Excess Weight
Excess weight increases your chances of contracting serious illnesses such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and kidney, colon, gall bladder and reproductive organ cancers. Other life-threatening medical problems associated with overweight conditions include birth delivery complications and surgical complications. If you're overweight, according to the Office of the Surgeon General, you may be able to extend your life by losing as little as 10 pounds.
Sources of High Calories
Foods with the highest calorie counts tend to be those with large ratios of fat and sugar -- two nutrients that can adversely affect your blood cholesterol and blood glucose levels, in addition to promoting weight gain. That's why becoming overweight often indicates the presence of additional health issues. Fast foods and fried foods, especially meats, as well as full-fat milk and cheeses are among dietary sources of high calories.
Unchecked meal portions also add to your daily calorie counts. The FDA considers an average diet of 2,000 calories appropriate for people of moderate activity levels, but smaller frames or slower metabolisms may require fewer calories to maintain a healthy weight.
Decreasing Detrimental Nutrients
Avoiding heart attacks and strokes can help you live longer. To reduce the nutrients that can increase your weight and harm your health, limit your intake of fatty and sweetened foods. A good guide to follow is the percent daily value, or DV, of total fat printed on food labels. The FDA considers food servings with 20 percent DV or more of fat high in content. Sweets should be curtailed to a total of less than 12 g of sugar per day, according to the American Heart Association. Control your portion sizes by following the suggested serving sizes on labels.
Increasing Beneficial Nutrients
When you limit portions and decrease the amount of fat and sugar in your diet, you'll automatically have more room in your daily calorie allowance for beneficial nutrients. Those that have life-extending properties, according to the USDA, include dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals. You'll find more of these and less detrimental fat and sugar in vegetables, fruits and whole grains. The relatively lower calorie counts and higher fiber contents help you to maintain a reasonable weight as you grow older.
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