What is a calorie: calorie as defined by Merriam Webster is a unit of heat used to indicate the amount of energy that foods will produce in the human body
What does energy mean then? In regards to the human body, energy is the production of physical change within the system and usually regarded as the capacity for doing work… our body continuallyuses a whole lot of energy. We have so many different sytems from powering muscles, firing brain waves,powering ATP, quite literally every action we do consiocly and subconscienly requires energy. Again, how do we get energy? By food! So, now that we have established that food is VITAL to having and living life we can tackle the whole idea that maintain weight is as simple as calories in vs. calories out. If you are overweight than you must cut calories to lose weight and being overweight is caused by eating a surplus, or simply more than you burn. Well, what if I told you this is simply an over simplification. Let’s look at celery. I be we have all heard is takes as much energy to chew and swallow it so therefore its calories (energy) is negligible. In a way, there is truth to this statement. Celery DOES require a lot of energy for our body to break it down it has different effects on our metabolic pathway than say a bowl of oats or a slice of cake. Keeping that concept in mind, look at the calories in vs. calories out equation. This simple way to explain how to lose, maintain, and gain weight becomes a bit more complicated. If our body looks at different foods and digests them differently, then it cannot be so simple. Let me be clear on one thing. Overeating will lead to weight gain be it muscle or fat. Under eating leads to weight loss, be it muscle or fat. But, why do some people eat more? Why can some people seem to eat a lot and not gain weight? Well, it depends on a few factors. You see first of all we all are created individually. No one person is the same. Even if I had a twin we would still be genetically different in some way, shape, and form. With different make-up comes different hormone levels, different digestion functions, different structure, and different energy expenditures. When looking at twins could we guarantee that the same shoe could fit both twins solely based on the fact that they are twins? No, one may have a slightly bigger foot and require a bigger shoe! The same goes for nutrition and food intake. Many of us have probably heard that women are supposed to eat about 1200-1500 calories a day and men around 1800-2000 calories a day. But what if I, like the twin with the bigger foot, require more that 1500 calories. Does that mean I am going to become overweight? ABSOLUTLEY NOT. You see I am an active 19-year-old girl and I am on the short side. Based of the arbitrary number from person or magazine, I should probably consume far less calories than I do. But guess what, my body needs more. They don’t know me, they have not analyzed my genes, they don’t know my body composition, and they sure as heck don’t know what I eat. How can they say that I should eat X amount of calories? . Let’s look at the idea of energy and with everyone being made differently. Let’s say we have a teenage girl who is going through puberty. She is having an increase in hormones and she has a menstrual system that is going to need more energy now that it is ready to start fully functioning. She is going to have increased hunger because her body is going to need more energy to power all of her systems. In the case of someone recovering from an eating disorder, your body is going to require a lot of energy to not only repair any damage done but to also keep systems running and to restart systems that shut down as a result of your body trying to stay alive. You see your body will start shutting down the non-life threating systems first. That is why you lose hair, your skin becomes dry, and your nails become brittle. It all shuts down in order to keep your brain firing signals and to keep your heart beating. So, when you reefed, it often has to repair the systems that broke IN ADDITION to starting them back up again, hence the need for higher energy diets during and even after recovery. With all this being said, hopefully I have helped ya'll see just how individualized nutrition can be. There is no one size fits all number and it is not just a simple equation. Our bodies are complex and so there is no simple explanation or simple equation to prescribe to people. If you get anything from this post I hope you can take away one thing, and that is to not feel tied down to some number. A number on a scale does not define you nor does the number of calories you eat define you. We are all different and unique and that means your intake will be different and unique from the person next to you.
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