Calories

Calories are the center of attention when it comes to nutrition and dieting. They are essential when it comes to organizing any meal plan, since they show us the amount of energy that a certain food will provide us with. Knowing the energy provided by each food and the nutrients contained in them, we can plan our meals in such a way that they are as nutritious as possible and meet the energy requirements of our body.

In this guide we will be addressing some of the basic concepts related to calories and how we can control the amounts of calories.

What is a calorie?

A calorie is a unit of energy. It is commonly used to measure the energy content present in food, which goes into combustion and is absorbed by our body to carry out its vital functions. The World Health Organization estimates that on average men need between 2000 and 2500 calories per day, while women need about 1600 to 2000 calories per day. It is important to know that these figures are very general, since this will depend on the type of body the person has and the level of daily physical activity.

Another important issue is not to confuse calories with nutritional value, a food can be very high in calories but not nutritious at all. To know if the caloric contribution that we will receive when ingesting a certain food is high in nutrients, we should pay attention to its nutritional density.

Decrease daily calories

The best way to reduce the amount of calories that enters our body is to do it in stages. First of all you must be clear about the amount of calories you ingest daily, once you have this information, you will begin to gradually decrease the total calories you ingest daily. Do not go down in alarming numbers, the idea is to deceive the body, make it understand that there is nothing to worry about.

In each step you can make some pauses, where you will keep several days consuming the same amount of calories, that way our body will end up accepting that the current amount of calories you are adding corresponds to a period of abundance and not scarcity, being unnecessary to accumulate more fat than normal.

Reduce calories through physical activity

Burning calories through training is one of the healthiest processes we can perform to burn excess fat from our body. Exercise strengthens our body, brings vitality and breaks the sedentary lifestyle. It has been proven that constant exercise can prevent the onset of numerous diseases, improve our physical condition for old age and increase longevity significantly.

In any case, the basic rule to lose weight is