Nutrition 101

So much confusion out there as far as nutrition goes. What to eat? How many calories? Do I need vitamins? It can be a never ending saga for a lot of people. Todays topic is going to be about calorie counting. There are a lot of different approaches with this, but I am going to stick with calories per gram. Lets start with a short introduction on macronutrients. These are carbohydrates, protein and fats. Basically, macronutrients are the chemical components of nutrients we consume the most of. Not all macronutrients are created equal so lets take a closer look. Carbohydrates and protein have 4 calories per gram, while fat has 9 calories per gram. So it doesn’t take a whole lot of math to figure out that fat has more than double the amount of calories per gram than carbohydrates and protein. A typical small meal might have 50 grams of carbohydrates, 20 grams of protein, and 10 grams of fat. Simply multiply the 50 grams of carbohydrates by 4, the protein grams by 4 and the fat grams by 9 , add them up after multiplying and you come up with 370 calories.