食用供应卡路里的食物对于供应人体提供能量以执行生活的基本功能，例如保持心脏跳动，以及一切都在马拉松比赛中进行。毕竟，卡路里是一个能量单位。卡路里跟踪app like MyFitnessPalis a useful tool for becoming more aware of dietary habits, staying accountable, and having a record of changes being made.
However,卡路里与卡路里的卡路里is a complex equation and should be used as a guideline along with other metrics to assess the quality of eating habits and especially as a tool for weight change.
这是关于卡路里计数的三件事：
YOU CAN’T ACCOUNT FOR EVERY SINGLE CALORIE
尽可能准确地通过称重食物和测量运动中的卡路里燃烧, it’s not going to be perfect. Consider the bite you leave behind but don’t adjust your log for or the cereal milk you didn’t drink, or how temperature, clothing choice and altitude affect exercise output more than your tracker accounts for, the每日压力水平affect your metabolic rate, or the您烹饪的香料can alter caloric absorption. Eating, digesting and utilizing calories is a very intricate process.
Another big factor isbioavailability and the thermic effect of food。这些是指可以在内部吸收的食物中的卡路里量，amount of energy it takes to digest and process those calories。食物的处理越多，输入它的越容易（多亏了标签），那么吸收这些卡路里就越容易。另一方面，全部和自制的餐点要做更多的工作来分解。因此，盘子上加工的食物较少，您输出的消化能量就越多，从该食物中吸收的卡路里就越少。
食物和运动提供的不仅仅是热量价值
就像健康一样规模上的数字未指示alone, the caloric value should also be thought of as a small part of a large health equation. One hundred calories from kale and 100 calories from donuts are very different things. These foods affect mood, satiety, digestion, habits,代谢和hormonesvery differently. Consistently choosing calories from energy-dense and less nutritive sources promotes weight gain more than consistently consuming the same calories from foods that are of higher nutritive quality. Exercise is the same — different workouts can result in the same caloric burn, but they do not have the same overall effect on health.
This matters for long-term weight loss as workouts that stimulate more internal adaptations, regardless of calorie burn, create a generally stronger andmore metabolically active bodyover time. When choosing foods to eat and workouts to do, aim to think of the long-term implications on overall health over the immediate caloric value.
LABELS CAN BE MISLEADING
The Food and Drug Administration allows nutrition fact labels up to 20% ‘wiggle room.’ This means that a serving of macaroni and cheese labeled as having 400 calories might actually have anywhere from 320–480 calories. Whileresearchshows the majority of labels on packaged snack food is 90% accurate, some items fall surprisingly outside that range. For example, a 2012 Rossen Report found a popular diet ice cream to have 46% more calories than reported on the label, while another similar variety had 16% more calories than reported. One of those is FDA legal, one is not, but both lead to frustration of stalled weight progress by contributing more calories than you are counting.
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