Mikhail Gavrilov, psychotherapist, candidate of medical sciences, author of a patented method for correcting eating behavior and weight loss, member of the Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM, USA).
Cooking
This cooking method usually reduces the calorie content of the product. In particular, when cooking meat, part of the fat it contains goes into the broth and it becomes less fatty, which means its energy value decreases (by an average of 10−20%). Some of the sugars from vegetables can also go into water, which will reduce their calorie content by 5 percent. If you are preparing soups, drain the first broth, this way you will reduce the calorie content of the finished dish by removing excess saturated fat.
Cereals and pasta, despite their high calorie content in raw form, greatly increase in volume when cooked, due to which their calorie content is reduced - on average three times.
But heat treatment of starchy vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets), including cooking, on the contrary, increases their energy value by an average of 30%. This is due to the fact that when heated, the starch contained in them changes its modification. And instead of food for beneficial bacteria, it gives us extra calories. That is why it is recommended not to cook them a little - after cooking, such vegetables should not fall apart.
Frying
Whether the caloric content will change in this case or not depends on whether you cook with or without oil. When frying in oil, it is important to remember that 20% of the calorie content of oil should be added to the calorie content of meat. Considering that in 1 tbsp vegetable oil 130 kcal, then the energy value of the finished dish will increase by 26 kcal. Things are somewhat different with products that can absorb up to 50% of the oil used. These include most vegetables and mushrooms. In this case, 50% of the calorie content of the oil used is added to the calorie content of vegetables.
Another thing is grilling. In this case, for example, fats are rendered from meat, proteins and carbohydrates are partially decomposed. All this can reduce the calorie content of the finished dish by 5-15%. So, this type heat treatment can be considered quite dietary.
Extinguishing
The technology is not too different from cooking, unless of course you add oil to the dish. In this case, its calorie content will increase. Again, if you cook meat that is not too lean, some of the fat goes into the gravy. That is why the calorie content of stewed foods is practically no different from the energy value of raw foods.
Steaming
Perhaps the most dietary cooking method. In this case, the calorie content of products decreases slightly - by 3-5%, but their beneficial features(proteins, microelements, vitamins and minerals) are preserved almost completely.
During the cooking process, foods change their calorie content. “For example, when we cook beef, some of the fat from it goes into water, which turns into a high-calorie broth, and beef that is low-fat becomes less caloric,” says Natalya Fadeeva , nutritionist-endocrinologist, Ph.D. Center for Family Dietetics “MEDEP”. — If you add sweet vegetables (carrots, beets, pumpkin) to the water for soup, then the meat will be to some extent saturated with the sugars they contain and its calorie content will increase. At the same time, vegetables will also absorb meat fat from the broth, and their energy value will increase.” The same thing happens when stewing and baking. If you fry meat without oil (for example, in a grill pan), its calorie content will also decrease due to the rendering of fat, as well as the decomposition of proteins, fats and carbohydrates into water and other elements. But if you cook the same piece in oil, it will partially absorb this oil and its energy value will increase.
Grinding
It does not affect the energy value of the product in any way, but if you are watching your figure - and this is why you usually start counting calories - this factor also needs to be taken into account. After all, it is directly related to the speed of food absorption. “The crushed product is almost ready for absorption, and the body will spend much less energy on its digestion,” says Natalya Fadeeva. “The glycemic index (GI) also becomes higher, which means that the product will raise blood sugar levels faster and sharper and more glucose will be converted into fat.” Mashed potatoes, for example, are digested much faster than boiled potatoes, and their glycemic index is higher. “The same can be said about thick cocktails and smoothies that are made from fresh fruits and vegetables,” adds Anna Melekhina , nutritionist at the Lantan Clinic. “But if we chop products slightly, for example, chopping vegetables for salad, then they will be processed at the same speed as whole ones.”
