What is a caloric balance? The caloric balance is balancing your eating and your physical expending of the energy you intake from consuming food.
IN - OUT = BALANCE
Your Intake
As human beings, we consume food to produce energy. The amount of energy supplied by a given food is usually measured in calories (Cal). For example, a medium size apple contains 72 calories, a glass (250 mL) of 2% fat milk, 128, an egg (50 g), 78, and McDonald's Big Mac, 5632.
All the food you eat in a day is called the daily caloric intake (DCI). You can increase or decrease this number by eating more or less food. The average daily intake, in the US, was 2,618 calories for men and 1,877 calories for women in the year 1999-20003.
Your OUT The human body spends the energy drawn from food in basically two ways: to fuel the metabolism at rest and for physical activity.
Resting metabolic rate The resting metabolic rate refers to the energy your body spends when you're awake but inactive in a fasted state at room temperature. It is, basically, the minimum amount of energy it needs to keep your cells alive. That includes tissue regeneration, regulation of the body's temperature, breathing, blood circulation and filtering, and hormonal and nervous activity. These functions are carried out by your liver, brain, heart, kidneys and muscles; these organs and tissues stay active, even when you're not. Thus, even when you're resting, you're spending calories big time. Actually, you might be surprised to learn that, for most people, the resting metabolic rate is the largest source of daily energy expenditure.
Physical activity
You have to spend energy to do anything. Other things, that involve motion and work, use, of course, more energy. Whether it's moving from your bed to the
shower in the morning, from home to work or school, and so on. Even when
you're sitting or standing, your muscles spend energy so you can maintain
good posture. The amount of energy you spend that way in a day on what you do. Someone who does a lot of physical activity obviously uses more than someone who sits around all day. For example, people who bike to work use more than those who drive.
Sport and physical exercise also increase the
amount of energy spent on physical activity. For example, a 121 pound
individual would spend roughly 75 calories per hour when sitting, 200 when
shopping and about 450 when walking at a fast pace. Ultimately, physical
activity can account for between 20 (little or no physical activity) and 50 %
(athletic activity) of your daily caloric expense. In conclusion, the more physically active you are, the more physical activity increases your daily caloric output.
Interestingly, exercise affects your OUT in two ways: first, it raises your daily expenditure the days you train. Second, in the long run and as you slowly build muscle, it increases your resting metabolic rate. The fact is that a pound of muscle is a lot more "active", from a metabolic standpoint, than a pound of fat.
Muscle contracts when you move, as it is put to work when you exercise and
constantly rebuilds itself to keep at maximum ability for your daily movements. As we have seen, energy output can also be calculated in calories. Your daily caloric expense (DCE) is the sum of the energy required by your metabolism at rest in a day, plus the energy used to do other physical activity. - 15343
IN - OUT = BALANCE
Your Intake
As human beings, we consume food to produce energy. The amount of energy supplied by a given food is usually measured in calories (Cal). For example, a medium size apple contains 72 calories, a glass (250 mL) of 2% fat milk, 128, an egg (50 g), 78, and McDonald's Big Mac, 5632.
All the food you eat in a day is called the daily caloric intake (DCI). You can increase or decrease this number by eating more or less food. The average daily intake, in the US, was 2,618 calories for men and 1,877 calories for women in the year 1999-20003.
Your OUT The human body spends the energy drawn from food in basically two ways: to fuel the metabolism at rest and for physical activity.
Resting metabolic rate The resting metabolic rate refers to the energy your body spends when you're awake but inactive in a fasted state at room temperature. It is, basically, the minimum amount of energy it needs to keep your cells alive. That includes tissue regeneration, regulation of the body's temperature, breathing, blood circulation and filtering, and hormonal and nervous activity. These functions are carried out by your liver, brain, heart, kidneys and muscles; these organs and tissues stay active, even when you're not. Thus, even when you're resting, you're spending calories big time. Actually, you might be surprised to learn that, for most people, the resting metabolic rate is the largest source of daily energy expenditure.
Physical activity
You have to spend energy to do anything. Other things, that involve motion and work, use, of course, more energy. Whether it's moving from your bed to the
shower in the morning, from home to work or school, and so on. Even when
you're sitting or standing, your muscles spend energy so you can maintain
good posture. The amount of energy you spend that way in a day on what you do. Someone who does a lot of physical activity obviously uses more than someone who sits around all day. For example, people who bike to work use more than those who drive.
Sport and physical exercise also increase the
amount of energy spent on physical activity. For example, a 121 pound
individual would spend roughly 75 calories per hour when sitting, 200 when
shopping and about 450 when walking at a fast pace. Ultimately, physical
activity can account for between 20 (little or no physical activity) and 50 %
(athletic activity) of your daily caloric expense. In conclusion, the more physically active you are, the more physical activity increases your daily caloric output.
Interestingly, exercise affects your OUT in two ways: first, it raises your daily expenditure the days you train. Second, in the long run and as you slowly build muscle, it increases your resting metabolic rate. The fact is that a pound of muscle is a lot more "active", from a metabolic standpoint, than a pound of fat.
Muscle contracts when you move, as it is put to work when you exercise and
constantly rebuilds itself to keep at maximum ability for your daily movements. As we have seen, energy output can also be calculated in calories. Your daily caloric expense (DCE) is the sum of the energy required by your metabolism at rest in a day, plus the energy used to do other physical activity. - 15343
About the Author:
Carl Juneau teaches a magical combination of the best abs exercises and secret powerful cardio that gets you six pack abs in under 15 minutes per day. Visit his website to discover how to get a six pack.
