Weight & Watch

Weight management is all about keeping things simple and sustainable, writes Rahul Gopal

Demystifying most things associated with eating for whatever maybe your health goals is a good way to set the ball rolling when it comes to weight management. This can be achieved by going a little bit into science and breaking things down into smaller actionable components.

Before getting started on a new way of eating, it would be prudent to understand the following terms:

Calorie

Macronutrients

Energy Balance

Calorie

The technically correct term is kilocalories (kcal), or Calories with a capital “C”, though, for the sake of colloquial speech, we’ll stick with the better-recognised spelling. A kilocalorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. When we measure the number of calories in a certain food, then, we are attempting to ascertain how much energy it contains.

Macronutrients

Macronutrients are comprised of protein, carbohydrates and fats. These are nutrients that the body requires in large amounts. Macronutrients are not to be confused with micronutrients, which are vitamins and minerals such as iron, zinc, vitamin C, and vitamin D that are needed in minute quantities. The three macronutrients by definition have a specific number of kilocalories per gram.

Protein: 4 kcal/gram

Carbohydrates: 4 kcal/gram

Fats: 9 kcal/gram

Fibre (a subset of carbohydrates): approximately 2 kcal/gram.

Alcohol (a non-nutritive macronutrient, almost as calorie-dense as fat): 7 kcal/gram.

Energy balance

Energy cannot be destroyed. It can only be transformed into a different form. The above basically summarises the first law of thermodynamics (‘movement of energy’) and the principle of conservation of energy. The principles of energy balance are:

If you consume more calories than you expend, your body stores energy and you gain weight.

If you expend more calories than you consume, your body loses energy and you lose weight.

If you are in energy balance, you remain weight stable.

If you understand the above, it’s easy to see that any diet that’s out there promoting itself to be the best at fat loss, simply involves taking in lesser energy than is required by your body. Now, the trick is to do it in a way that’s sustainable to you and your lifestyle and not go mad with hunger!

(The author is a Chennai-based Sports Nutritionist, Strength and Conditioning Coach and Mobility Specialist. He is also a professional drummer and has a love of all things cats and martial arts.)