DailyDirt: Counting Calories Should Be A National Pastime

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

While it may be a bit late for New Year's resolutions, it's never too late to start counting calories as part of a sensible weight loss (or maintenance) plan. But before embarking on a crusade to cut out all those extra calories, it might be wise to learn more about this unit of energy. For example, scientists are still debating whether all food calories are equivalent from a metabolic perspective -- are calories from fat the same as calories from carbohydrates? The answer still isn't clear, but one thing is for sure: eat fewer calories and you'll lose weight. Here are a few more interesting tidbits about calories.

• Want to learn more about calories? New York University professor Marion Nestle gave a talk in which she discusses what calories are and how they work biologically and politically. [url]
• Bad news: Claims that sex burns 100 to 300 calories are just a myth, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Apparently, one study found that sex lasted 6 minutes on average and burned only 21 calories. [url]
• Good news: Watching 90 minutes of a horror movie can reportedly burn almost 200 calories because it causes an increase in heart rate. For the greatest calorie-burning workout, watch The Shining. [url]
• How accurate are those calorie counts listed on food labels? Apparently, you could unknowingly be ingesting an extra 550 calories a day. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: calories, diet, fat, food, kilocalories, workout