Calories are the amount of energy a food provides to the body to perform its vital functions.
To find out the total amount of calories a food needs, read the label and consider the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fats, calculating total calories as follows:
- It is important to remember that other food components.
- Such as water.
- Fiber.
- Vitamins and minerals.
- Do not contain calories and therefore do not provide energy.
- But are extremely important for other biological processes.
To find out how many calories you need to eat a day, it’s important to do some calculations, as the value varies by age, current weight, sex, and height. In addition, the daily caloric value should also take into account each person’s goal, whether it is gaining weight or losing weight.
There are several ways to calculate the caloric requirements of a day, however, the simplest is the direct method, which is done as follows:
For example, a person who weighs 50 kg and wants to maintain their weight, must multiply 25 x 50 or 30 x 50 and, without fear of fattening, can ingest between 1250 and 1500 calories daily.
It should also be noted that this calculation works for a healthy person and may vary if the person has a chronic illness or is bedridden, for example. Thus, the most important thing is to always consult a nutritionist, so that the calculation always adapts to individual needs.
Find out exactly how many calories you need to eat per day by entering your details below:
To find out how many calories in a food, multiply the amount of carbohydrates by 4, grams of protein by 4 as well, and total fat by 9.
For example: How many calories does a 100g chocolate bar contain?
To know the answer, you need to know how many carbohydrates, proteins and fats the chocolate contains, looking at it on its label, and then simply multiply:
By adding all these values, the result is 539 calories.
The following table shows the number of calories in some of the most consumed foods daily:
Less calorie foods are fruits and vegetables and are therefore used in diets. High-fat foods, such as fried foods, processed processed foods are the most caloric and therefore should not be consumed by those who wish to lose weight.
A snack prepared with 1 natural low-fat yogurt (150 g), accompanied by a glass of orange juice (200 ml) – 1 apple has a total of 211 calories, which is less than a chocolate bar with almonds, for example. example, which has an average of 463 calories.
The best way to consume fewer calories for weight loss is to know how many calories your food contains and how many calories you can absorb per day. After knowing this, you should opt for less calorie foods such as fruits, legumes, vegetables.
There are tables that show the amount of calories in each food, but to be more convenient, there are also several apps that can be installed on your smartphone to help with daily control.
In any diet to lose weight it is forbidden to consume sweets such as cakes, biscuits, stuffed cookies and sweet desserts, since they are high in sugar that increase blood sugar and in addition to gaining weight, cause more hunger.
Then the ideal is to eat something sweet, eat a fruit, preferably, that has skin or bagasse, and eat as dessert.
It is important to eat vegetables, vegetables and cereals for lunch and dinner, but the ideal is not to opt for potato, yam or sweet potato, if you want to lose weight. Zucchini, green beans and the combination of rice and beans are an excellent source of protein.
Fiber is great for helping fight hunger, so you can add 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed to a natural yogurt and every meal, as this will make you less hungry during the day and more patience to choose or prepare foods with fewer calories.
Making a weekly menu is a great way to know what you’re going to eat and how many calories each food contains. Ideally, don’t put the exact calories to consume per day, so there’s room for one variation or another, if necessary.
1 glass of zero Coca-Cola probably doesn’t contain calories, while a glass of natural orange juice contains about 100 calories, but orange juice contains vitamin C that helps maintain health and therefore the best option is juice, even if it contains more calories, as it also contains many more vitamins and minerals that are not present in the soda.
If you want something with fewer calories but a little flavor, try drinking sparkling water and adding a few drops of lemon.