Question about calorie counting

[semag]

Ok... I had a quick question about counting the calories, due to the fact that the guides are pretty clear on calorie amounts...

The basic amounts are (please correct me if I'm wrong):

4 cals / gram of protein
4 cals / gram of carb
9 cals / gram of fat

So then.. you take those, multiply them out...say you get

54 -cals fat
224 -cals protein
80 -cals carbs

Then, do you just add those up? Or do you add in the calories that the product has as well? So would it be as above, or like this...



400 cals
54 -cals fat
224 -cals protein
80 -cals carbs

Thanks for input ...

 

[GuitarDreamer131]

bump, I'd like to know this too...I'm confused on this as well

 

[stallion]

hey semag

The caloric count for protein,carb, and fat is a good rough estimate on how much calories they provide.

The reason why we count each calories is to see if we're eating the right balance, that is.

55% carb, 15% protein, and roughly 30% fat (try to eat the healthy fats like HDL - fish and plant oil fat.) of the total calories you take per day.

Based on the foods, carbs, proteins, and fat's real calories vary.

So for carbs, you may have 3.7 kcal. instead of 4 or I've sometimes even seen 4.8 to almost 5 kcal! It all depends on the food that its found in and don't ask me why, because I haven't studied that much yet....

So if you're only interested in the total calories you eat, go for the product calories, not through the components.

Oh, one note on protein. Taking excessive proteins are futile. I think you only need 150 mg per day and you piss the rest of them out of your body.

 

[Alpha male Female Catcher]

Originally posted by semag

Then, do you just add those up? Or do you add in the calories that the product has as well? So would it be as above, or like this...

400 cals
54 -cals fat
224 -cals protein
80 -cals carbs

The short answer is you don't add the 400 cals to the cals in fat, protein and carb. The 400 cals is the total calories not some mysterious 4th source of cals. Cals not present as fat, proteins, or carbs (sugars are a type of carb albeit a simple one) are not present at all. The exact calories per carb or protein will vary depending on precisely which carbs or proteins we're talking about (they're not all identical) so the total cals should give an even more acurate measurment of totals cals in the product than simply multiplying the number of cals per protein by the amount of protein etc (not that that is a bad method).

What Stallion says is pretty much correct but I would just point out that he probably means 150g not 150mg although the exact amount depends on body weight (recommendation are usually somewhere between 1 and 2 g of protein per kg of body weight).
Also unused protein unfortunatley isn't necessarily urinated out (though unused vitamins are) but rather it gets stored as fat (though some proteins that are products from muscle breakdown due to heavy exercise do get urinated out).

 

[semag]

All right... thanks, that helps a lot

 

[DJ Wez]

Originally posted by stallion

Oh, one note on protein. Taking excessive proteins are futile. I think you only need 150 mg per day and you piss the rest of them out of your body.

I think you mean grams?