There would not have been a single day in your life since adulthood, that has passed without a few thoughts about food. Yet how many of us have given sensible thought to food and given it the reasonable attention it deserves. This in itself is quite fascinating, considering the fact that we cannot survive without food. Anyway, you deserve a pat on the shoulder because you have decided to increase your weight. To better understand the chemistry of weight gain, let’s dive into the minutiae related to calories, energy, body mass index, and the like.
The energy that a given food can release during metabolism is measured in calories per gram.
One calorie (cal) is defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 degree Celsius. Nutritionists measure the energy content of food in kilocalories (1 kcal = 1000 cal) and calories. Normally, an adult requires 1,200 to 1,800 calories a day to maintain basic life processes, and an additional 50 to 150% of this amount to meet the energy requirements of physical activities. In other words, the calories consumed also differ depending on the activities.
A sleeping person spends between 50 and 75 cal/h. A person doing other activities like swimming, playing basketball, or shoveling snow can consume ten times as much, or even more. One pound (0.45 kg) of body fat is equivalent to almost 3,500 calories of stored food energy. Calorie intake increases in direct proportion to body weight. Your body gains or loses weight depending on a simple formula. If you are taking in more energy through food than your body actually burns, then you are likely to gain body weight. Therefore, this main rule ensures that you should consume more calories than you expend through work, exercises, and bodily activities.
I would like to say from my experience that there is a basic Principle of Nutrition that is universally true. In its most simplified form, the basic Health equation can be written as Health = Nutrition + Calories. There is no shortage of information on health and nutrition. In fact, it is this abundance of literature that often perplexes one about how healthy good nutrition could make people, and how much deviation from ideal nutrition we could allow ourselves.
Remember, KNOWLEDGE is crucial during your weight gain process.