Calories

The human body uses energy in order to function. Shocker, right? That energy is expressed in calories which you can think of as fuel. We have two primary sources of fuel and those are food and drinks and our expenditure of energy happens in 4 main ways.

1. Basic biological functions. This category of expenditure entails all of the functions that keep you alive such as heart function, brain function as well as organ function and even breathing. This is also known as BEE which stands for basal energy expenditure. Simply put, you would burn this many calories if you did nothing but lie in your bed.

2. Physical activity is the easiest mean of energy expenditure to understand. This would activities such as walking, jogging, running, swimming, gym, playing or training a particular sport. As long as you purposefully move, you will need energy.

3. NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis). Simply put, this kind of energy expenditure represents the sum of all smaller movements we make. Things like fidgeting, hand gestures during talking or any unconscious movement.

4. Thermic effect of food. Essentially, this means that we need energy in order to process food and while it may sound strange that we need calories in order to digest calories, it also makes sense if we take into account the complexity of the digestion process. It should be noted here that some food groups require more energy in order to be digested and the best example of that are protein-rich foods like meat.

When you add these 4 together you get TDEE – total daily energy expenditure. Why is this important? It is important simply because it is at the core of any weight change. If you desire to increase your weight, you need to take in more calories than you use and we call that a calorie surplus. In case you want the opposite effect, weight loss, you need to consume fewer calories than you use and that state is called a calorie deficit. TDEE is also sometimes referred to as maintenance calories because if you were to consume calories equal to your TDEE you would basically see no change in your weight. This principle is based on the first law of thermodynamics and there is no living organism that is an exception to this principle.

If you remember one thing from this text, then it should be the following: every single diet leads you the state of being in a calorie deficit, in one way or the other, and it is this calorie deficit that causes your weight loss, no other effect is at play. The reason I emphasize this so much is because I want you to be aware of the fact that there are no magic diets, no food or drink that has supernatural properties and effects. It happens way too often that people sell products and programs which claim that they offer the only way to lose weight and that could not be further from the truth. The only thing that makes you lose weight is being in a calorie deficit, but getting to the calorie deficit can be achieved in many ways. My advice to you is that you first educate yourself on nutrition and what eating healthy actually is.

Before we summarize this text, I would like to address a very important note and that is that I only spoke of weight change and not fat loss. The composition of your body will largely depend on a multitude of factors such as type and amount physical activity, nutrition, genetics, lifestyle and so on.

Here is a brief recap of the piece:

1. Our bodies need energy in order to function and we get that energy from food and drinks
2. There are 4 types of energy expenditure which when added up give us our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)
3. If you consume fewer calories than you burn you will lose weight and if you take in more calories than you need your weight will increase