Calories: Do They Count?

By Amy Campbell I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. No doubt, you enjoyed some familiar favorites: turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes…perhaps a slice of pie. And you probably thought, at least a little bit, about how much you were eating (certainly important if you have diabetes), and you may even have wondered about how many calories you consumed. According to an article that I read on The New York Times Web site, the average Thanksgiving Day calorie intake is 4500, which is equal to eating seven Burger King Whoppers. Wow! What are calories? I think most of us would agree that 4500 calories is a lot. Consider that a moderately active man needs, on average, about 2400–2800 calories per day to maintain his weight, while a moderately active woman needs about 2000–2200 calories a day. Of course, calorie needs vary from person to person, depending on a number of factors. What are calories, anyway? Calories are a unit of measurement indicating how much energy we get from food. Only three nutrients in food contain calories: carbohydrate, protein, and fat (vitamins and minerals have no calories). Alcohol contains calories too, but it's not a nutrient. Carbs and protein have 4 calories per gram, fat has 9 calories per gram, and alcohol has 7 calories per gram. We all need calories. Calories indicate how much fuel the body has to do things, like walking, raking leaves, and even sleeping. But keeping calories in check requires a balancing act between k...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs