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Do calories matter?


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What do you mean do they matter? Of course they matter. If you don't get any for a few months, you die:)

 

Are you asking if the source of the calories matter? Or are you asking if calories in = calories burned to maintain weight?

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Well I know they matter in order to survive; but do they matter much in terms of gaining weight?

 

I have a little theory I devised in my head that by eating food thats is easily digested, less energy is used digesting the food, and therefore you dont need as many calories as you would eating meat/cheese/dairy etc.

 

My goals is to put on weight, I just want to know the importance of being in a caloric surplus? I see people eat a lot of greens which have very little calories, and I, as a 17 year old have a super fast metabolism see it as quite challenging to get 3000kcal+ from greens.. (Im not raw btw, just vegan)

 

Thanks

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Why do you say you have a super fast metabolism. Have you had it tested? Have you tracked your caloric intake? Are you very active? How much do you weigh? Height? What is your resting heart rate?

 

Metabolism is widely misunderstood. People who are heavy and out of shape have faster metabolisms than people who weigh less and are in shape. If you are thin and work out regularly, you likely have a very slow metabolism. You may simply be eating fewer calories than you think, burning more than you are aware of, or your genetics and hormones are such that putting on weigh is more difficult. There is also the possibility that you have trouble absorbing nutrients in foods. This can be a genetic problem, or it can be caused by exposure to certain chemicals and medications that kill your gut flora.

 

I assume you want to gain muscle, not fat. So, yes you need to eat an excess number of calories beyond what your basal metabolic rate is, daily activities, as well as any exercise you perform. So, if your BMR is 1,500 calories, daily activities are 500, and your workout is expected to burn 500 calories, then you need to consume something higher than 2500 calories to insure your body has enough to repair and grow.

 

I don't know about you, but I can easily eat 2,000 calories in a meal. Rice, potatoes, beans, avocados, lentils, nuts, quinoa, etc. are all calorie dense. Even raw, I could easily eat 5 bananas an hour and that is around 500 calories. I have been accused many times of eating like a Hobbit.

 

The problem with your theory is that meat, dairy, and eggs all contain a lot of fat, and that fat is actually easily absorbed by the body. Plant foods can have a lot of fiber which is not easily digested at all, and calories in fiber are considered mostly unavailable. So, you actually need to eat more plant-calories to get the same digestible calories as in animal products. Of course, you also get thousands more nutrients in the plants.

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I had my basal-metabaloc rate tested 12 months ago and it was 1900. Im 5 foot 10 inches and 140lbs. Is it still true then that the more muscle mass you have the higher the metabolism?

 

How would you get 2000 calories in one meal? Would you eat all of them? Thanks

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The calculated basal metabolism for your height, weight, and age is 1700, so you are pretty close to normal.

 

More mass increases metabolism. The heavier a person weighs, the more energy is needed to move that mass around. However, at rest, someone who is in poor physical shape with a lot of fat and little muscles will burn more calories than someone of the same weight who is far more muscle and in good shape. This is because the body doesn't had to work as hard to get nutrients to all the parts of the body.

 

If these same two people engage in exercise, the healthy person with more muscle is going to be able to exercise at a much higher intensity, so this is where their increased muscle mass may burn more overall calories.

 

Overweight people aren't overweight because they have a slower metabolism, but because they eat too much relative to their activity level. If someone eats 1,000 extra calories a day, they will gain weight until their bodies need to burn an extra 1,000 calories to support their increased body mass. This is why people who are heavy have a large decrease in weight loss very quickly when they begin dieting. However, as they lose weight and increase fitness, they will often hit a plateau as their metabolism slows.

 

Performance is essentially the difference between a persons resting metabolism and their max metabolism. We use heart rate to correlate somewhat to metabolism. The higher a persons fitness level, the lower their resting heart rate, and they may even be able to raise their max heart rate.

 

Genetics can play a big role in a lot of these factors, however, by recording your stats over time, you will be able to see relative changes.

 

Well, you have to have a hobbit stomach to eat 2,000 calories in one sitting. But rice, potatoes, and beans with a nut cheese sauce I make with cashews is pretty calorie dense. I use two cups of cashews and that alone is around 1,300 calories. I don't always eat it all at once. Sometimes I eat until I am full, sometimes I eat until I hate myself, and sometimes I eat until it is all gone:)

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