- What are the relationships between food and being overweight?
- What are calories and how do they relate to my overweight problem?
- What is meant by metabolism?
- What is my metabolism?
- What affects my metabolism?
- What to watch for to avoid being misled in “Dieting” advice when someone (or an advertiser) starts talking about changing your “metabolism.”
Just as cars burn gasoline to get energy to move, our bodies must “burn” or “metabolize” food to generate energy which produces heat.
The energy that results from burning or metabolizing food warms our body (normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees and comfortable room temperature is usually 70-75 degrees. The thing that keeps us going is the heat and energy from burning or metabolizing food.
The unit of heat that is used to measure our energy needs is called a “calorie.”
By scientific definition a calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 cubic centimeter of water 1 degree Celsius or centigrade.
As human beings come in a wide variety of sizes and compositions of tissues including muscle and fat the energy needs from food differ depending on the size, age, body composition and activity levels of the individual.
The food (or “energy” or “metabolism”) needs (in calories) on a daily basis for any individual can be calculated from the daily calories calculator: NOTE: You Should Calculate Yours!!
Please consider the following table with relates the number of calories burned over a specified time (30 minutes) and a person’s body weight:
