Calories from Protein, Carbs and Fat

Calories from Protein, Carbs and Fat

Foods that we eat contain calories from different nutrients. Pick up any packaged food item at the grocery and read the nutrition label. The nutrition facts will tell you not only how many calories the food contains but also how many calories of protein, carbohydrates and fat it has.

Do you want to know how many calories are in every gram of protein, carbohydrates and fat? Every gram of protein has 4 calories. Every gram of carbohydrates has 4, as well. And every gram of fat contains 9 calories. So if you were to eat something that has all three of them, you can look at the nutrition label and figure out how many calories each of the three is bringing in.

Let’s take for example 100 grams of bacon. It roughly contains 37 grams of protein, 2 grams of carbohydrates and 42 grams of fat. The remaining grams come from cholesterol, sodium, calcium and potassium. If we focus only on the grams from protein, carbohydrates and fat, we can calculate the calories as such:

(37 g protein x 4) + (2 g carbs x 4) + (42 g fat x 9) = 148 + 8 + 378 cals = 534 cals

Thus, 100 grams of bacon, which is just a little less than one serving, already contains 534 calories. And that number doesn’t even include the calories from grams outside of protein, carbohydrates and fat. For most people, 534 calories already make one-third or one-fourth of the daily amount of calories they need in order to maintain weight. A serving of bacon already makes one-third or one-fourth of the daily amount of calories for weight maintenance.

Calories also increase blood sugar which refers to the glucose in the bloodstream. This glucose produces the energy we need to perform our daily activities. The level of glucose should always be brought back to normal, a task that insulin from the pancreas is responsible for. People suffering from diabetes do not have enough insulin to control their glucose level. This is why it is even harder for them to manage their calorie intake.   Their diet should contain large amounts of dietary fiber. They should decrease their intake of fat and carbohydrates, too.

But diabetic or not, we all have to be mindful of what we eat. We should be aware of the amount of calories we consume per meal. Exercise should be a regular part of our schedule. Through exercise, we burn calories to maintain or lose weight.

Calories truly cannot be ignored. They are in everything we eat and they have an impact on our health and well-being. If you want to be fit and healthy, start minding your calories today. Be aware of how many calories your meals are giving you and set a goal for yourself. Start eating healthy today.

Related Posts

How to Use Nutritional Labels
Nutrition and The 7 Rules to Healthy Eating
Your Diet / Eating Personality
Fun Fitness Questionnaire
The Link Between Comfort Food, Eating Disorder, And Emotional Eating
Foods That Boost Your Metabolism

Popularity: 54% [?]

How to Use Nutritional Labels

How to Use Nutritional Labels

Fact – you have full control of your own health.  It’s a good thing that almost all foods we buy come with nutrition labels. Of course, it’s also the age where there are more foods that are unhealthy for us, which makes the nutrition facts label on foods all the more important. Nutrition labels tell you what exactly your favorite can of soup contains, and I don’t mean the ingedients. The nutrition label is also sometimes called Nutrition Facts.

The first thing you should look for in the nutrition label is serving size, which usually uses a common measurement unit such as ‘cup’. It also indicates how many grams that one serving makes. Right below it can be found exactly how many servings there are in one pack (or can). Pay attention to this part of the nutrition label because if you don’t you may actually consume two servings instead of one, essentially doubling your calorie intake.

The next part to look at on a nutrition label is the amount of calories per serving. This is useful when you already know how many calories you need in a day in order to maintain, lose, or gain weight. If the nutrition label on the canned soup tells you that one serving already contains 120 calories, you can deduct that amount from your recommended daily amount of calories and see how much more calorie allowance you have for that day.

The nutrition label also tells you how much of the different types of nutrients you’re getting. This is expressed in grams or milligrams. The three main sources of these are fat, carbohydrates and protein. The nutrition facts label tells you directly how many calories come from fat. It’s important to take a look at the fat content, cholesterol and sodium because these are the nutrients you have to eat less of.

Below the number of grams per nutrient, the nutrition label also tell you how much Vitamin A, C, calcium and iron is present. These, including dietary fiber are the nutrients that you need to eat more of. The percentage in which these are expressed in shows how much it covers your recommended daily amount. When a nutrient is 5% in daily value or below, you’re getting a low amount of it. When a nutrient is 20% in daily value or above, it’s a bit high. This part of the nutrition label will help inform you if you’re getting too much fat from a product or too little dietary fiber, for example.

Reading and understanding a nutrition label is not rocket science. It just requires common sense, knowing the good stuff from the bad and making the right choices based on that. Nutrition labels – always check them out.

