Its not all about the calories

Today the headlines are about reducing calories in processed and takeaway foods, and encouraging people to choose the lower calorie options.

The report also states that women should not consume more than 2000 calories per day, however everyone is not equal and into todays more sedentary life styles, daily calorie requirement are actual lower for the majority of people.  Height and age also effect the calories required, for example Susan burned 2200 calories last Sunday, but that included a 10k run, compared to Thursday where the only exercise was a 2 mile dog walk and she burned 1600 calories, so without the exercise Susan’s daily calorie requirement would be much lower than the average quoted.  It’s not good to get too worried about daily calories but look at it on a weekly basis as quite often it will all balance out and stop any unhealthy relationships with food.

Every person has an individual daily requirement, your basic metabolic rate (BMR) this is the daily calories that your body requires to stay healthy and not lose weight assuming you didn’t leave your bed all day, however these calories should be nutritious and not empty calories.  Your  individual total calorie requirement will then be based on how active you are in the day, the more active the more calories you will require to stay at your current weight, if you are trying to lose weight lower your calorie requirement by 200/300 calories per day.  Apps such as fitbit or my fitness pal, allow you to calculate your BMR and then track your food intake to allow you to have a rough idea (they will not be scientifically accurate) of your calories in compared to your calorie out, tracking food over the course of a week is a good idea, it makes your more mindful of foods that you are eating and looks at the macro nutrients balance as well. The three macronutrients (Carbohydrates, protein and fat) all have their own specific roles and functions in the body, and all supply us with calories or energy. For this reason, the body requires these nutrients in relatively large amounts to grow, develop and continually thrive. Remember macro means large, though many diets the proportion is out we eat far higher carbohydrates and proteins than required and too little fats. Healthy fats are an essential part of our diets, good fats come from nuts and seeds and their oils and oily fish.

If you rely on processed meals, its important to not just go for the lowest calorie option, in the long run this may not be the best for your health.   For example a ham sandwich on white bread is 275 calories, this is processed meat, giving 42% of your daily sodium, 9% of fibre, 33% of your protein, wheres as a wholemeal chicken sandwich with lettuce is 328 calories per serving, however sodium is 6% of daily requirement, fibre 22% of daily requirement, 60% of daily protein, along side having a portion of salad and benefits of B vitamins in the bread a far better choice.