Calories
When we say calories, we almost always mean kilocalories. If a meal is 800 calories, it’s actually 800 kilocalories.
A calorie is a unit of energy, 1 kcal is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1kg of water by 1 degree Celsius.
To work out how many calories are in a certain food, a calculation is used to find out how much of that food source is required to heat 1kg of water by 1 degree Celsius. We then know how many calories are in 100g, 250g etc of that food source.
Macros
Macronutrients are what calories are made up of, you probably know the three types of macro: Protein, Carbohydrate, and Fat.
Proteins are made up of amino acids, which are the building blocks of our bodies. Because of this, protein is often thought of as the most important macronutrient. There are 20 amino acids that make up proteins, 9 of which our bodies can’t produce, we can only get them from food, these are called essential amino acids.
Animal products tend to have fairly complete chains of amino acids. Vegetables tend not to have the same ratio of amino acids which is why it’s important if you follow a plant based diet you eat a wide variety of vegetables to fill in the chains of amino acids.
Carbohydrates are most associated with energy, the energy source that our bodies prefer to use is glucose, which is a carbohydrate. It is easier for our bodies to convert carbohydrates into glucose than it is for protein or fat.
Fats, fat has a bad reputation, probably linked to the fact that most of us don’t like or want body fat. But as a macronutrient, fat is essential.
How calorie dense is each macronutrient?
• 1g of protein = 4 calories
• 1g of carbohydrate = 4 calories
• 1g of fat contains 9 calories
Fat is more than twice as calorie dense as protein or carbohydrate. It is much easier to overeat fatty food than protein or carbohydrate heavy food.
How many calories should I be consuming each day?
Firstly, there is your BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the number of calories your body needs to accomplish its most basic life-sustaining functions, i.e. the calories you need to eat to stay alive, as an average per day. You may hear it called REE, or Resting Energy Expenditure.
Second is your TDEE, or Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This is your BMR + any calories you burn by being active.
You can calculate your BMR using the calculator on www.littlegymbook.com/macros or manually following the steps on the next page.
Calculating your TDEE is much harder, your activity level fluctuates every day… Have you been at work, did you use the stairs instead of the elevator, did you sit at your desk all day, did you go to the gym etc. An activity tracker or smart watch is the most accurate way, but they aren’t 100% accurate.
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