Calories - The Facts and Figures

Have you ever wondered why, for so many people, weight gain seems to be a fact of life, particularly as you get older? It's because the human body is actually way too efficient - it just does not take that much energy (calories) to maintain the human body at rest, and, when exercising, the human body is amazingly frugal when it comes to turning food into movement.

At rest (for example, while sitting and watching television), the average human body only burns about 12 calories per pound of body weight per day (or 26.5 calories per kilo). That means that if you weigh 150 pounds (68 kg), your Basic Metabolic Rate, or the number of calories your body uses is only about:

150 X 12 = 1,800 calories per day

Those 1,800 calories are used to do everything you need to stay alive:

• They keep your heart beating and lungs breathing.
• They keep your internal organs operating properly.
• They keep your brain functioning.
• They keep your body warm.

Twelve calories per pound per day is only a very rough estimate. Two people who are the same height and weight can have very different Basic Metabolic Rates, and a toned, muscular person will tend to have a higher BMR than a person of the same age, height and weight who is carrying a lot of body fat, because muscle burns more calories than fat.

In motion, the human body uses energy very efficiently. For example, a person running a marathon (26 miles or 42 km) only burns about 2,600 calories. In other words, you only burn about 100 calories per mile (about 62 calories per km) when you are running.

You can see just how efficient the human body is if you compare your body to a car. A typical car gets between 15 and 30 miles to the gallon, (or 6 to 12 km / litre). A gallon of petrol contains about 31,000 calories. That means that if a human being could drink petrol instead of eating food to take in calories, they could run 26 miles on only one-twelfth of a gallon of petrol (0.3 L). In other words, a human being gets more than 300 miles per gallon (or 120 km per litre)!

A pound (or half a kilo) of body fat contains 3,500 calories, so each day you need to consume 500 calories less than your body uses in order for you to weigh one pound less at the end of a week. You can create this deficit in calories simply by monitoring your food intake, but ideally you should also include some exercise in your daily routine, as this not only keeps your body healthy, but also helps to increase your metabolism, meaning that you burn the calories much more efficiently.

It is obvious that eating foods which are natural, healthy and low fat will make it so much easier for you to achieve your target weight, compared with eating processed, unhealthy, high-fat products.

The key to attaining and maintaining your ideal weight easily is by developing sensible, well-balanced eating patterns, which you can then sustain for the rest of your life.

Our bodies function best when we eat the correct balance of different foods, including carbohydrates, proteins and fats. One gram of both carbohydrate and of protein contains just 4 calories, whereas fat contains 9 calories per gram. It stands to reason then, that our diet will be healthier and contain fewer calories if we eat more carbohydrates and proteins than fats when we are making up our daily intake of food.

In addition to seeing clients at the clinic, Martin and Marion undertake private, home visits, both in Spain and internationally, subject to availability and negotiation.

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