Member Since: July 5, 2005
Answers: 62
Last Update: December 9, 2005
Visitors: 5508
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Hello
1.I am on a diet and my mom bought me these chewy wholesome granola bars. I dont know if alot of people eat them...but are bad for you?
2.How many calories and carbs should i have a day for sufficent weight loss?
Will rate 5's and send feedback:)
Thanks (link)
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1. They're probably good to eat, but if you want to know for certain, read the ingrediants and look up anything that looks unfamiliar.
2. Carbohydrates are almost irrelevent; they're just a specific form that nutrition comes in. As for calories: eat less than you use in a day. And, contrary to what you may have heard, it's not a matter of straight addition; your body is not 100% efficient, so not all (or even most) of your unused calories will become fat, and your fat will not be converted to energy in a linear fashion with regards to your activity level.
Calories, as you probably know, are a measure of energy. The number of calories in a food that you read on the food packaging is determined by literally burning the food; the amount of heat energy produced is the total amount of energy in that given food, and so is equal to the number of calories. But here's the thing: when you eat food, your body does not metabolize all of it, or even most of it. That's why humans defecate; there's always stuff left over. What your body DOES metabolize is used for construction materials, of sorts; building or rebuilding cells. Some of it is used for energy. And some of that energy, which is not used, is stored as fat, either in fat cells that already exist or by creating new fat cells. Fat cells, of course, make you fat. However, when you lose weight by getting rid of fat, you're not actually getting rid of the fat cells; just some of the stuff inside of them. That's why it's easier to gain weight than it is to lose it.
But none of that answers your question, although it's necessary to understand. Basically, what you have to do is find out how your own body metabolizes food; everyone is different. Some people eat alot, but don't put on much weight. Some people eat very little, but store all of it as fat. Thus, you have to observe how your own eating habits affect your weight. Then, using that as a guideline, you can determine how much you should be eating.
But if you still want to count all your calories, here is an example of the most anal way to do it:
Say you do pullups, and your arms are 2 feet long. And, let's say for example that you weigh 120 pounds. The amount of calories used for a single pullup is:
120 * 0.45356 * 2 * 0.3048 * 0.00418400 * 9.8 = 1.360437838147584 Calories.
This is from the equation "energy= mass*gravity*change in height", converting for imperial units and converting energy units from joules to Calories.
But no one is that anal. It does show you, though, that to get rid of that donut, you really do have to do hundreds of pullups. Yow.
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