There is an unwritten rule in fitness and nutrition circles that states nothing is allowed to be simple or commonsensical. Take for example the humble calorie, a simple unit of measure that has come to mean one thing to physicists and lab coats, and something else entirely to the rest of humanity. Let’s set the record straight, shall we?
A calorie (note the lowercase “c”) is the amount of energy required to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. In all practical terms, this is a very tiny amount of energy –about the same as the amount of heat you might generate through friction by rubbing your hands together vigorously for two or three seconds.
The Calories (capital “C”) that everyday diet-conscious people bandy about are actually multiples of 1,000 calories, or kCal. Just as in kg, kB, km, and dozens of other metric annotations, the “k” stands for kilo, or 1,000. So your morning bagel with cream cheese was not really 500 calories –it was actually 500,000. And the USDA standard 2,000 Calories-per-day diet is actually 2,000,000 calories-per-day.
Not since the invention of bits and Bytes has upper vs. lowercase caused so much consternation.
It may be splitting hairs over semantics, but most people who eventually stumble upon a (properly used) reference to kCal on a food label find themselves scratching their heads. No, you’re not going insane –that’s the way things should be labeled.
Here’s some food for thought:
If you have to burn 3,500 food Calories (capital “C” –actually 3,500 kCal, or three and a half MILLION literal calories) to lose a pound of body fat, and you run a 500 food Calorie-per-day deficit, it should take you one week to lose 1 pound of body fat. Assuming you created half of your daily deficit through stationary biking, you would be looking at roughly 3.5 hours of brisk pedaling during that week to accomplish your 1-pound weight loss. Now, if a food Calorie (capital “C”) were actually the same as a literal, lab coat, physics nerd calorie (lowercase “c”), you would only need 12.5 seconds on the stationary bike to lose that pound of body fat. If only it were that easy.
So, to summarize:
1 Calorie (food label type) = 1 kCal or 1,000 calories (labcoat type).
In all likelihood, the first dieticians and physicians to start talking about the energy content of food omitted the “kilo” from their literature so as not to scare off the non-scientific public. Just remember that when you are reading a food label, the values stated are actually kilocalories, not “calories”.
About the Author
Brett is an avid fitness enthusiast and a vocal advocate for vegetarianism and environmental conservation. More than a decade after kicking his steak, hamburger and hotdog addiction, he is living proof that you can get plenty of protein and still get ripped without supporting abusive animal agriculture practices.
