The Calorie Cost

In my last post I talked about metabolism or the rate at which our bodies burn calories but what is a calorie?  This website has a really good discussion of metabolism and calories.  Basically a calorie is a unit of measure like a foot or a mile.  Calories use to be used to measure heat but now it is mostly used to measure food energy.  So, more calories=more energy and the more energy you consume the more energy you need to use or it gets stored...as fat.  This article I found on Yahoo, again on the front page,  talks about ways to cut calories from your diet.  If you google calorie you can find several calorie counters here, here, and here are some of them that popped up on the front page when I did.  I like the last one because it mentions the USDA 2000 calorie diet and allows you calculate the number of calories you actually need.  By the way the amount it said I actually need is over the 2000 calories and it comes in at 2260 calories a day and that is with a sedentary lifestyle.  Now, this is the amount of calories it would take to maintain my current weight, which ast last check was 250lbs.  In researching the USDA 2000 calorie diet most of what I found was talking about eating 2000 calories the right way.  There is a big difference between getting your 2000 calories from fruits and veggies than from cakes and pies.  Here you can find more informationa about the 2000 calorie diet.  So, even though my calorie counter says I burn about 2260 calories a day the simple fact is that I need to burn MORE in order to lose weight.  Well, burn more or eat less...