Adding water and seasonings
By adding water to a product (for example, diluting juice) or simply boiling it, we literally dilute it. As a result, a plate of vegetarian soup will have less calories than a serving of stew prepared from the same vegetables of the same volume. “This can be seen in the example of cereals,” says Anna Melekhina. — The energy value of dry oatmeal is 303 kcal per 100 g, and in oatmeal cooked in water it is only 88 kcal. Seasonings do not significantly affect the calorie content of the dish, since they are added in small quantities.” But if we talk about sauces and dressings, then the situation is completely different. Most of them contain quite a bit of sugar and/or fat, so they need to be taken into account when counting calories. When we add salt to food, it attracts water from the food, as if it dries them out, and their calorie content increases. “Although these changes are not so significant,” says Natalya Fadeeva. “As for salt, it is important to remember that one gram of it retains 100 g of fluid in the body, so after eating salty foods you can increase your volume due to edema.”
How to calculate the calorie content of complex dishes
Add up the calorie content of all its ingredients, taking into account the weight of each of them (the energy value in tables and reference books is always indicated per 100 g of product) in finished form or taking into account their boiling. Then divide the resulting figure by the number of servings. It's a tedious task, isn't it? And not so obligatory, nutritionists assure. “To organize proper dietary nutrition, you don’t need to try to calculate everything down to the calorie,” says Natalya Fadeeva. “It’s more important to understand which foods and which ones are dangerous for your figure. Monitor your intake of salt, sugar, and oil. And learn to distinguish healthy food from being unhealthy when you eat out.”
Anyone who has ever been on a diet or simply thought about their diet knows about calories. Experts from the Nutrition Research Institute assure: with a modern lifestyle in which there is little movement, we need very few calories per day - 1,500 for women and 1,800 for men. We don’t run through the forests in search of mammoths or edible roots, but often sit through our days, looking up from our chairs at most to pour some tea and then go to the toilet. That’s why we need food that is not as plentiful as it was believed in the Soviet years.
Then our parents walked to work, stood in lines after work, and on weekends they were constantly doing something - some went skiing, some played basketball, and some worked hard in the garden beds. And then the calculation of calories for men and women was completely different - 3000 and 2500, respectively. And despite this, there were significantly fewer obese people.
And having thought about it once, we automatically begin to count calories - some people install special programs on their phones or tablets, others print out tablets and scrupulously check them. Meanwhile, the tables most often indicate the value raw product. And cooking can dramatically change your calorie count.
Together with our permanent expert, member of the National Society of Dietetics, doctor Lyudmila Denisenko, we will analyze all this using the example of the simplest skinless chicken breast, beloved by all nutritionists and those losing weight. The initial calories in it are 120 per 100 grams.
Reduces calories. Part of the calories, as well as the beneficial substances from meat and vegetables, “passes” into the broth.
For example, a boiled breast will only have 100 calories.
We usually fry everything in oil. And we always conveniently forget about its calorie content. Meanwhile, 100 grams of sunflower (and any other) oil contains about 900 (!) calories. That is, one tablespoon of oil (15 grams) will contain 130 calories - almost 10th of your daily dose. Of course, vegetable oil is very healthy, but still very high in calories.
So, frying in oil adds a fair amount of calories - the liquid evaporates, the initial weight of the food decreases, and the calories become “more concentrated.”
In total, there will be about 200 calories in a fried chicken breast.
3. Extinguishing.
Not very different from cooking. Some intermediate stage between frying and boiling. Perhaps the only way to maintain the original calorie content of the product. Provided, of course, that you do not add oil or other fat to the dish. Usually, vegetables are often added to stewed meat, which also “steal calories.”
Stewed breast without vegetables - 120 kcal. With vegetables - 90 kcal.
