Calorie is a common word used by many people. There is a misconception about calorie among people, in that they think calorie is a thing present in food and makes them obese. Calorie is a unit of energy, used to measure the increase in temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius.
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Calorie used for two unit of energy
We get 4.18300 joules from 1 calorie. Calorie is used for –firstly, small calorie or gram calorie- is an amount required to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. Secondly, large calorie, dietary calorie, food calorie is an amount that required to increase the temperature of 1 kg water by 1 degree Celsius.
Resting Metabolic rate in relation to calorie
Human body needs 1000 to 1800 kcal energy (calorie) to do the proper functions (heart beat, brain breathing etc) of our body .The minimum amount of calorie is called Resting metabolic rate(RMR).
Where does it come from?
The required amount of calorie is not same for every people, it varies depending on age, physical activities, sex, climate, pregnancy, lactation etc. Energy (calorie) is also required to maintain a high intracellular concentration of potassium and low concentration of sodium at our cell. Humans get their energy (calorie) mainly from fat (1gram fat =9kcal) and then get from carbohydrate (1gram carbohydrate=4 kcal) and protein (1gram protein=4kcal). We can measure the energy of any food by seeing its calorie value for our metabolic process.
Required amount of calorie to maintain body weight
Required amount of calorie is determined by one’s physical activities and basal metabolic rate.
- Sedentary worker-weight*12= estimated kcal/day
- Moderate worker-weight*15= estimated kcal/day
- Active worker-weight*22= estimated kcal/day
Calorie and weight gain -Relation
If one consumes more calorie than that of his/her requirement, he/she will gain weight. For example that if our body requires 1500 kcal energy (calorie) and we consume 2000 kcal then we can easily gain weight.
Calorie and weight loss-Relation
In order to lose weight one can consume low calorie foods. For example if our body requires 2000kcal energy and we have 1500 kcal energy every day we can lose weight from our body.
IMPORTANT THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CALORIE
Calorie gives us energy to survive (heart beat, breath). Different persons need different amount of calories. People expect to have low calorie food to maintain their body weight, but it is a wrong way to maintain body weight. On the other hand some people wants to have junk food, fried food, butter sandwich, fish oil etc. as a result of that they consume more calorie than that of their body’s daily need.
So, it is important to have proper amount of calorie that is required by our body .Otherwise some will become weak and some will become obese, with the risk of heart disease, diabetes etc. Additionally one should do yoga to burn his/her excess body calorie.