Calories

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.

Fun ways to burn calories

• Sex
• Tidy up your garden
• Go out dancing with your friends
• Get rid of your stress with yoga

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