Nutritionists have an ambivalent attitude towards this method of preparation. Over the past few years, American scientists have been constantly attacking grilled chicken, claiming that it can cause intestinal cancer. And in general, they say, ready-made grilled chicken is full of carcinogens. But we're talking about primarily about fast food chicken. There it is greased with oil so that it bakes beautifully, and it is cooked for a long time and persistently. And, as a rule, in its entirety. And the calorie content of a whole chicken is very different from its dietary breast.
We will talk about home grilling. This method of preparation is generally quite dietary. True, during the cooking process the calorie content increases slightly.
Grilled breast - 145 kcal.
5. Steamed.
Well, the most dietary, proper preparation is steaming. Either in a slow cooker, or in a double boiler, or on the stove in a special basket. It is believed that this particular method of cooking preserves all the beneficial properties of not only meat, but also vegetables - you will receive all the proteins, microelements, vitamins and minerals in almost full quantities. And also reduce the calorie content.
Steamed breast - 113 kcal.
Be careful with sauces
You have already realized that adding oil to any dish is an extra caloric intake (that’s what nutritionists call the energy value of food). You shouldn’t give it up at all (after all, oil is full of useful substances), but don’t forget about the calories.
In general, any sauce that is served to you in a restaurant, or is recommended to be prepared for a dish, should alert you. Take the same aioli sauce - the most delicate airy work of culinary art, which is served with meat or fish. But this sauce is based on the same vegetable oil! That is, it contains at least 800 calories.
When the mass increases
Buckwheat, pasta, rice - if you look at the initial calorie content of these products, you can grab your head. What's dietary about them? The whole point is that during the cooking process, cereals and pasta become two to three times larger in volume, and accordingly, they will contain three times fewer calories. For example, raw buckwheat has 330 kcal, and boiled buckwheat has 110. The same goes for rice and other cereals.
The easiest way to calculate the calorie content of pasta is by weighing it before and after cooking. For them, a lot depends on the shape and quality of the raw materials.
Every time we eat something, our body consumes a certain amount of calories that it gets from that food. If our caloric intake equal to the number of calories that our body spends during the day to maintain the functioning of all our organs and systems, as well as for our physical activity during the day, then we can say that calorie intake is in the golden mean, where neither weight loss nor weight gain occurs. We consume exactly as much as we spend. If we begin to eat with a slight calorie deficit, that is, consume fewer calories than our body needs, then it begins to adapt to the new diet and switch to an alternative source of energy - fat - thus, we begin to lose weight. And there is another option: if our caloric intake is too small and is below the basic metabolism (BER - the number of calories that the body needs to continue to function normally in a state of complete rest), then health problems begin, where the tissues of one’s own muscles and even organs go into the firebox. This suggests that there is a certain threshold in calorie intake, below which falling is not only not recommended, but even dangerous! And everyone has an individual threshold.
Today we will figure out how to determine the fine line that you should not cross, otherwise you can run into serious health problems. We will also find out whether there really is ONE calorie intake affects the final result or is there something else that you need to pay attention to when compiling your daily diet. In general, the topic of today's article is caloric intake and everything we need to know about it.
What determines the caloric content of the diet?
The calorie content of the diet depends on several factors:
- the products we consume. For example, vegetables are lower in calories than grains, and nuts are much higher in calories than fruits.
- cooking method. For example, stewing and boiling retain less calorie content of foods than frying the same foods in oil.
- combinations of certain products together. For example, the combination simple carbohydrates(flour, fruit, sugar) with fats ( butter, margarine, chocolate) make the product more nutritious than a combination of proteins (eggs, chicken breast, fish) with slow carbohydrates (oatmeal, buckwheat, rice).
- degree of crushing or boiling of the product. For example, freshly squeezed orange juice has more calories than a whole orange, and instant oatmeal made from small flakes is several times more caloric than oatmeal made from large grains.
All these factors affect the calorie content of your daily diet. Therefore, when choosing a particular product prepared in a certain way, you consciously make a choice towards high-calorie or low-calorie dishes. Knowing these little nuances, you can control your own caloric intake without any extra complicated effort on your part.
