Page 31 - The Skinny On Your Diet Plan

The Role of Calories

What is the role of calories?
• We take in calories in the form of food. (Or, we can retrieve

previously stored food energy from our body’s tissues, such as our
fat or muscle tissue.)

• We expend those calories as energy to stay alive (i.e., metabolism),
to stay warm, to repair tissues, to replenish stored fuel, and to move.
• This relationship between calories in and calories out is known as

energy balance.
• Energy balance is the key element to consider when planning to lose
or gain weight.

Energy balance strongly affects our health, body composition, and
performance.

Energy balance determines our body weight.
• If we take in more energy than we use or excrete, we gain weight.

• If we take in less energy than we use or excrete, we loseweight.
• If we take in the same amount of energy than we use or excrete, we
stay the same.

This is true regardless of the macronutrient (fat, carbs, or protein)
composition of our diets, our specific food choices, what time of day we eat,

or any other details of our nutritional plan. That’s why this is the biggest

part of the pyramid. This basic relationship is simple.
But that doesn’t mean what occurs in between “energy in” and “energy out”

is simple. Or that energy balance is easy to change. (After all, if it were easy
to change, I’d be out of a coaching job.)

Many factors can affect energy balance, and consequently the results we get.

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