NationStates Jolt Archive

Why is it that whenever someone mentions that a snack has a number of "calories" with three digits, people act as if it's going to make them obese?

I was under the impression that daily calorie intake was supposed to be 2000 for women, 2500 for men. So if you eat, say, a 180 calorie donut, surely that still leaves you with 1820/2320 calories to eat that day? So, how does that make it unhealthy? The chemical make-up might make it unhealthy, but how does the 180 calorie energy content make it bad?

the amount of calories you need to maintain your weight depends on how much you weigh...
http://www.marathonguide.com/FitnessCalcs/Caloricneeds.cfm

as far as the actual calories, I don't know. I tend to look more at fat content on things I eat, and donuts are a bad thing, more than half of the calories in a donut come from fat, that's not something you should eat regularly.

for the record I have eaten 415 calories today, and 120 of them were from fat.

it's moronic. Calorie intake is mostly irrelevant. It is important what those calories come from, how much is junk and how much is actually useful nutrients.

We just happen to live in a society of morons, who are so obsessed with weight that they are willingly putting themselves at risk of death and illness for the sake of arbitrary numbers and made up impossible standards, hoping in gaining the ever illusive acceptance.

And if you're going on a diet, remember these few simple rules:

1. There are no calories in cookie fragments. Once a cookie has been broken all the calories leak out.

2. You will not gain weight if the person you are having lunch with eats more than you do.

3. No matter how many calories you consume at a meal, you can zero them out if you put artificial sweetener in your coffee.

4. Food that tastes bad has no calories.

5. Food eaten at the ball park (or any sporting event) has no calories.

You need the calories, but, there are good ones and bad ones, just as there are good and bad types of fat.

But, calories can either be more or less depending on the person and their metabolism and how their body receives the food. Some people have bodies that treat low-calorie food as high calorie food. The idea is to try and just find the food that offers "good" fats and calories.

for the record I have eaten 415 calories today

But you must eat more normally, right? I'm sure I heard on the radio a girl died from only having 500 a day. Or is it still early in the day where you are?

They're just lucky we use Calories.
Otherwise that donut would have 180000 calories.

Yeah, whatever genius decided that 1 Calorie = 1000 calories should be shot. Even if they're already dead.

They're just lucky we use Calories.
Otherwise that donut would have 180000 calories.

Yeah, whatever genius decided that 1 Calorie = 1000 calories should be shot. Even if they're already dead.

That's right, Just think about how much easier it would be if we used Joules!

Take that you metricists.

They're just lucky we use Calories.
Otherwise that donut would have 180000 calories.

how would the number of calories increase just because we don't use them?

That's right, Just think about how much easier it would be if we used Joules!

Take that you metricists.

Take what? Aren't calories already metric (hence "kilocalorie" an alternative name for "Calorie"). Also, joules would be easier, because no such "calorie/Calorie" problem exists.

But you must eat more normally, right? I'm sure I heard on the radio a girl died from only having 500 a day. Or is it still early in the day where you are?

it's about 2pm, I haven't had lunch even. Just breakfast, and a snack, I will eat lunch, then another snack, then dinner.

I will end up with about 1400 calories at the end of the day ;)

I usually eat about 1600-1800 calories a day. The page Smunkee linked to said that I need about 1700 calories a day, so that sounds about right, I guess.

there is nothing special about the calories in a doughnut. there are some bad effects of the sugars and fats but thats not the point.

if all you ate was 6 doughnuts every day you wouldnt get fat. it would, however, kill you if you did it long enough.

in a normal day of 2000ish calories you can waste 10% on crap food. but what about the coke you drank at lunch? what about the potato chips? its easy to add up way too many calories in junk food that dont provide good nutrition. either you end up not eating enough good food while keeping your calorie intake at a reasonable level or you take in too many calories while getting enough nutrients.

if your only food sin is to eat one doughnut every day while eating healthy the rest of the time, you will do just fine (as long as you dont have a chronic illness like diabetes.)

if your only food sin is to eat one doughnut every day while eating healthy the rest of the time, you will do just fine (as long as you dont have a chronic illness like diabetes.)