Conventionally, all products are divided into PROTEINS, FATS and CARBOHYDRATES. I wrote about which products belong to a certain group in the article, you can familiarize yourself with these products if you wish. Now let’s conditionally determine which group of products has a higher energy value for our body (accordingly, the calorie content will be the highest), which is average, and which is the lowest (picture clickable).
So, if your calorie intake day after day for a long period of time will be below the basic metabolism, then you will begin to have metabolic disorders, which can cause serious disruptions in the functioning of all organ systems. Will also suffer the cardiovascular system, and hormonal, and reproductive, and digestive, and excretory, and many other systems of your body. All of them can function smoothly and correctly only if the body has enough energy and all nutrients. As soon as caloric intake becomes lower than OOV, then there can be no talk of anything. The body begins to slowly “kill” itself:
- he begins to feed on his own organs, extracting the protein he needs from muscle tissue, as well as the heart muscle;
- begins to extract calcium from its bones and teeth;
- stops production female hormones, since this process takes a lot of energy and strength from an already weakened body;
- There is a decrease in metabolism and a transition to an economical mode of existence, in which fat burning occurs last, etc.
This list can be continued for a very long time. Therefore, the most important rule, which you need to remember:
DO NOT EAT BELOW YOUR BASIC METABOLISM!
This should be your very first guideline on the way to proper nutrition for the purpose of losing weight.
But, as with all rules, there are exceptions, and in our case they may also exist.
So, an exception to this rule may be a situation when you have a problem, and no matter what you do, the weight stays the same. In this case, you can choose one day in the week when you can INTENTIONALLY lower your calorie intake below your OOV. But this deficit should not be too large; it will be enough to reduce caloric intake by 100-150 calories, no more. This maneuver can cause stress for your body, after which it will begin to lose extra pounds again. But here you also need to be able to use this method correctly, since HOW and WHAT you will eat the next day after such “stress” matters more. Therefore, I would not recommend resorting to this method on your own; it is better to do this under the strict supervision of your trainer.
We figured out the basic metabolism and remembered that You can’t eat below your GV!!!
Now let's consider a moment like caloric intake taking into account your physical activity.
Caloric intake and physical activity
To calculate your daily caloric intake taking into account your physical activity, there are several methods and formulas. The most common method is the Harris-Benedict method. These two scientists identified several activity coefficients according to a person's mobility and the intensity of his workouts during the week.
-Low (sedentary lifestyle) – 1.2
-Minor (light workouts 1-3 times a week) – 1.38
-Intense training 4-5 times a week – 1.55 -Daily training – 1.64
-Daily intense training or training 2 times a day – 1.73
-Heavy physical work or intense training 2 times a day – 1.9
To calculate your daily calorie intake in order to maintain weight, you need to multiply your RV by the activity coefficient. This will give you your daily calorge, which you need to stick to to keep your weight in check.
To lose weight, you need to subtract 500 kcal from this figure, this way you will create a calorie deficit and be able to burn fat as a source of energy.
This is how this method sounds in theory and on paper, but as practice shows, this method is no longer so relevant in our modern conditions, since the studies themselves were conducted, firstly, on healthy and strong men, and not on fragile women; and secondly, laboratory conditions are still fundamentally different from real life. Therefore, the calculated calorie intake according to this method will always be for female body somewhat higher than necessary. Therefore, I personally do not use this method or any other to calculate my calorie intake. I start from another principle, which I will discuss below.
BZHU counting
Everyone knows that proteins, fats and carbohydrates are the main nutrients that are part of any product, be it a hamburger with cola or cottage cheese with nuts. Both the first and second options contain both proteins and fats with carbohydrates, the main difference is that the quality of these nutrients can vary greatly, and the quantity of one particular nutrient can be significantly greater in one product than in friend, or he may be completely absent, which also often happens.
