Calories and You
Calories are a hot topic when it comes to health and weight loss. Everyone talks about burning calories and how important it is. But do you even know what a calorie is? For many, the term “calories” is familiar, but it doesn’t tell them much. All they know is that they need to burn them. But why? What are calories and what is the benefit of burning them?
Calories 101
Calories - Definition
Before we can go into detail about burning calories, we need to first discover exactly what a calorie is. A calorie is a measurement of heat. It is the amount of energy required to raise one milliliter of water by one degree Celsius.
Calories and Food
The calorie content of a food item represents the energy the body needs to exude to convert that food item into more energy. Foods high in fat and oil have a high calorie count. High calorie foods require more energy and time to digest. Since high calorie foods take so long to digest, these food items remain in the body longer. The more high-calorie foods you eat, the more excess food your body is storing for future processing. After years of eating high-calorie foods, your body has a backlog of food to convert into energy, ultimately increasing your weight and lowering your health. Low calorie foods are easier and faster for the body to convert into energy, and aren’t stored in the body as long. The lower the calorie count, the more efficiently and quickly your body can convert the food into energy, and move on to other food items being stored.
Burning Calories
Now that we know what a calorie is, we can discover how the body burns calories. Calories are burned through a complicated process that oxidizes food to its basic components. The body needs calories to perform all of its functions, including breathing, circulating blood, and everyday physical activity. You actually burn calories every second of the day, even if you don’t exercise. There are thousands of chemical reactions that take place inside your body, all which require energy. You can aid your body in burning calories by working out. When you work out, your body burns calories quicker than it would if you just sat around all day. That’s why when you don’t work out, you feel tired and lethargic. Your body needs to burn calories for energy, and when you sit around, eat unhealthy, and don’t exercise, you’re building up calories at a faster rate than your body is burning them.
Calories and Weight Loss
By this point, you should have a clear idea of what calories are, how they pertain to food, and how and why your body burns them. Now it’s time to examine how calories pertain to weight loss. As mentioned before, foods high in calories take longer to digest and convert into energy. The body stores what it can’t quickly process into fat. Fat is what you don’t want. So in the end, high calorie foods equal body fat. If you want to rid yourself of excess body fat, your calorie intake and the rate at which your body burns calories are what matter.
Eat Low-Calorie Foods
Low-calorie foods are easier for your body to convert into energy. The lower the calorie count, the less time it will spend in your body. High-calorie foods, on the other hand, take significantly longer to process. That which the body can’t process quickly is stored as fat until it can be broken down and converted into energy. So, if you don’t want to gain weight, cut down on high-calorie foods.
Work Out to Burn Calories
Even though your body burns calories even when you don’t exercise, if you want to burn calories at a faster rate than your body naturally does, you need to exercise and build muscle mass. The more muscles you have in your body, the more calories you will burn. The more calories you burn, the more weight you will lose. This is because muscle cells are metabolically active whereas fats are not. Fat cells are primarily inactive. So, if you want to lose weight, you need to burn calories, and the best way to burn calories is to work out. Daily exercise helps your body process food more efficiently and burn high-calorie foods quicker, reducing the amount of fat stored in your body.
Knowing what a calorie is, how your body burns calories, and how to burn more calories will greatly help you in your fight to lose weight. Understanding calories is the first step in towards weight loss. Now use this information to lose the weight you want and improve your health overall.
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