Calories

How many calories do I need a day?
How many calories do I need to lose/gain weight?
How many calories in a slice of bacon?

These are just some of the questions that are troubling the calorie-conscious minds of today... the third question maybe less so. Calories simply give us energy and the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for men and women is 2500 and 2000 respectively... but this is only a ball park figure. It does not take any additional factors, such as exercise, into account.

All foods (well 99.9% of them) consist of three main nutrients - protein, carbohydrate and fat. Protein and carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram, whereas fat contains 9 calories per gram. Hence, fatty foods can have a very influential effect on weight gain, as opposed to the same amount of food high in protein/carbohydrate.