How Many Calories in a Pound?
Written by Sky Taylor, Diet Bites
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One pound represents 3,500 energy calories.
For example, one cup of cucumber with the peeling left on contains 16 energy calories.
In order to gain one pound of true weight, an individual would have to eat about 219 cups of cucumber over the amount of energy that their body requires for the day, after the activity has been put into the equation and balanced.
To clarify, George's body requires 2,000 calories per day.
If he were to consume this amount of energy, in addition to 219 cups of cucumbers - those excess calories are looked upon by the body as sources of energy.
The body is very frugal and allows nothing to waste, particularly when it comes to precious energy. Therefore, it takes all of those spare calories and stores them in cells - commonly known as the notorious fat cells.
The same would apply had the extra energy come from donuts, cupcakes, apple pie, hot buttered popcorn and so forth.
While the cucumber is the most healthy of these food selections, the body still sees 'energy' along with the nutrients and vitamins contained therein. When it sees any of the other foods, which pale greatly in comparison to our healthy cucumber, it still sees 'energy' and of course, it doesn't see many vitamins and nutrients in the less than stellar food choices.
Although every drop of energy fed into the body counts - the body manages to adjust quite nicely.
Let's face it - even if we carefully calculate each bite of food and liquid that we put into our daily diet and then we turned around ate exactly that amount every day to stay or achieve our recommended weight - even then, the caloric values would slightly differ.
For example, pineapples or oranges or grapefruit - avocados, dates, figs and so forth are not all equal in caloric content, even if they are the same species.
Where they are grown, the climate - temperature and soil will impact the number of calories contained therein.
But for argument's sake, let's assume that we can design a daily diet plan that contains the same number of calories each and every day.
The Human Body's Set Point
Then one day, let's assume that we eat a carrot - and then the next, we splurge on something else. The body requires more than a carrot or even an occasional splurge for its 'set point' to move.
Note how most people don't calculate daily calories and balance them, yet they remain at basically the same weight - even when they are overweight.
It's the body's set point in action - and it takes a little jolt to move it; that's just one reason why you shouldn't become frustrated at the beginning of your weight loss plan - because once it moves, so will your weight.
In Summary: While calories equal energy to the body and add up to form pounds, the body requires a slight push to move its set point; therefore, when slight changes are made to the daily diet there may be no - or very minimal weight shifts.
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