subject: Nutrition and Empty Calories [print this page] Nutrition and Empty Calories Nutrition and Empty Calories
Making Each Calorie Count For Weight Loss: Nutrition and Empty Calories
Not all calories were created equal; when you are trying to eat healthy and lose weight, you need to look for food that is low in calories and high in vitamins and minerals. The term empty calories refers to calories that have little in the way of nutrition to accompany them other than just the calories. Eating these foods is not a good idea when you are trying to lose weight, as these foods usually have a high caloric density - a term that refers to how many calories a food has compared to how large the food item is.
For example, a large baked potato that weighs 300 grams - a little over half a pound - has about 280 calories. Compare this to 300 grams of potato chips which has around 1650 calories. Potato chips have around six times as many calories in them per gram compared to the potato that they came from. Therefore the potato chips have a much higher caloric density than the potato. All the fat added in the frying process contributes a huge amount of calories while adding little in the way of vitamins and minerals. Choosing to eat potatoes over potato chips will help you lose weight simply by virtue of the fact that it you will stuff yourself and be unable to eat anymore before you have totally blown your diet for the day by eating way too many calories.
Fats and simple carbohydrates like sugar and high fructose corn syrup are the two main sources of empty calories. They're both chief components in junk foods like candy bars, which have tons of calories but not a whole lot going for them in terms of vitamins. You should refrain from eating empty calories as much as possible when trying to lose weight; they add a lot of calories to your daily intake, don't give you the recommended amount of vitamins and minerals, and don't keep you full for very long compared to the amount of calories you are consuming because they have a high caloric density.
A good way to check which food will keep you feeling fuller longer is to look at the fiber content of the food. Fiber is great for people who are trying to lose weight because it fills you up without contributing any calories. Fiber is a carbohydrate that can't be processed by your body for energy, so it can never be stored as fat; however, it still adds weight to the food and therefore helps keep you feeling full. It's important to get a good amount of fiber in your diet for digestive reasons too; fiber greatly aids in the proper functioning of your digestive system. Fiber is usually found in whole grains, fruits and vegetables.
It takes a period of time to adjust to eating vegetables rather than going immediately for the convenient, tasty junk food when you're in a hurry. However, if you go cold turkey and stop buying and eating junk food entirely than your taste buds will naturally change to where you don't mind the taste of vegetables anymore and may even come to enjoy it!
