GlobalSpa
04-Jan-2022
Carbs Fats Proteins Fibres, are they all the same? Pranay Jham, Founder and ACSM certified Nutrition Consultant at ACTIVeat (https://activeat.in/ ) Mumbai's premium online healthy meal delivery service, answers the questions.
What is a calorie?
A calorie is nothing but a unit of energy and is denoted by “kcal”. Just like a car that requires fuel to run, calories in your body act as fuel to provide your body with the energy that it needs to function properly.
The calories in your food come from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Each gram of carbohydrate and protein consists of 4kcal, and each gram of fat consists of 9kcal. This is how the calories in your food are determined.
So, eating 100kcal of chocolates or 100kcal of veggies should have the same effect on your weight. Well, technically yes, but our body has its ways of digesting different foods, and that influences our body burning calories in the process i.e., thermic effect of food, also influences hormone levels, metabolism, etc.
Thermic Effect of Food
This basically measures how much energy(calories) is required to digest the food and absorb all its nutrients.
Typically for fats is 2-3%, carbs is 6-8% and proteins is around 25%. This means that if a person eats 100kcals of fat - only 2-3kcals will be used as energy during digestion whereas for proteins around 25kcals will be used up just to digest protein in your body.
So, including proteins in your meals does help!
Effect of food on hormones
We should talk about 2 hormones here viz. Ghrelin (hunger hormone) and Leptin (suppressant hormone). This means that when your ghrelin levels are elevated, you feel hungry and once you feed your body, the ghrelin levels drop and leptin signals that you are now satiated/ promotes the feeling of fullness.
Eating fats increases Leptin levels in your body, so do include healthy fats in your diet like omega 3, nuts, seed, etc. Completely eliminating fats from your diet is probably not a good idea. Fats ensure one is not feeling hungry all the time.
The Satiety Index and how does it affect one’s body
Foods have different satiety levels. No wonder it's easy to gulp down desserts while eating a bowl of salad takes forever, doesn’t it? The lower the Satiety Index of food, the higher chances of one consuming more of it, which would lead to overeating and promote weight gain in the long run. Foods that are high on the satiety index are - Eggs, Meat, Paneer, Veggies, Beans, Fruits. Consuming these foods usually keeps one feeling fuller for a longer period.
So bottom line, how should one divide the meals?
All macros have their own importance for leading a healthy life. A good macro split should be approx. 50-60% carbs, 20-30% proteins and around 20% fats. If you are looking to lose weight, make sure you are maintaining a caloric deficit as well.
