Calculating Fat & Calories in Foods

Calorie control is a necessary part of losing weight. That's the consensus of nutritionists, dieticians and all clinical weight loss studies. When you count calories, you become aware of which foods are high or low in calories and that helps you make good choices about what to eat. There are more than twice as many calories in a gram of fat as there are in a gram of protein or carbohydrates, so it's smart to calculate both fat and calories in your diet.

Calculating Calories

• Even if you do nothing, your body is still consuming calories to do its work. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the consumption of no less than 1,200 calories a day for this reason. Most adults burn more than 1,200 calories a day. But as long as you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. One pound of body fat contains approximately 3,500 calories. Without taking exercise into account, reducing your caloric intake by 3,500 calories will result in weight loss of one pound.

  A healthy diet combines high-calorie, medium-calorie and low-calorie foods. Fats are high-calorie foods. Lean meat, pasta, rice and reduced-fat dairy are medium-calorie foods. Fruit and vegetables are low-calorie foods. Foods such as sugar-filled carbonated sodas and candies are often called empty-calorie foods since they have little nutritional value. While there are no foods that have negative calories, a negative-calorie diet is based on foods that increase your metabolism, which burns more calories.

  Weight loss studies prove that people who keep a food and exercise diary lose weight and maintain that weight loss better than people who don't keep track of what they eat. Counting calories can be a valuable tool in conjunction with a dieting diary.

  There are online resources for calorie counting and reference books to help. Labeling of certain foods can tell you easily about calorie content. If you see the words "Calorie Free" that means that there are fewer than five calories per serving. "Low Calorie" means that there are no more than 40 calories per serving. "Reduced or Fewer Calories" means that the item contains no more than 25 percent of the calories found in the normal version of that food.

Calculating Fat

• The body processes fat differently from the way it processes protein and carbohydrates. It takes less energy to convert eaten fat into body fat than it does to convert protein and carbs to body fat. Not only that, but carbs and protein contain 4 calories per gram of weight while fat contains 9 calories per gram. Most dieticians recommend that fat comprise 20 percent to 30 percent of your total food calories. They also recommend replacing animal fats with vegetable fats or oils.

  For all these reasons, it makes sense to keep track of the fat you eat. It's important to look beyond the fat percentage listed on the labels in order to calculate how much fat you're eating. For example, whole milk is 3.5 percent fat, which doesn't sound like a lot. But every cup of milk contains eight grams of fat or 72 calories (8 grams x 9 calories per gram of fat).

Caution: Low Fat Can Be High Calorie

• Watch out for low-fat or fat-free foods. While they might be low in fat, they're often high in sugar. That means they can be high in calories and low in nutrition.