What are Calories?
A calorie (pronounced cal-er-ee) is a measure of how much energy that protein,
carbohydrates, and fat can supply your body. The number of calories in a food
is a measure of how much potential energy that food will provide for your body.
Amount of Calories?
Different types of nutrients have different amounts of calories.
1 gram of protein has 4 calories
1 gram of fat has 9 calories
1 gram of carbohydrate has 4 calories
How many Calories do you need?
The number of calories needed is different for every person. Your height,
weight, gender, age and activity level affects your caloric needs.
Your complete caloric needs is a sum of your:
Energy needed to function at rest (60 to 70% of your daily calories). Men
usually need more energy to function at rest than women do.
Energy needed for physical activity. The more physical activities you perform,
the more daily calories you will need.
Energy needed to burn food. Food has to be digested and some people require
more energy to digest food than others.
If you are interested in determining how many calories you need to consume each
day, you should contact your nutritionist.
