Everybody gets caught up with diets and macros and micros yet nobody really knows what a carb is or what fat really does in the body. They just read what the internet gurus say and consider that to be the truth. So What I am going to do for you is break everything down nice and easy in weekly segments for you. You can look forward to reading about food energy, metabolism along with what protein, carbs and fat really are.In todays blog I will discuss food energy & metabolism.
First lets discuss what energy is. Energy takes on many forms from kinetic, to mechanical to chemical to magnetic. The energy we are most concerned with as a living organisms is that of food. Most living organisms, if not all, rely on external sources of energy. As humans we get our energy from food which includes carbohydrates, fats and proteins. All of which play an important role in your diet. Therefore we will call this food energy. The amount of energy obtained from food is expressed in kilojoules or the infamous food calorie.
What is a calorie? Well I’m glad you asked because most look at a calorie as a bad thing when they don’t even know what a calorie is. There are two types of calories a small calorie and a large calorie. The small calorie is also referred to as a gram calorie. A gram calorie is, is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree celsius. A large calorie or kilogram calorie is, is the amount of energy needed to increase 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree celsius. Therefore one large calorie is equal to 1000 small calories or one kilocalorie. The calorie is an expression of the amount of energy per unit of mass or in other words calories per gram/serving. Your diet is usually based on your nutritional requirements and will be expressed as calories per day. Understand that the actual SI unit of food energy is the kilojoule for all of you that like science. A large calorie is equal to 4.184 kilojoules and thats where I will leave that. Please keep this paragraph in mind for the weeks to come when I discuss what macronutrients are.
Next on the topic of discussion is metabolism. Everybody loves talking about a fast metabolism or a slow metabolism yet have no idea what a metabolism is. What is a metabolism? Well, all the word metabolism does is describe all the chemical reactions involved in maintaining the living state of the cells and the organism. Now we can further break down metabolism into two categories. The first is catabolism which will actually use energy to breakdown a molecule to obtain energy. The second is anabolism which is the term used to describe the construction of components need by our cells. So catabolism means to breakdown and anabolism means to build. Simple. Thats all you need to and should worry about metabolism. Also you cannot speed up your metabolism with meal frequency. There is no evidence to show that you stroke the metabolic fire by eating more or that you need to eat more frequently to loss fat. If you have the evidence please share with the class.
Any questions, comments, concerns, limricks or one-liners leave them in the comments below.
Coach B
Coach B,
ReplyDeleteCan you elaborate on your point you made here for me please:
Also you cannot speed up your metabolism with meal frequency. There is no evidence to show that you stroke the metabolic fire by eating more or that you need to eat more frequently to loss fat. If you have the evidence please share with the class.
I'd appreciate the info!
Thanks,
Clare
Clare,
ReplyDeleteOne of the most common things we hear in regards to weight loss or even when we are trying to build muscle is that we need to eat frequently. While at first it seems logical, as every time you eat your metabolic rate will increase slightly for a few hours. So eat more frequently = higher metabolic rate = more calories burned. Makes sense when written but science proves otherwise. It takes energy to break down and absorb energy. This is known as the thermic effect of food.
Lets say you and your friend are both eating 3,000 calories a day. You in 3 meals and your friend in 6 meals in a 24 hour period. All 3,000 calories are from identical macronutrients. You eat 3 meals in the 24 hour period which is 1,000 calories per meal and your friend eats 500 calories per meal. At the end of this 24 hour period there is no difference in the thermic effect of food. The total amount of energy expended by the thermic effect of food will be identical in both the 3 meals and 6 meals. Here is why. We will assume that the thermic effect of food is 10% of the calories per meal. So you, Clare will have a thermic effect of food of 100 calories (10% of 1,000) and your friend will have a thermic effect of food of 50 calories. Well 3x100=300 calories/day and 6x50=300 calories/day. That is why you cannot trick the body into burning more or less calories by manipulating meal frequency.
There was a study in 1997 and there have been no studies to refute it. It stated ""Studies using whole-body calorimetry and doubly-labelled water to assess total 24 h energy expenditure find no difference between nibbling and gorging". They compared the thermic effect of food during meal frequencies from 1-17 meals.
Coach B
[...] everybody has time to digest the previous blog on nutrition (pun intended.) If not please go read it so you are all caught up for this [...]
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