Food calories and 6 surprising facts about "healthy" foods

Calories are often labeled bad by society. In fact, the human body needs calories to survive. Without calories, you will not have the energy to do activities. Gradually all the vital organs of the body will fail to function. Apart from playing an important role for human survival, here are some interesting facts about food calories and the human body that you may not have known before.

Food calories from each nutrient source differ in value

There are three main sources of nutrients that are needed in large quantities by the body to produce calories, namely carbohydrates, protein and fat.

Well, each of these nutritional sources turns out to have a different calorie content per gram. One gram of fat contains 9 calories. One gram of carbohydrates and one gram of protein contains 4 calories.

Fat contains more calories than other nutrients. That's why, excessive fat intake will more easily accumulate calories in the body.

The label "0 calories" does not mean there are absolutely no calories

In the guidelines for the inclusion of information on the nutritional value of food labels from the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency, the products include 0 (zero) calories does not mean that it does not contain calories at all.

It is common for food products that contain less than 5 calories to be listed as "0 calories total energy" on the nutritional information label on the packaging.

The body still burns calories even though you are still motionless

We often think that the body can only burn excess calories by exercising. However, even when we are not moving, for example, when sitting and sleeping at night, the body is still working to burn calories.

The reason is, the body still needs energy to carry out various vital activities such as breathing, beating the heart, circulating blood, producing electrical signals to connect every nerve in the body, and all other processes in the body that do not need to be moved consciously.

The number of calories burned automatically is called the BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). The number of calories burned through BMR can be different for each person, depending on age, weight, gender, and body composition.

So even though you are silent, your body will certainly not stop activities to maintain your survival.

Reducing excess food calorie intake can actually thwart your diet

Reported on the Everyday Health page, Kimberly Lummus, MS, RD, a dietitian from the Austin Dietetic Association, explained that when you deliberately cut your calorie intake on a large scale, the body will go into "starvation mode".

The body reads the lack of food intake as a threat. As a result, the body will save energy by reducing the number of calories burned. The body will also prefer to use energy from muscles so that muscle mass decreases. As a result, your metabolism slows down too. In this phase, the body will begin to store fat to maintain energy reserves stored in the body.

This is why people who do too much calorie diet, lose weight very long or even don't lose weight.

The most effective way to lose weight is actually to manage your calorie intake wisely. ideally, reduce your food calories while dieting just under your initial calories. Don't let yourself go hungry.

The number of calories burned on sports equipment is not as accurate as you might think

Exercise devices such as treadmills, stair-claimbers, elliptical electric bikes, fitness trackers, and other devices that show calorie burn numbers are not as accurate as you might think.

A study conducted in 2010 from the University of San Francisco suggested that measuring calorie burn on exercise machines could be 20% greater than it should be, and possibly even greater.

For example, if it says that your exercise machine has burned 200 calories, it means you likely didn't burn that much, but only about 160 calories.

Snacks are not really light calories

The calorie of a snack can exceed the calories of your main meal if you don't read the nutritional information on the label, or eat too much of it.

Usually, the portion of eating snacks around 200 calories or 10-15% of daily calorie needs. Without realizing it, because the shape is small, it's addicting, sometimes people don't realize that the snack they ate has exceeded the required limit.

Snacks can be in any form, such as packaged cakes, or traditional pastries that you can find a lot.