Nutrition Facts – Calories see what you need to know!

nutrition facts

Calories, Kcals …or maybe you refer to them as KJ. Whatever you call them, they matter…

No matter what your goal is – sports performance, fat loss, muscle gain, health improvement, weight maintenance etc etc, Kcals are king. We are human furnaces churning up any food and liquid and producing energy! FACT!

Protein = 4 kcals per gram
Carbs = 4 kcals per gram
Fats = 9 kcals per gram
Alcohol = 7 kcals per gram

Let’s think it through, what did you remove from your diet last time – carbs, fats maybe? Did you replace it with anything else? Probably not. In which case you would have reduced your normal calories intake by a whole macro nutrient.

Consider this for a moment. Yesterday you ate as you usually do eating normal amounts for both breakfast and lunch. In the evening you went out for a meal with friends to Pizza express. You had a portion of dough balls (361 Kcals)*, an American Hot pizza (928 Kcals)* and a couple of glasses of wine (250 Kcals)*. You skipped dessert to be healthy! Now, this meal contained 1,539 calories. That’s 3/4 of a females daily intake in just 1 meal. If you’re a social butterfly the likelihood is that you MAYBE overeating ALOT!

A lot of us may not even know we’re over eating. As a guideline we would suggest a palms worth of protein, a fistful of carbs and a thumbs size of fats. Load your plate up at dinner tonight thinking about this diagram and see if it makes a difference.

nutrition facts calories

nutrition facts calories

SOME INTERESTING INFORMATION

NHS GUIDELINES

According to NHS guidelines the recommended daily allowance for a woman is 2,000 Kcals. For men it is 2,500 Kcals dependent on factors like size, metabolism and physical activity. The BBC News reports that A Third of UK adults underestimate their calorie intake.” If you’d like to experiment and see how many calories you’re consuming you can download the free app MyFitnessPal. For a bit more info on Myfitnesspal you can see our earlier blog.

Now you are aware of these snippets of info you have the knowledge to manipulate your diet and maximize your success. Good luck with tracking!!

*figures taken from Pizza Express Nutritional Guide

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