Food / Nutrition / Diet - Weight Loss -

Calories count: With caveats

3,500 Calories = One pound

Weight loss in the body—your body—is the function of many factors, including:

  • What you eat, how much you eat, when you eat
  • Genetics
  • Physiology (metabolism)
  • Age, health status, size

Across all of these factors, though, without regard to South Beach or carb lovers or French women who do or don't get fat, there is one constant...

Calories do count: Type, amount, and how many get burned

3,500 calories, in body weight terms, equals one pound. One of the very first important steps in understanding weight, whether it is weight gain or weight loss, is an awareness of the foods we eat, the calories contained, the nutrients and substances included in those calories, and the amount of energy required to burn them. Knowing the basic parts of this math equation is the most lasting and valuable secret to healthy weight loss and good weight management and maintainence.

To keep your body weight exactly the same tomorrow as it is today, the energy you expend in all of your daily (and nightly) activities—breathing, walking, sleeping, yelling at the neighbor's dog—needs to equal exactly the energy that you consume as calories.  

  • Expend more than that amount of energy, and you lose weight. 
  • Consume less than that number of calories, and you lose weight. 
  • Either way, or both, you lose weight.
  • The ideal way, for health and also for weight loss success over time, is both.

All calories are not created equal

Think of it like the golden rule. Basically there are good calories and there are not-so-good calories. The overall goal is to consume a high percentage of good calories (whatever a specific number is for one's plan) and as low as possible a percentage of the not-so-good calories. So how to tell the good from the not-so-good? We want to get the most bang for the buck—we are looking for nutrients, and specifically those substances which are healthy and healthful. Carbohydrates are nutrients, and so are protein and fats. Vitamins and minerals are nutrients. Herbs contain nutrients of various types. But more specifically, we want to look for foods that contain a variety of nutrients, or the right nutrients, for less calories.

Take the simple bean—it's great in soups, by itself, boiled, raw, dressed up or dressed down. It's also an excellent source of many nutrients and good-for-you substances without a lot of calories (also called " nutrient dense"). Carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, protein, potassium, fiber, low in fat and often sodium...the bean is a great example of good calories and bang for the buck.

Thankfully, most all of the food we purchace at the grocery store today contains the Nutrition Facts label as required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Nutrition Facts list not only the ingredients contained in the food, but also calories, nutrients and the % Daily Value (DV) based on a typical 2,000 calorie daily intake as an average. So to get the bang for your buck on calories, look at the Nutrition Facts label. See many nutrients listed above 5%? Good. One or two above 20%? Great. 

Relatively low in calories, or lower than similar choices?  Wonderful.