This week I’m going to follow on from last week’s article in which I talked about metabolism, by talking about calories.

Calories are the unit of energy in the food and drink we consume.

We all need a certain amount of calories (energy) each day for our body to function properly.

As I mentioned last week, we all have a different Basal Metabolic Rate (metabolism) so we all need a slightly different amount of calories each day, depending on our age, size, exercise levels, sex etc.

These calories come from everything that we eat and drink.

In order to maintain a steady weight we need to consume around the same amount of calories that we use.

If we regularly consume a higher amount of calories than we use then we will gain weight, if we consume slightly less than we use then we will lose weight (however if we consume much less this will have a negative effect and may also slow our metabolism down to make gaining weight much easier in future).

Do you know how many calories you consume each day? Do you know how many you should consume? Why not ask a health or fitness professional how many calories you should be consuming.

Take a week to have a look at how many calories are in the food and drink you consume and add them up.

Then have a look at how many calories you burn during exercise.

There are numerous mobile phone Apps available and websites to help with counting calories these days and packaged food will state their calorie content.

You may be surprised by some of the foods, even drinks, that you think are healthy as they say “low fat” on the packaging but have hidden sugars to make them taste better, and with that, lots of extra calories.

Try keeping a food and exercise diary for a week and see what your results say, you may be surprised!