Calories vs Kilojoules

Some of you may know that a Calorie (cal) is the unit of measure to describe the approximate energy necessary to raise one gram of water by one degree Celsius at a pressure of one atmosphere. Did you know that we actually use large calories (Cal)or thousands of those when measuring our food intake? This is equal to a kilocalorie (kcal). While some companies use large calories (Cal) still today, in Australian university, we use kilojoules (kJ). The joule being the accepted unit within the construct of the International System of Units. Just FYI, 1 Cal is generally accepted to equal 4.2kJ.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because energy matters.

The easiest way to build muscle is to maintain energy through nutrition, greater than the metabolic requirement through basal metabolism and activity whilst performing muscular contractions under load which promote a response.

The easiest way to lose weight is to maintain an energy deficit.

So if you're aiming for either of these goals, it may be an idea to keep an idea on your energy intake and expenditure.

Let's focus on intake.

Get an app or a professional ... or both.

These days it is so easy to track your food intake, no need to log a physical food diary and then calculate the energy from there, it is possible now to scan bar codes off of packs before you eat (please do this before you eat if you're trying to lose weight).

There are well known apps like Myfitnesspal but did you know there is an Australian app that feeds directly into the analysis software we use for studies? EasyDietDiary is made by Xyris and I have found it to be really useful in the Australian supermarket environment. It is free to use and you can track your macros and some micro nutrients as well. There aren't in app purchases like some of the other popular apps so I think it's a great step.

I don't receive royalties (it's a free app guys).