Calories are talked about everywhere. Especially in the case of a diet or physical conditioning, but also during weight stabilization. But after all, what are calories?
What are calories?
Calorie is a unit of measurement of energy. Our body needs energy to function, this energy is a calorie. Calories are therefore our energy engine.
In terms of health, we are often dealing with kilocalories, often indicated for 100g of food.
1 calorie is equivalent to approximately 4.18 Joules. The Joule is the international unit of measurement for energy values.
What are calories for?
They are one of our most basic needs, related to the need to eat. They are our fuel to keep our body functioning throughout the day.
Every day, we burn calories through our daily physical activity and we also consume calories while eating.
In today’s age of diets and wellness, we often tend to believe that a calorie is dangerous and exists only to make us gain a few pounds. But a calorie is much more beneficial than that!
All foods are made up of calories, which will be our energy. During a single day, the body will indefinitely use up the energy they contain: as we move, we will, of course, use it up.
But our body also has a great need, day and night. In fact, to think, the brain needs it, as well as the heart, lungs, etc.
They simply serve to provide us with enough energy to make our body and organism function properly.
This is why it is not recommended to eat much less than we need. The body would run out of energy and would no longer be able to make the same efforts, which could be harmful to health.
Where are they found?
In food and drinks. In this way, a drink or food provides energy because it contains calories.
Food brings together several large families:
- Carbohydrates (sugar)
- Lipids (fatty acids)
- Proteins (amino acids, peptides)
However, each of these families does not have the same energy intake. Carbohydrates and sugar provide a large amount of energy, but they will have a short-term effect. They will be quickly assimilated by the body and stored if we do not use them up quickly.
A sweet soda will provide 140 kilocalories, compared to an apple, which only contains about 50. The apple, in terms of energy, will be slower to assimilate than the soda.
Among the highest amounts of energy and calories, we have sugars, bad fats and alcohol. These are what we will call rich foods. They are not rich by chance, but because their calorie intake is enormous.
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