CALORIES

Chapter 3

                                                    CALORIES

Everyone has heard of the word calorie for the doctors keep asking an overweight patient to reduce the intake of calories. But I wonder how many people know the actual meaning of calories?

Calorie is a measurement of the amount of food energy in the body. It is the amount of energy available after digestion. 1 gm of pure carbohydrate gives 4 calories of energy. An adult needs around 2,000 to 2,500 calories per day. Only carbohydrates (including fibre), fats, proteins, organic acids, polyols, and ethanol contain calories. All foods are made by the combination of these nutrients. Everything else in food like water, vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, spices, natural flavours and enzymes have no calories in them. Even tea and coffee has no calorie if you do not add sugar and milk. Fats contain most calories and carbohydrates have the least.

If we take in more energy, it is stored in the body in the form of fat. For example, if we take in 3,500 kilocalories more than we need, we will be putting on 0.14kgs of fat. The research scientists have found out that if we burn 3,500 kilocalories of energy we will lose not 0.14 kgs but 0.45 kgs of fat. So we are lucky, aren’t we? It is easier to lose calories than to gain. This means that it is easier to lose weight than to gain weight. The changes in body temperature help burn calories. When we do physical work or exercise, our body temperature increases leading to burning of calories.

Eating food high in calories combined with lack of exercise leads to the accumulation of fat in the body. A person who is very fat is at a risk of being attacked by many diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer. Over weight people are also bond to die at an early age. A fat person finds it difficult to move around as easily as a thin person. He keeps sitting here and there when ever possible and feels tired after doing even a small work due to the heavy weight he is carrying inside the body.  The legs get tired even after a short walk and the knees start paining.

By eating food low in calories and doing exercises one can reduce the fat in the body.

Taking a diet with fewer calories than needed can lead to the problem of underweight. A very thin person is very easily attacked by diseases like asthma, Tuberculosis and cancer. A healthy diet full of the required nutrients can cure the problem.