Related Posts
Calories from Protein, Carbs, and Fat
Nutrition and The 7 Rules to Healthy Eating
Your Diet / Eating Personality

If you are diabetic, in addition to the information on this website concerning diabetes, eHow has a great series of interest.  They also have a video regarding Reading Nutritional Labels for Diabetics.

Popularity: 36% [?]

The Link Between Comfort Food, Eating Disorder, And Emotional Eating

The Link Between Comfort Food, Eating Disorder, And Emotional Eating

Ever since the world began, food has been a means of nourishment for our bodies. Let’s face it we need calories and nutrients to live. But in today’s culture, food has evolved into more than just fuel for our body. Food has become our response to our emotions, problems or situations – hence the new terms we hear – eating disorder; emotional eating; comfort food, etc.

Many believe an eating disorder is actually a psychological condition. Those who suffer from anorexia nervosa or bulimia have a distorted perception of themselves, believe that depriving themselves of nourishment helps them correct their body image. Many people who are obese are also believed to be suffereing from an eating disorder or indulge in emotional eating that led them to overeat.

Though not alway true, emotions now have something to do with how and what we eat. Emotional eating is described as “eating as a response to a feeling or event.” Some kids display emotional eating by consuming a lot of junk food when they don’t get enough attention or are getting too much of it. Emotional eating becomes a cry for help or a means of release.

While the term ‘comfort food’ brings images of hot soup and bread on a wintery night, it hasd not morphed into the food we commonly eat in order to bring us comfort and make us feel better when something bad happens, except that we only knowingly load up on calories.

Emotional eating manifests itself in many ways. Some people turn to food when they’re angry, some turn to food when they’re stressed, then there are people who eat when they’re bored. When we have difficulty with relationships, we create a relationship with food instead – that’s when it becomes an eating disorder.

If you seem to fit any of the descriptions above, then you are into emotional eating and may be suffereing from an eating disorder. it’s time to examine your lifestyle and what role food portrays in your life. Start a journal and write down what you ate and how much of it AND what you were feeling at that moment. Explain what triggered you to eat – what happened before that? Who were you with?

After a week or two, you’ll be able to see if there is a pattern or recurring emotions or situations that lead you to food. By taking note of these emotions and events, you’ll be able to spot them the next time. When you do, think of an alternative activity you can do instead of eating. Take a walk, write down your feelings or watch something good on TV.

Dealing with emotional eating is not just about preventing yourself from gaining too much calories. It’s more about being healthy in mind and body. Emotional eating is an ever present threat. Don’t let an eating disorder get between you and your health.

Recommended:

• For the beginner, take our Diet/Eating Personality quiz and Fun Fitness Program Questionnaire to assess yourself.
• If you enjoyed this article, please take the time and take our fitness survey so we may continue to research articles of interest. Click Here to take survey

Related Posts:
1. Is Weight Loss Complicated?
2. How You Should Evaluate a Weight Loss Program

Popularity: 24% [?]

What is a Diet?

To many people, dieting connotes restrictions and limitations in the foods that they take. But diet, overall, simply refers to the types of foods you select on a day-to-day basis. Some would jokingly say that they are on a chocolate diet or a diet of all things deep-fried.

Your diet corresponds to the outcome you see in your body. It is unavoidably directly related to your weight. But first, you need to know how much you should weigh; not everybody needs to be 100 pounds. We all have different ideal weights. The weight range that we need to be in tells us that falling below that range makes you underweight and being beyond it makes you overweight. Either case is not good.

There are ideal weight charts that only factor in one’s height. But the more helpful ones are those, which factor in one’s body type as well. There is a different weight range for a person who has a small frame, one who has a medium frame and one with a large frame even if they are all the same height. It’s good to consider your body frame in order to be realistic when it comes to setting weight goals.  To calculate your BMI and see if you are in the healthy range, click here.

Dieting greatly affects weight but it should not mean starving oneself to achieve the ideal weight. That simply does not work or it could but it’s detrimental to your health. To achieve one’s desired weight, provided it’s realistic, there should be a good balance between what foods to eat and the right amount of these foods in one’s diet. Everything we consume contains a number of calories, which give us the energy to do our activities.

• Diet goes hand in hand with the activities we choose to do because to maintain our weight, we need to be eating only the number of calories we can burn.
• To lose weight, one should be eating fewer calories than he can burn. Consequently, if one needs to gain weight, he should be eating more than what he can burn. Losing weight properly and at a healthy pace happens when the person is aware of how many calories he gets from what he eats.
• Counting calories may sound tedious but instead of treating them as numbers, every person who aims for good health should look at calories in food as a way to respond to what the body needs in terms of nourishment.

