What is energy balance?
Simple. It's when energy intake (food) equals energy used by the body. This balance is vital for weight management. Consume more energy than your body uses and the excess gets stored as fat. Use more energy than is consumed and your body starts to burn thses stored reserves and weight starts coming off.
How much energy do we need?
The energy we need depends on many factors but the main ones are body size and daily physical activity. The guideline daily amount (GDA) for men is 2500 kcal and for women is 2000 kcal.
- Fat provides 9 kcal/g
- Carbohydrate provides 4 kcal/g
- Protein provides 4 kcal/g
- Alcohol provides 7 kcal/g
What is the energy density of a food & why is it important?
Foods with high energy density- such as chocolate- provide a lot of energy compared to the same portion of low energy density foods- such as carrots.
Fill up on high energy dense foods and you are more likely to be overweight. Low energy dense foods help maintain a healthy body weight.
The energy density of a food portion is the energy (kcal) it provides, divided by its weight. Generally, foods that contain a lot of fat (and sugar) have a higher energy density that low fat (and low sugar foods).
- One apple (100g) provdies approximately 50 kcal
- The same weight of lard cheese provdies a whopping 416 kcal
How much exercise should I do?
Regular physical activity is a cornerstone of good health. It helps provide a number of health benefits such as maintaining a healthy heart, increasing bone density, preventing weight gain and improving mental health. Most expert bodies recommend that adults take a minimum of 30 minutes a day of moderate physical activity on five or more days a week. Splitting this into two 15 minutes or three lots of 10 minutes spread over the day is just as beneficial for most of the positive health effects.
Take a walk
Brisk walking is an easy way of hitting your exercise target. To increase your levels, why not use the stairs instead of the lift or walk to the shops instead of taking the car? Pedometers are a fun way of tracking how much walking your are doing.
Did you know?
- The body burns energy from alcohol in preference to energy from fat- so drinking a lot of alcohol leads to a greater amount of fat being stored
- Overweight and obese people have higher metabolic rates than lean people
- Doing regular physical activity can help reduce your risk of osteoporosis
