Tuesday, February 12, 2008

How Many Calories Do You Need?

Think of your energy requirements as a bank account. You make deposits when you consume calories. You make withdrawals when your body spends energy on work. Nutritionists divide the amount of energy you withdraw each day into two parts:
  • _ The energy you need when your body is at rest
  • _ The energy you need to do your daily “work” To keep your energy account in balance, you need to take in enough each day to cover your withdrawals.
As a general rule, infants and adolescents burn more energy per pound than adults do, because they’re continually making large amounts of new tissue.

Similarly, an average man burns more energy than an average woman because his body is larger and has more muscle, thus leading to the totally unfair but totally true proposition that a man who weighs, say, 150 pounds can consume about 10 percent more calories than a woman who weighs 150 pounds and still not gain weight.

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