Health
Understanding Energy In Your Diet Menu. Should You Limit Carbs Or Calories?
According to the energy balance equation, your body gains energy once you intake additional energy through your diet menu than you expend through physical activity.
That’s why the principal point of most diets is to limit your energy intake through the count of carbs or calories.
It looks like some years ago all of the " diet menu " was concerning count of calories and currently they’re all concerning limiting carbohydrates.
Two big questions:
But you should you limit carbs or calories on your diet Menu?
And, if they’re each unit of energy what’s the difference?
This article can discuss the distinction between carbs and calories, how they impact your diet, and how or why you should watch them?
1. Calories Are Energy, Right? Yes.
To set the record straight, carbs and calories are not both units of energy. We’ll begin with calories and discuss on carbohydrates in a very bit.
Calories are the units of energy, not carbs. A single calorie is that quantity of energy that it takes to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by one degree Celsius.
This is a really bit of energy, so when you read the nutrition label on your food, what they call “Calories” (with an upper-case C) is actually the number of kilocalories (that is, one thousand lower-case c calories). That doesn’t mean that the food firms are attempting to lie to you and push you to eat additional calories.
Calories or kilocalories
They do it because it'd be tedious and useless that you try to count actual lower-case c calories.
Don’t worry regarding keeping track of whether or not we’re talking concerning calories or kilocalories during this article though.
Because we’re talking concerning calories as a unit of energy, it doesn’t extremely matter which scale we’re talking about, as long as you perceive what calories are and why they’re important in our diet...
2. Carbs Are Energy, Right? No.
As mentioned higher, the carbohydrate isn't a unit of energy just like the calorie is.
The carbohydrate is a class of nutrient, along with proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water.
Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are all known as:
because the body will break all of them right down to release calories.
Of the energy-yielding nutrients, proteins and carbohydrates each release four calories per gram, while fat releases nine calories per gram.
3. Why Are Carbs So Special In Our Diet Menu?
You might be curious if fat contains over two times the calories per gram, why do all of these diets have us watching carbs?
And that’s a good question.
The first reason is that the average person has far more carbohydrates than fat in their diet.
We tend to consider carbohydrates as returning from grains, like alimentary paste and bread.
These are sources of carbohydrates, but carbohydrates also come from sugars.
Carbohydrate Food List
source: Yale School of Medicine
Breads: 15 gr carb | Fruits: 15 gr carb |
---|---|
1 slice of bread (any kind) 6 small breadsticks (4” long) ½ small bagel or ¼ deli bagel | 1 small apple, orange, pear, 4 fresh apricots 7 dried apricot halves |
½ English muffin ½ hot dog or hamburger bun 1 matzo ball 1 pancake or waffle (5”) ½ pita bread (6”) 1 small plain roll | 1 small banana or ½ large banana ¾ cup blueberries or raspberries 1/3 of a whole cantaloupe 1 cup melon cubes/balls 15 cherries 15 grapes |
1 tortilla (6”) 1/3 cup bread stuffing 1 small muffin | 2 figs 2 plums 2 tbsp raisins 1¼ cup strawberries 1¼ cup watermelon cubes/balls |
Cereals: 15 gr carb | Milk/Yogurt: 15 gr carb |
---|---|
½ cup bran cereal ½ cup granola ½ cup cooked cereal ¾ cup dry cereal (plain) ½ cup sweetened cereal 1¾ cup puffed cereal | 10 oz skim, 1%, 2% or whole milk ½ cup evaporated milk 1/3 cup dry milk powder 1 cup plain yogurt |
Pasta/Grains: 15 gr carb | Soups: 15 gr carb |
---|---|
1/3 cup cooked pasta 1/3 cup cooked rice ½ cup cooked grains | 1 cup broth based (chicken or beef with noodles) ½ cup bean, split pea or lentil 1 cup cream based soup |
Vegetables/Beans : 15 gr carb | Snacks : 15 gr carb |
---|---|
½ cup cooked beans 1/3 cup baked beans ½ cup corn or green peas 1 small baked potato ½ cup cooked potatoes 10 - 15 French fries ½ cup spaghetti sauce | 8 animal crackers 3 graham cracker squares 4 cups popcorn 4 round crackers ¾ oz pretzels 1 oz snack chips 6 saltine crackers |
Sweets : 15 gr carb | 15-22 gr carbohydrates |
---|---|
2” x 2” piece of cake (no icing) 2 small cookies 5 vanilla wafers 2” brownie ½ cup custard ½ cup sugar-free pudding 1 plain donut 1 small granola bar ½ cup ice cream or ice milk 1/3 cup frozen yogurt 1/8 of a pumpkin pie ½ of a twin Popsicle bar 2 tbsp light maple syrup 1 tbsp table sugar | 1 slice whole wheat bread 2 slices light bread 1 corn tortilla (6”) 6 saltine crackers or Triscuits® 50 goldfish crackers 12 to 18 small pretzels 1 cup unsweetened dry cereal 3 graham cracker squares 1 medium apple, orange or other fruit 2 rice cakes 1 cereal bar or granola bar 4 cups microwave popcorn 2 small or 1 large oatmeal cookies ½ cup canned fruit in natural juice ½ cup sugar-free pudding ½ cup low-fat ice cream 2 fig cookies 6 oz yogurt (artificially sweetened) 2 oz squeezable yogurt 10 oz low-fat milk |
1oz protein | Free Foods
|
---|---|
1 slice ham or turkey 1 slice cheese 1 string cheese 1 hardboiled egg ¼ cup nuts 2 tbsp peanut butter 4 oz low-fat cottage cheese ¼ cup tuna or egg salad 2 tbsp sunflower seeds | Sugar-free Jell-O® Sugar-free popsicles Cut-up vegetables and dip Any choice from protein list Diet soda Sugar-free gum Crystal Light® |
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