A Calorie Isn't Always A Calorie

And the reverse is also true for gaining weight. But what does this really mean, What is a calorie, Where does it come from, This post is to do a quick review of the science of energy and how it relates to your body creating energy from it's stores -- and food, and what is happening when it burns energy. What is a calorie,

A calorie is a measure of heat. It was first used in 1814 by Nicolas Clement in lectures about heat engines. It was defined in 1845 in the Dictionnaire National. In 1863, it was formally described as the amount of energy required to heat 1 kg of water from 0 degrees Celsius to 1 degree Celsius. Generally speaking, a calorie is used to calculate the average amount of energy you can get from food, and it also measures the amount of energy you expend doing activities.

How are calories calculated from food, Originally, foods were burned to calculate how much energy they contained. In modern times, we use the Atwater system (that's not without it's issues). Calories are calculated based on the macronutrients within the food (which were formally determined by burning various foods and figuring out how much each macronutrient provides). Each macronutrient includes a variety of separate pieces, proteins are made of of a variety of amino acids, fats are made up of saturated, tras, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated, and carbohydrates are made out of sugars and fiber.

Fibers are generally regarded as indigestible, so they're subtracted from the total. This is a rough estimate and doesn't take into account the Thermic Effect of Food, which is the amount of energy your body expends to digest and make food available. How are calories burned through activity calculated, Directly: The change in temperature radiating off the body during activity.

Indirectly: Calculating the amount of CO2 that you are exhaling and the amount of oxygen you consume. Energy expenditure can be estimated by measuring macronutrient or oxygen consumption, or heat production or carbon dioxide production. Most measurement approaches in use today involve the measurement of oxygen consumption and/or production of carbon dioxide via indirect calorimetry. Based on this we know that most calorie counts are derived from these counts.

A book was put together in 1993 the Compendium of physical activities: classification of energy costs of human physical activities, that attempts to classify how each activity can affect your metabolic rate. All of these calculations are a little raw and don't take all of a person's characteristics into account.

One concern that I have with indirect calorimetry is anaerobic energy production. When a muscle is under tension greater than 20% of a person's 1 RM, blood flow is temporarily cut off to the muscle requiring it to generate energy through anaerobic fermentation of glucose. This process is very inefficient. It generates 2 ATP, compared to aerobic respiration, which generates 32 ATP. It also doesn't generate CO2, though it does create other metabolites which must be cleared of the muscles.

The problem that I have is that since it doesn't generate CO2, and doesn't require O2, indirect calorimetry is based on these gasses. ]. This has been determined to not be the amount of calories your burning during the activity, but an amount of calories you burn in addition to the activity.

Don't get me wrong. I love aerobic activity. It has it's place as an important pillar of fitness. It is very valuable in helping you lose weight. The more I think about it though, the more I'm coming to realize that weight lifting is by far more effective at burning calories.

You have to make sure that you are taking the time to plan out this food storage to the best of your ability so that you can feed your family in times of need. Jack R. Landry is an accomplished expert in family preparedness and has been giving seminars for over 15 years.