Now I just want to say that BZHU counting And caloric intake for me are closer concepts than caloric intake And Calculation of daily caloric intake.
I am of the opinion that the quality of the food we eat and the complete filling of our body in the right quantities with proteins, fats and carbohydrates is MUCH IMPORTANT than the total calorie content of the diet! The most important thing is to monitor the essential nutrients entering our body, and not the calories.
Caloric content of the diet, as I already said, you can gain from just one product, but it will not be complete and balanced diet, which our body needs, it will simply be a “mechanical” filling of the vessel with something, just to fill it. For example, if you fill the tank of a car with milk instead of gasoline, it will not drive, no matter how environmentally friendly the milk is. The car needs gasoline, and only by filling the tank with it, it will be able to take you where you need to go.
Our body is like a car tank, only instead of gasoline it needs products containing all the necessary substances - proteins, fats and carbohydrates. That is why, when it comes to caloric intake, then first of all you need to be able to calculate your individual BJU norm taking into account your physical activity, and not calories that can be gained from unknown products.
Sample daily menu for a woman doing fitness (Pilates) 3 times a week
Goal: lose 5 kg:
- age 35 years
- weight 67 kg
- height 170 cm
| Components of the daily diet | Grams | Proteins, g | Fats, g | Carbohydrates, g | Calorie content, kcal |
| Breakfast | |||||
| Oat groats | 40 | 5,2 | 2,5 | 26,3 | 148 |
| 2 eggs | 120 | 15,4 | 14,2 | 0,8 | 192 |
| Kiwi/berries (strawberries, lingonberries, raspberries) | 100 | 1,0 | 0,6 | 10,3 | 51 |
| 2nd breakfast | |||||
| Nuts | 50 | 7,6 | 32,6 | 3,5 | 338 |
| Apple/grapefruit | 200 | 0,8 | 0,8 | 19,6 | 88 |
| Dinner | |||||
| Vegetable salad (cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, greens) | 200 | 4,0 | 2,0 | 10,0 | 74 |
| 1 tbsp. vegetable oil | 7 | 0,0 | 6,9 | 0,0 | 62 |
| Boiled chickpeas | 80 | 7,2 | 1,6 | 14,6 | 102 |
| Egg white omelette (3 pcs) | 90 | 9,9 | 0,0 | 0,0 | 40 |
| Afternoon snack | |||||
| Cottage cheese 0% | 160 | 26,4 | 0,0 | 2,1 | 114 |
| Cucumber | 150 | 1,1 | 0,0 | 2,7 | 15 |
| Dinner | |||||
| Lettuce/cucumber/broccoli (green vegetables) | 150 | 6,0 | 0,0 | 6,5 | 15 |
| Cod, steamed or baked in the oven | 110 | 12,4 | 5,5 | 2,4 | 109 |
| TOTAL PER DAY: | 117 | 69 | 97 | 1470 |
From these tables we can see that with this diet she gets 1.7 g of protein per 1 kg of her body weight, 1 g of fat and 1.4 g of carbohydrates. Here both its parameters and physical activity throughout the week were taken into account. If she eats approximately these numbers according to BJU (and the calorie content may be either more or less), then gradually her body fat will begin to decrease.
I hope this article was useful to you and you learned a lot about yourself caloric intake. Let's summarize briefly.
The most important thing in accounting calorie intake This is not counting calories, but calculating the daily intake of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. It is BJU that plays the most important role in the formation of both an athletic figure and health in general. And also this one interesting fact: if you correctly compose your menu for the day, then the resulting figures for your BZHU will be as close as possible to the recommended calorie intake. This is the skill of creating a balanced menu: you need to learn to eat in such a way that the proteins, fats and carbohydrates received from food during the day form the desired caloric content of your diet taking into account physical activity. It may differ by 100-200 calories from the figure obtained from formulas on the Internet, but this will not be a spread of 700-1000 calories. So, if you want to learn how to calculate on your own caloric intake, then first of all learn to calculate your BJU.
