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What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

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Re: What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

#31

Post by moggie »

voidlogic wrote: post #29

I'm guessing this list as the same pitfall as food labels and is showing quantities based on the amount of energy (calories) in the raw material rather than using the amount of energy the human digestive system can actually exploit. For example while you might get nearly 200 calories of from 200 of white bread, you would only actually get 150 calories from 200 calories of many meats. I think that if nutrition labels…

How is the exploitable amount of calories determined, exactly? Is there a layperson-readable resource somewhere that you might recommend?

Re: What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

#32

Post by tocomment »

peterwwillis wrote: post #19
jwoah12 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think bagels are healthy? They're just a big, dense (delicious) ring of simple carbs.

They also have (on average) ~12g protein and 1.5g fat. At a little over 20% of the carbs you need per day, it's not going to ruin your diet, but could have an unhealthy effect on blood sugar levels in some people [ http://www.phlaunt.com/lowcarb/19060174.php ]

Are pumper nickel bagels much better? That's what I've been telling myself ...

Re: What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

#33

Post by peterwwillis »

rubyrescue wrote: post #14

One of the things I've enjoyed the most in the past 4 months has been diving into reddit.com/r/fitness. If you spend a few hours reading the FAQ on that site, plus examine.com's nutrition articles, and reddit.com/r/leangains FAQs, you will come out with a much better understanding of your diet. There are also calculators listed in the FAQs that will help you determine what you need to eat to maintain your bodyweight,…

to get enough protein if you're even moderately active, you have to eat A LOT - eggs, milk, meat, tuna

Any time someone specifies "A LOT" as a nutritional guide I get a little skeptical. Keep in mind when you're eating these foods the whole nutritional profile to determine if you're over-eating something (or filling yourself with LDLs). Try to balance the eggs, milk and meat with alternatives like quinoa, spirulina, lentils, bulgar, etc.

If you are going to go big on animal protein, naturally fed varieties generally have more vitamins and good fats. And of course, always drink whole milk vs the skim stuff (more vitamins + good fats - and it tastes better!!).

Re: What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

#34

Post by TeMPOraL »

anoncow wrote: post #30
drucken wrote: post #7

Easy way to remember, something bodybuilders know intimately: for 1g, Carbs = 4 calories Protein = 4 calories Fat = 9 calories Alcohol = 7 calories.

But aren't alcohol calories "empty"?

So? They still can make you gain weight:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_calorie

Re: What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

#36

Post by jgrahamc »

Some time ago I wrote about my own weight loss "program" which was fairly simple: http://blog.jgc.org/2010/01/johns-amazing-diet-secrets-revea...

Largely I cut down on carbohydrates (because I was stuffing myself with crap like Coke, sweets, etc.) and ate less in general.

Late last year I realized that I had put on weight again because of the same bad habits so I cut them out again and redid my "program". I now weigh 71kg which is very healthy for my height.

To be honest, a small investment in knowing the calorie and nutrient content of foods, cutting out processed and useless foods, and most importantly "listening to my stomach and not my mouth" made weight loss pretty easy for me.

The other important motivator was realizing the asymmetry between the effort required to insert calories in my mouth (100s of calories per minute are easy) and burn calories once in me (100s of calories per hour).

Re: What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

#37

Post by msluyter »

As someone who's successfully lost a lot of weight on a low carb / no grain diet, this chart irks me. That a handful of almonds has the same calories as a certain amount of Captain Crunch is irrelevant. The latter will quickly convert to glucose in your body, however, (unlike almonds) and that will make a huge difference in your satiety levels, insulin response (Hello, Metabolic Syndrome!), etc... [1]

Some good resources: http://whole9life.com/start/ http://thepaleodiet.com/

[1] Standard disclaimers. I'm not a nutritionist. This works for me. YMMV.

Re: What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

#39

Post by muxxa »

The idea that eating healthily can be simplified to the reduction in a single number (a calorific value) really annoys me.

Always remember that a calorie is a proxy metric, and a very poor one at that; it's the energy output of burning the food, which has very little correlation with what goes on in your body during consumption/digestion.

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