What is a low-calorie diet?

What is a low-calorie diet?

What does a low-calorie diet do to your body?

Eating a low-calorie diet – combined with exercise – is a good way to lose weight. But is a low-calorie diet also healthy? Here you can read more about the advantages and disadvantages of a low-calorie diet. Starting with the question: what is a low-calorie diet? With a low-calorie diet, you choose foods that contain little energy, in other words few calories. This means that you have to count the calories in your food. For the food we buy in the supermarket, the amounts of fat, starch and protein have been determined and the number of calories has also been calculated. This is stated on the packaging. In addition, our food often contains hidden calories in added sugars.

Advantages and disadvantages of a low-calorie diet

If you eat too many calories – and do not burn enough of them – you gain weight. A low-calorie diet is therefore intended for weight loss. The best way to lose weight is to eat less, but that is very difficult. An alternative is to eat foods that contain few calories, in other words to follow a low-calorie diet. Vegetables contain few calories. However, vegetables form healthy fatty acids in the body because plant fibres are converted into fats by our gut bacteria. These in turn provide calories to the body.

Calories and Joules in a low-calorie diet

A calorie is a unit of energy, although strictly speaking we are talking about kilocalories. Officially, the definition of a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise one gram of pure water by 1 degree Celsius. A kilocalorie is therefore the amount of energy needed to make one litre 1 degree warmer. Thus, 2,000 calories are enough to bring 20 litres of frozen (zero-degree) water to the boil. And 2,000 calories is the average amount we use each day. As indicated above, the number of calories contained in food has been determined. This is the energy our body needs to break down food (metabolism) and repair the body. The term calorie is nowadays usually expressed as Joule, named after James Joule. A J is defined as the international unit indicating the amount of energy needed to move an object with a force of 1 Newton over a distance of 1 metre. You can convert the number of kilojoules by multiplying one kilocalorie by 4.2. Thus 1 kcal = 4.2 kJ, see the table below. In this article, we use the terms calories and low-calorie diet.

Eating a low-calorie diet: how do you do it?

A low-calorie diet is in principle only recommended for weight loss. Although it is always better not to snack and to eat less, for example no more than two slices of bread a day, this is difficult to maintain. People who are overweight in particular often find this difficult because they tend to eat a lot or have snacks between meals.
For a low-calorie diet, it is therefore important to choose foods that contain few calories. For comparison: 100 grams of nuts contains 650 kcal, while 100 grams of leafy vegetables contains only 20 kcal.

The table above shows that diet 1 uses starch and fats that contain many calories. You can therefore consume a lot of calories before your stomach is full. Starchy products, fats and nuts have addictive properties, so it can be quite difficult to eat only a little of them.

With diet 2, you can fill your stomach with food that has volume but contains few calories. One kilogram of vegetables, some fruit and 100 grams of salmon together contain 326 kcal. Your stomach fills more quickly and you still feel that you have had enough. You do have to eat more often, but that is not a problem because you can have some broth and salads several times a day.

Calories and exercise

How many calories your body needs depends to a large extent on how active you are.
You are actually always burning calories, but you burn them faster during exercise. It is therefore important that your energy expenditure and your energy intake (calories) are in balance. People who do not exercise much should not eat too much either. Do you want to lose weight? Then it is important to schedule physical activity every day. But as you can see in the table below, you need to walk for an hour to burn off 100 grams of dry bread. How long do you have to run to burn off 100 grams of chocolate? About 42 minutes. Remember: the more you exercise, the more calories you burn.
The table below is based on a person weighing approximately 75 kg.

Leafy vegetables and calories

You can eat a low-calorie diet by having a salad several times a day. Lettuce and leafy vegetables contain few visible calories. They are rich in fibre that is converted by gut bacteria into short-chain fatty acids and therefore indirectly provides calories (= energy). Leafy greens contain enzymes and folic acid. These are substances that play an important role in preventing cardiovascular disease. Leafy vegetables also contain fibre that makes a major contribution to healthy gut flora. For example, make vegetable smoothies. Use a blender and then add the fibre-rich vegetable pulp back to the juice. Juicers are available that do not remove the fibre. You can also have a low-calorie breakfast or lunch in the form of a tasty vegetable omelette.

Root vegetables and calories

Root vegetables have many healthy properties and also contain few calories. Beetroot provides 7 grams of fibre and does not contain much sugar, only 7 grams of glucose, although it still tastes pleasantly sweet. Moreover, a large proportion of the sugars in beetroot are resistant. This means that the sugars are not released in the small intestine and therefore do not affect blood sugar levels. The pieces of beet reach the large intestine and feed the gut flora. The cell structures of stems and roots contain building materials that can help repair damaged intestinal cells. Carrots contain the important antioxidant beta-carotene and swede has anti-inflammatory properties.

Fibre and a low-calorie diet

The fibre in leafy vegetables and root vegetables also fits well into a low-calorie diet. The crunchy stems of plants are rich in fibre such as cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin. These indigestible fibre structures are an important key to our health. Roots and tubers, such as swede and Jerusalem artichokes, have healing properties. Think of ginseng root, ginger, turmeric, garlic and liquorice root. Hundreds of Chinese medicines contain substances from rhizomes and tubers.

Advantages of a low-calorie diet

If you replace starch with vegetables in a low-calorie diet, this is beneficial. On a low-calorie diet, it is important to create a lot of volume by eating plenty of salads and soups. Leafy greens provide important substances such as chlorophyll, healing compounds, iron, zinc, calcium, magnesium and selenium. On a low-calorie diet with lots of vegetables, you do need to eat more often. For many people, this is not necessarily a disadvantage. You can also use extra fats with a low-calorie diet; see the ketogenic diet for this.

Disadvantages of a low-calorie diet

A low-calorie diet can also have disadvantages. The danger is that you may not eat healthily. If you reduce calories by leaving out sugar and also eat no more than two slices of bread a day, you may not get enough good nutrition. High-calorie food must be replaced by low-calorie, nutrient-rich food.

Is a low-calorie diet suitable for you?

In conclusion, we can say that eating a low-calorie diet – in combination with exercise – is a good way to lose weight. But note: it is a diet that you should not follow for too long. If you eat a low-calorie diet for a longer period, your body becomes economical with fats and you have little energy. As soon as you start consuming more calories again, you will notice that you gain weight quickly again. By temporarily burning more calories (through exercise), you not only use fat reserves, but your body will also clear away old cells. This is beneficial for preventing disease. It is always beneficial to eat a great many vegetables, because this stimulates the growth of beneficial gut bacteria. You can also lose weight in another way: with a high-fat diet, such as the ketogenic diet. See also ketogenic diet.

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