sportsdietpain

Each week I will talk about one of three main topics that this blog is about, meaning sports, pain or diet. So I have decided that this week I will talk a little about diet since there are so many myths and questions about it.

Let´s start with some basic stuff everyone should know about:

1 gram of fat contains = 9 calories

1 gram of  protein = 4 calories

1 gram of carbohydrates = 4 calories

1 gram of alcohol = 7 calories (empty calories)

1 pound of fat contains around 3,500 calories, for my European friends 1 kilogram = 2.2 pounds, so that means that one kilo of fat is more or less 7,700 calories.

An active man burns about 2,800 calories per day naturally, followed by active women  and sedentary men at 2,200 calories and sedentary women and older adults at  1,600 calories.

Given all this information we can see that loosing ¨FAT¨ is quite hard because it contains a lot of calories. So when you hear or read about these miracle diets that say ¨lose up to 8 pounds (3,6 kilos) in one week¨ or some other promise, you have to be careful because losing weight and losing fat is not the same thing. A lot of these diets cause you to lose weight because of water loss or protein (muscle) breakdown, not just because of fat. Remember ,1 pound of fat has 3,500 calories, so if you wanted to lose 8 pounds of fat in one week that would mean that you would have to burn 28,000 calories!! That´s 4,000 calories a day!! It´s almost impossible, unless you are running a marathon every day. So remember people, there are not such things as miracle diets and if you want to lose weight the ideal would be to lose around 1-2 pounds a week.

My next post will be about the metabolic rate. You always hear people saying ¨well I´m fat because I have a slow metabolism¨ or ¨I´m skinny because I have a fast metabolism¨, but does that really exist? I will talk about it in my next post.

Related articles

• What is the best way to lose weight? (strengthandgraceblog.wordpress.com)
• Best Vegetables For Dieting (weight-loss-tips-and-secrets.com)