Nourishment should come from a nutritionally balanced diet. If you target to eat only a certain number of calories per day, you should eat the right foods in right amounts that will add up to that desired number rather than eating only one or two food groups in very large quantities in order to achieve that desired number of calories in food. Remember that your body responds to what you put into it and what you don’t. Review the 7 Rules to Healthy Eating.

Weight is, indeed, a very important thing. It’s not just about aesthetics and it’s definitely not about believing than thin is beautiful. Weight is one of the measurements of our health. Being overweight can lead to a number of chronic diseases; being underweight shows that the body is lacking in essential nutrients and amount of food.

If you enjoyed this article, please take the time and take our fitness survey so we may continue to research articles of interest. Click Here to take survey

Recommended next steps:

Determine Your Diet / Eating Personality and the Fun Fitness Questionnaire

Related Posts

Nutrition and The 7 Rules to Healthy Eating

What is Metabolic Syndrome? (Good Reading if your Waistline is >35 inches)

Dr. Shapiro’s Picture Perfect Weight Loss

Popularity: 24% [?]

What is your Diet personality/Eating Personality?

We all have different personalities. We also have different diet personalities or eating personalities. But what are these diet personalities or eating personalities?

• There are those who are too busy to eat during the day – no time to sit and have a decent meal. When they go home, they try and satisfy their hunger trying to make up for the way they have deprived themselves throughout the day. As a result, they snack well into the late night, paying no heed to proper nutrition.
  

  What is Your Diet / Eating Personality?

• There are the calorie counters, attentive to every calorie in the food they eat. They plan their meals to the T, ensuring not to eat more calories than they can burn. They tend to stick to their plan so much that they become guilty when they ‘cheat’. Eating is not a pleasurable activity for them.
• Then, there are the selective types. They prefer comfort foods and are not adventurous enough to try new things. Chances are, the nutrition that they get is not balanced.
• There are those who load up on carbs. There are those who are carnivores from day to night.

Whatever you think your eating personality or diet personality is, here are a few questions for you to answer. As you answer them, you’ll get to know more about the way you eat and how to identify habits that you can do without.

1)            In the course of a day, what type of food do you prefer eating more of?

Some are mostly carnivorous while some lean towards vegetables and fruits. Many people crave more for carbs such as pasta, rice, bread, or potatoes. A balanced diet should be 2/3 whole grains, fruits and vegetables and 1/3 protein. The calories you eat must be distributed into these parts.

2)            Besides the three regular meals, do you usually eat when you’re feeling bored? Stressed? Lonely?

Food sometimes is a response to what we’re feeling. When sad or stressed, it’s easy to turn to food for comfort, leading to bad nutrition. Food has also become a hobby to us. Those working in offices find it easy to snack away without being mindful of what they’re eating. This could be due to pressure at work or boredom.

3)            Do you prepare your food or wait for food to be prepared for you OR do you drive-thru on the way to work / home?

Today, many choose convenience over nutrition. We grab the easiest meal to get ‘more pressing’ matters done. Commerce has made it possible for a lifestyle where we can manage multiple things within a day at the expense of compromising nutrition.

4)            Do you eat only when hunger strikes or because it’s time to eat?

Usually those who eat only when hunger strikes tend to eat more. Consequently, they end up having more calories than those who eat at set times. Eating 5 to 6 meals a day helps us avoid hunger pangs, which makes it easier to manage cravings and get proper nutrition and a balanced diet.

5)            Do you keep to your diet and never stray from it?

It’s good to have a diet plan, if it gives you a balanced diet. How are you in terms of following your diet? Are you always failing or are you the type who follows strictly and perfectly, leaving you with guilt when you eat outside the plan?

6)            Do you eat food to live or do you eat food for the pleasure of eating?

Many of us struggle to limit food no matter how much calories, because it simply gives us so much pleasure. However, there are those who treat food as a means to survive. They eat only what they feel their body needs. It isn’t a bad thing just as long as they are able get a balanced diet and proper nutrition.

Understanding to how our body works and how it expresses its need for food is important. By reviewing our eating personality or diet personality, we may see activities we can change.

The end goal isn’t really the number of calories we consume in a day but to live a life that is healthy and content.

Related Posts:

1. Fitness Goals: The Fun Fitness Program Questionnaire
2. What Is A Diet?
3. Eating Habits: The Good, The Bad and the Healthy

Popularity: 21% [?]

Next Page »