Actually, the donut was just an example. I'm not actually watching my calories, I just brought this up because I had been wondering for a while.

Looks like the consensus is that people don't like things with three-digit numbers of calories purely because the number sounds big.

Take what? Aren't calories already metric (hence "kilocalorie" an alternative name for "Calorie"). Also, joules would be easier, because no such "calorie/Calorie" problem exists.

I don't think so. I've always used joules for energy, including heat energy.

Why is it that whenever someone mentions that a snack has a number of "calories" with three digits, people act as if it's going to make them obese?

'cause they already ate 20 of them today

I don't know why people bother so much. I mean, I'm not stick thin but I'm no fat and I know I eat far too much chocolate and sweets but other than that I eat reaosnably healthy, don't count calories or fat and Ifeel healthy so what's the problem? So long as people don't eat nothing but junk food all day then can't people enjoy food without thinking of it as some sort of dreadful thing?

And if you're going on a diet, remember these few simple rules:

1. There are no calories in cookie fragments. Once a cookie has been broken all the calories leak out.

2. You will not gain weight if the person you are having lunch with eats more than you do.

3. No matter how many calories you consume at a meal, you can zero them out if you put artificial sweetener in your coffee.

4. Food that tastes bad has no calories.

5. Food eaten at the ball park (or any sporting event) has no calories.
I'd like to add to your list:

6. If you're at a restaurant, food that other people ordered has no calories. Feel free to have a bite or seven of your friend's dessert.

7. Chocolate chips eaten while making chocolate chip cookies have no calories.

8. Charity food has no calories, so you're fine with bake sale stuff and Girl Scout cookies.

9. There are no calories in the pizza, cookies or ice cream that you eat on your girls' night in.

10. Food on a toothpick has no calories. If you poke food with a sharp stick, all the calories fall out the hole.

The reason for calorie-obsession, fad diets, and indeed the whole obesity epidemic that's responsible for those problems is the rise of the industrial food system and our country's lack of a stable cuisine culture (read Michael Pollan's brilliant The Omnivore's Dilemma). If we ate as naturally as possible, eliminated the processed crap and endless corn/soybean derivatives from our diets, we would be healthy. The French traditionally soaked everything in a pound of butter for centuries and managed to be reasonably healthy until McDonalds showed up and brought with it industrial food. We are biological organisms supremely well-adapted to eating other biological organisms that gained their nutrients from still other biological organisms. Nowhere do synthetic chemicals or sophisticated refining processes enter the equation, until less than a century ago, and we haven't had the time to adapt to gaining our energy and nutrition from such a radically different trophic system, so it's no small surprise that we haven't reacted well, especially considering that it occurred more or less simultaneously with a sharp decline in physical activity and hours slept.

The thing about junk food is that it's very calorie-dense, due to the high percentage of fat in it.
A 180 Calorie donut would most likely have over 1/2 it's energy coming from fat - 90Cal is ~ 10grams of fat.
To make matters worse, the remainder pretty much comes from sugar.
To burn this amount of empty Calories off, you'd need to go for a walk for over 40 minutes.

You're getting minimal (if any) vitamins, minerals (aside from salt), fibre or complex carbs - in other words, all the good stuff needed to make your body stay healthy.

A 180Cal donut is bad for a few reasons:
1. If you're trying to maintain weight and have a set daily Cal intake, those 180Cal donuts are stopping you from eating healthy foods full of vitamins and minerals that equal 180Cal.
2. The high sugar content is going to elevate your blood sugar levels for a while and then crash them down again, making you hungry for more sugar - and thus more donuts. Thus one 180Cal donut can easily become 2, or 3, or 4...
3. 180Cal is ~10% of a person's diet. From one snack food. 10% of one's calorie needs coming from junk food ain't that good an idea. Is a donut going to give you all your energy needs to get through 2 1/2 hours (10% of a day)?
4. If you're already eating to maintain your bodyweight and then have a donut, that's 10 grams of fat (see above) pretty much being converted straight to bodyfat. 10 grams ain't much you say? Think about long term: 10 grams a day over 2 years = 16 pounds of fat consumed and deposited around your belly. 2 donuts a day? 32 pounds. 3? 48 pounds.