10 Surprising Facts about Calories

By Lisa Collier Cool
Jan 30, 2012

 

The latest scientific word is that it doesn’t matter which diet you choose: What counts is calories and if you eat too many of them—in whatever form—you’ll gain weight.
If that notion sounds a bit old-fashioned or runs counter to your latest weight-loss strategy, think again. A study published on Jan. 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows what happens when you consume too many calories. Researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center randomly assigned 25 healthy young men and women an extra 1,000 calories a day on a low-protein diet, a high-protein diet or a normal-protein diet for eight weeks.
The volunteers all gained about the same amount of body fat, regardless of which eating plan they followed. The moral of the story? If you’re trying to slim down, remember that calories still count.
Learn about the 7 dieting myths that may be dangerous to your health.
Here are 10 surprising facts about calories:

1. Why We’re Getting Fat

The average American eats 300 more calories daily than in 1985. Added sweeteners provide 23 percent of the extra calories; added fats provide another 24 percent.
Eating 300 extra calories a day for a year will pile on about 31 pounds. (Math hint: you have to eat 3,500 extra calories to gain one pound.) What’s more, one-third of Americans are getting nearly half of their daily calories from junk food, according the USDA.

2. Exercise Machines Lie about Calories

Don’t count on your treadmill to tell you how many calories you’re burning. A study from the University of California, San Francisco, found that, on average, exercise machines overestimate calories burned by 19 percent. The errors ranged from seven percent on a stationary bike to 42 percent on an elliptical machine.
For a more accurate count, experts suggest entering a slightly lower weight. You can also get a rough estimate of how many calories you’re burning per mile of running by multiplying your weight by 0.75. Multiply your weight by 0.53 for an estimate of calories burned per mile of walking.
Find out which diet plans work, and which you need to avoid.

3. Foods with Negative Calories

The idea here is that your body burns more calories in digesting certain foods, like celery, than the foods provide. Sorry. It’s just not so.

4. Fidget Away 350 Calories a Day

Lore from the famous fidgeting study has made the rounds since 2005 when a Mayo Clinic researcher showed that lean people burn 350 more calories daily than overweight people. That’s true, but twiddling your thumbs won’t do it.
The research actually showed that those lean people move more—they pace, they take the stairs, they spend two more hours a day on their feet than the not-so-lean. Try that and you may find yourself a lot lighter next year.

5. Low-Fat Doesn’t Mean Low-Cal

Feeling virtuous because you’re buying low-fat versions of your food favorites? Here’s an eye-opener: two tablespoons of reduced-fat peanut butter gives you 187 calories. The same amount of regular has 191 calories. Half a cup of fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt contains 100 calories, compared to 104 for the same amount of regular.

6. Most of Us Are Clueless about Calories

According to a 2010 survey by the International Food Information Council Foundation, only 11 percent of Americans can accurately estimate the number of calories they should consume daily for someone their age, height, weight and amount of physical activity.
Not you? Take this Pop Quiz: (1) How many calories are in two slices of pizza? (2) How many in a basket of chips at a Mexican restaurant? (Answers: 1) 1,000; 2) 550.)

7. Muffins v. Donuts

Which has more calories? That depends to some extent on the size of the muffin and the embellishments on the donut, but on average, the donut is likelier to be lower in calories, even if its fat content may not be desirable.

8. Serving Sizes Can Be Deceptive

It’s easy to be fooled by food labels, since some snack foods may look like a portion for one person, but list a calorie count based on three servings. That means you’re getting triple the calories you expected from eating the entire portion.
For foods like potato or corn chips, a serving size may be as little as one ounce, and few of us have the willpower to stop after such a small portion.

9. Kissing Burns 2 Calories Per Minute

So says Bryant Stamford, PhD, professor and director of the health promotion center at the University of Louisville.
For a more intense calorie blaster, lock lips in unusual positions, such as a yoga “plank pose,” or alternate smooches with pushups as your partner lies on the ground.

10. Sex Burns Even More Calories

A hot time between the sheets can torch 144 calories per half an hour—or more—and the longer lovemaking lasts, the greater the calorie burn.
Take these small steps to achieve long-term weight loss.
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Do you actually know the amount of calories you should be eating? Do you mentally count calories or actually write down all the foods you eat?