What even is a CALORIE?

In today’s world we often see and hear people talk about ‘calories’. ‏‏‎ ‏It’s great that people are talking about them more, but what even are they?!

The ‘scientific’ definition: “the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 1 °C (now usually defined as 4.1868 joules).”

In simpler terms: “a unit of energy, often used as a measurement of the amount of energy that particular food provides”

But we can make it a little simpler.

Calories are basically energy. The more energy we eat, the more energy we can potentially use. Some of this energy is used for basic survival, including the functioning of our major organs and pumping blood around our body.

Energy is also used by our body for movement (walking, running) as well as lifting weights (training) 🚴
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Not just that, but our body also uses some of this energy to repair itself, especially when we eat protein. Not only does this energy help repair broken or dead cells, but it also helps to repair and build our muscles 🔧🔨

❓So what if we eat too much energy? (too many calories)

Our body basically stores it as fat.
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❌ When our calories IN are HIGHER than our calories OUT, this is known as a calorie surplus

❓ So how can we fix it? How can we lose weight?

We need to ensure that we exercise more, and/or eat less energy 🍎
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✅When our calories IN are LOWER than our calories OUT, this is known as a calorie deficit.
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At this point we’ll start to lose weight.
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The most important tool for tracking calories is MyFitnessPal – and the best bit is that it’s completely FREE!