healthy living tips by Dr.Vina

You go to work every day and tend to take for granted how much energy that your body has consumed. For every type of physical activity, our body requires energy. The amount depends on the duration and type of activity. This energy amount is measured in kcal and is obtained from the body stores or the food we eat. So it is important to be fair to ourself regarding the nutrition intake to balance our level of activity. But how much is enough?

First of all, there are two considerations: variety and amount. You have to carefully planned your nutrition to provide a good nutrients balance and energy balance. The variety of nutrients that you need to consume in balance are:

• Proteins - important to growth and repair of muscle and other body tissues
• Fats - one source of energy and important in relation to fat soluble vitamins
• Carbohydrates - the main source of energy
• Minerals - those inorganic elements occurring in the body and which are critical to its normal functions
• Vitamins - water and fat soluble vitamins play important roles in many chemical processes in the body
• Water - essential to normal body function - as a vehicle for carrying other nutrients and because 60% of the human body is water
• Roughage - the fibrous indigestible portion of our diet essential to health of the digestive system

Now, how much energy that we need to provide from those nutrients. Here is the simple calculation for basic energy requirement: for every Kg of body weight 1.3 kcal is required every hour. (If you weigh 55Kg, you would require 1.3 × 24hrs × 55Kg = 1716 kcal/day)

If you work out, you will need an extra energy. For each hours workout you require an additional 8.5 kcal for each Kg of body weight.