Day 13 ~ Make A Note of It

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Even though I am not playing the game, there is one thing I have learned while watching and helping my wife 'play the game', and that is the importance of counting your calories. Not only have I learned the importance of counting your calories, but it has been somewhat mind blowing to 'see' how much calories some foods contain.

First, in order to understand the importance of counting or watching your daily caloric intake, one must first understand what a calorie is! Remember, this is a definition of a calorie in a nutshell and it seems one would have to turn into a 'rocket scientist' if I got into the complexities and depth of a calorie. So, for now, just take this as a working idea of what a calorie is and how it works.

A calorie is a unit of energy. We tend to associate calories with food, but they apply to anything containing energy. Specifically, a calorie is the amount of energy, or heat, it takes to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). One calorie is equal to 4.184 joules, a common unit of energy used in the physical sciences. We as human beings need energy to survive -- to breathe, move, pump blood -- and they acquire this energy from food. The number of calories in a food is a measure of how much potential energy that food possesses. Its similar to the idea of putting fuel in your car. A car needs fuel (energy) to burn for its 'life' and we need fuel (food) to burn for our own engine to run properly. Everything has a certain amount of burning capacity to it for creating heat or fire (energy) for fueling the body. A calorie is one unit of energy and each food has a certain amount of calories or burn potential for helping the body to create energy. As burning coal is to creating steam which in turn is used to channel power for different entities, so are food calories from carbohydrates, fat and proteins. Well...enough with that... I hope you get the gist of what a calorie is...

Every living person depends on a certain amount of fuel to make it through the day. The daily requirements of calories is different for individuals, depending on their gender and their body size. Obviously, the bigger the person, the more calories you need for energy and vice versa, the smaller the person, the less calories needed to get you through the day. If you are more active, then you need more energy. Sport's stars like Lance Armstrong, when they are racing take in about 6,000 calories a day. For us, taking in this amount of fuel, would be like trying to put the amount of gas it would take to run a school bus and put it into my Honda Element. My Honda's engine does not require nor need an amount of fuel, nor does the engine's burning capacity require it. Hence, bigger vehicles have bigger gas tanks and are labeled 'gas hogs'! Which makes one wonder if some us could be strapped with label of glutton or pig because we consume far beyond our bodies capacities and needs?

When you begin to delve into the subject of calories and the amounts needed for your own bodies daily needs, it is easier to see the importance of counting your calories! Typically, Americans are over eaters and not only are we over eaters, we live a very sedentary life style, which in turn creates a myriad of problems for our bodies...naturally, spiritually, and everything-ally (that's a new word I just made up!). Here are the formulas used to help determine what your daily calorie intake should be... (I am copying and pasting this from the web site healthbulletin.org)

First, you need to determine your basal metabolic rate or BMR. BMR can be calculated by using your age, height, and weight. Separate formulas are used for men and women (1) since BMR is strongly determined by gender:

Women: 655 + (4.35 x weight, pounds) + (4.7 x height, inches) - (4.7 x age, years)
Men: 66 + (6.23 x weight, pounds) + (12.7 x height, inches) - (6.8 x age, years)

For example, for a 20-year-old woman that is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds, her BMR would be calculated as follows:
655 + (4.35 × 160) + (4.7 × 68) - (4.7 × 20) =
655 + 696 + 320 - 94 = 1577 calories per day

In this example, BMR is 1577 calories per daythe number of calories that she burns each day just to support vital functions such as brain function and respiration, and not including the calories burned from activities of daily living like walking, vacuuming, cleaning, driving, or exercising. Therefore, BMR is an impractical estimate to use for weight management since it does not take into account calories burned via bodily movement. In order to determine the total number of calories burned per day, a second calculation needs to be performed; active metabolic rate, or AMR.

After you have determined your BMR, you will multiply BMR by the following number, depending on your typical daily activity level, to calculate your AMR:
Sedentary (little or no exercise) = 1.2
Light activity (light exercise or sports 1-3 days per week) = 1.375
Moderate activity (moderate exercise or sports 3-5 days per week) = 1.55
Very active (hard exercise or sports 6-7 days per week) = 1.725
Extra active (very hard exercise or sports & physical job or twice daily training) = 1.9
To use the woman in our previous example, if her BMR was 1577 calories per day and she is sedentary, her AMR is 1577 × 1.2, or 1892 calories per day.

Calculation of the AMR is valuable when it comes to weight management since strategies for weight loss or gain can be constructed using this number. You must eat 3500 calories less than you burn in order to lose 1 pound of fat.

• If she eats 1400 calories a day, she will lose 1 pound of fat each week (a 500 calorie deficit per day over 1 week equals 3500 calories, or 1 pound of fat)

• If she eats 1900 calories a day, her body weight will remain constant.

• If she eats 2400 calories per day, she will gain 1 pound of fat each week (a 500 calorie excess per day over 1 week equals 3500 calories, or 1 pound of fat)

A 500-1000 calorie deficit each day is considered by most experts to be the most effective for weight loss, which translates to a 1-2 pound fat loss per week. However, under no circumstances should women eat less than 1200 calories per day and men less than 1500 calories per day. Eating a diet with too few calories can result in malnutrition and lean tissue mass losses, thereby causing metabolism to slow and sabotaging weight loss efforts.

Whew...there you have it... at least, that is, in a nutshell! There is much ado to the counting of calories and the importance they hold in our health, and our desire to either lose weight or gain weight. One thing for sure...if you are not taking note of your caloric intake and watching the amount of calories you are eating, there is a good possibility you are not going to 'win' the game. You must become more conscious of your calories and how they affect your metabolism, because if you don't, that one sandwich you just wolfed down, could be the caloric equivalent to your TOTAL calories needed for two days, let alone one meal!