Calculating Food Calories: A Step-by-Step Guide

Before I started working out and paying attention to everything I eat in a day, I had no clue about calories.

I was just a very skinny teen, that disliked almost every type of food, and ate super unhealthy.

When I started working out thought, I learned that I couldn’t make the progress I wanted without understanding food, and learning about calories.

A simple explanation of how I can calculate the calories in food would have been really helpful at the start.

Since you’re here, my guesses are you’re wondering about calories in foods as well.

In this article, I’ll give you a simple, but detailed explanation about calories, so you will be one step closer to learning to control your weight.

What are calories in food?

Calories are our way to measure the amount of energy that’s found in a certain drink or type of food.

Our bodies require a certain amount of energy every day to stay alive and function properly (our metabolism).

By using calories, we’re able to put a number on the amount of energy our body needs.

For example, the average male requires around 2500 calories a day, and the average female requires 2000 calories a day.

You can learn in-depth how to increase your metabolism naturally here.

How you can calculate calories in food

To keep it simple, there are three macronutrients, which cover almost everything that’s inside of our food.

These are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Every macronutrient contains energy, that’s measured in calories.

• One gram of protein equals 4 calories.
• One gram of carbohydrates equals 4 calories.
• One gram of fat equals 9 calories.

If you know the calories of each macronutrient, you can perfectly calculate the calories in food yourself.

It always shows the total calories and the number of proteins/carbohydrates/fats.

If you multiply the proteins x 4 calories, the carbohydrates x 4 calories, and the fats x9 calories, then it should ALWAYS equal the total calories on the package.

Sometimes this is not the case, because food labels are allowed to mislabel the package to a certain degree. I was pretty upset when I learned about this, but it’s true.

Note: there is kind of a 4th macronutrient, which is alcohol, it contains 7 calories per gram.

Example of how you calculate calories in food

To make it more clear I’ll give an example of how you can calculate the calories in every food you like.

I love pancakes. Pancakes contain eggs, so let’s take an egg as an example.

Example of an egg

An average large egg contains 90 calories.

It contains:

• 6.2 grams of fat.
• zero grams of carbohydrates.
• 8.7 grams of proteins.

This is why that egg is 90 calories: 6.2 x 9 calories + 8.7 x 4 calories = 90.6 calories.

You can do this for any type of food, drink, or pre-packaged meal you can find in stores.

Relation between calories in food and your weight

Caloric Maintenance

If you eat and drink the same amount of energy in a day that your body needs to survive, and perform its daily activities then your weight remains the same.

This is called eating in caloric maintenance.

In other words, if your body needs 2500 calories a day and you consume 2500 calories, your body weight will always remain the same.

Caloric Deficit

If you wish to lose weight you’ll need to decrease your energy intake, by eating and drinking less, than your body needs to survive and perform its daily activities.

This is called eating in a caloric deficit.

In other words, if your body needs 2500 calories a day and you consume 2000 calories, your body weight will always go down.

Note: if you combine this with weight training, most of the weight loss will be from fat.

Caloric Surplus

If you are set on gaining weight you’ll need to increase your energy intake, by eating and drinking more, than your body needs to survive and perform its daily activities.

This is called eating at a caloric surplus.

In other words, if your body needs 2500 calories and you consume 3000 calories, your body weight will always increase.

Note: if you eat at a small caloric surplus and combine this with weight training, most of the weight gain may be from an increase in muscle mass.

Final words

Eating and drinking is something we all do every day (hopefully) and will remain important till the day we’re gone from this world.

That's why I wanted to give you an explanation of how you can calculate calories in food.

I hope that I’ve been able to give you a better understanding of the energy in the foods and drinks we consume, also known as calories.

You can crush any physical goal you have for yourself and be one step closer to controlling your body weight for the rest of your life.

I’ve written some articles which might be useful in addition to this one.

If you wish to learn the best way to start going to the gym, click here.

If you would like to learn why you're not losing weight, and the solution, you can read it here.

What’s your opinion on food labels that can legally lie?