Sincerely yours, Janelia Skripnik!
the same product. (c) Science and life. How informative are the calorie labels we read? No, this is not about manufacturers deliberately deceiving us by hiding the actual calorie content of products. The numbers on the packaging simply reflect the energy value of the food as it is. But calorie content, as mentioned above, is determined by the absorbed energy.And the absorption of nutrients depends on what we do with them: fry, boil, chop, etc. If we eat something raw, we lose weight, but if we eat the same thing, but after some processing, then, on the contrary, we will gain weight - although the calorie content itself the food will be the same in both cases. Some products are already sold in crushed, ground form, for example, flour. But we cook a lot at home and we should take into account such variability in nutritional value.
Below the cut are the pictures in their entirety and in a clickable, large size form
In 2011, Rachel Carmody and Richard Wrangham from Harvard, USA, published a paper in the journal PNAS, which stated that cooking food with heat increases its calorie content. By comparing the energy value of food prepared with or without heat treatment, the authors of the work were convinced that in the first case, mice received more calories from food.
And just recently, last October, another article was published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in which the same researchers from Harvard University compared how cooking affects the absorption of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. It turned out that after cooking, both fats, proteins, and carbohydrates “increase” in calorie content - that is, the energy received from each type of nutritional molecules increases.
This can be explained using the example of starch, which is believed to provide, on average, half the calories consumed by modern humans.
IN in kind starch is a granular powder consisting of many granules - once in the digestive tract, the granules are digested for the most part in the small intestine. If we have not prepared the starch in any way, then approximately half of its granules will remain undigested and undigested; they will either go to feed intestinal bacteria or even go to waste. If the food has been processed, then the starch particles are much more likely to be digested into glucose, which can be easily absorbed from the intestines into the blood.
But with cooked food it’s not so simple. If heated starch is allowed to cool, it will crystallize and turn into a precipitate, making it difficult for enzymes to break it down. That is, starch calories from cooked, but cold, not to say stale, food will be absorbed worse. (Although it’s unlikely that anyone will be tempted to a diet of cold toast and yesterday’s pasta.)
On the other hand, the calorie content is influenced by the nature of the preparation, that is, what does the finished dish look like - what is its texture, is it hard, soft, semi-liquid? etc. Japanese researchers published an article in 2003 that described an experiment with rats and two types of food: some of the animals received regular solid food that had to be chewed, while others were given something like whipped grain porridge saturated with air. The weight of portions, energy value, and nutritional composition were the same in both cases, only the cooking method differed. However, the puffed rats ended up accumulating 30% more fat than their solid-fed counterparts.
There is no trick here, it’s just easier for the digestive system to digest a semi-liquid, airy, soft mass. Hard foods require additional energy to be broken down. Which, by the way, can be seen by the rising body temperature: the more energy spent on digestion, the more the animal warms up. Liquid, easily broken down food does not require such effort, little energy is spent on digestion, and it is more likely that the unspent energy reserve will remain in the body in the form of fat...
So, the calorie content of food is influenced by whether we cook it and how exactly we cook it: frying and boiling increase the energy value of food, as well as chopping, stirring, etc. It cannot be said that this is such a secret: you can often hear from nutritionists that it is better to eat raw vegetables rather than boiled or fried, that bread made from whole grain flour is healthier than bread made from regular white flour, etc. But let’s repeat on the labels again - write those calories that can be obtained from a completely broken down product, without taking into account culinary processing and energy costs for digestion.
Of course, you can require manufacturers to calculate and indicate all such options, but, as Rachel Carmody and Richard Wrangham note in their article on The Conversation, it is very difficult to accurately estimate the amount of energy that can be obtained from a product using a particular cooking method. So it's best to simply be aware of the factors that affect caloric intake and plan your diet based on whether you need to get as much energy as possible or use up your own calorie reserves. (With)
