Foods that are considered healthier choices like salmon, avocado, chickpea, tofu and sweet potato are all very high in calories. To give context, a recipe for a chickpea wrap has 1000 cals per serving, which is equivalent to a burger and fries. Clearly the wrap has better nutrients which is a benefit for overall health. But if someone was trying to lose weight by cutting calories, would the wrap and the burger be equally harmful in that sense?
Are calories strictly a numbers game, or are there some kinds of healthy calories that “don’t count” as much as other unhealthy calories?
the foods you listed are not high in calories for what they are? Tofu has 81 kcal/100g, chickpeas have 126, sweet potato has 86, avo has 160 kcal/100g (average fruit weighs 250), salmon has 222. you‘d need a huge volume to make a 1000 kcal wrap out of those.
Yes, it is all a numbers game when it comes to calories. Sure, there can be exceptions, but if you follow that rule while exercising a little bit of restraint and common sense, you’ll have a stronger foundation of health than a fair portion of the population.
Basically, 1000 calories is too much for a wrap, that’s insane. Unless, your goal is a 1000 calorie wrap, in which case go for it. Just know that’s gotta actually be whatever % of your daily calories to maintain/lose weight, whatever the situation is. EDIT: I’m no stranger to making a 24-28oz smoothie that clocks in at 8-900 calories, and making that late breakfast/lunch or skipping dinner and sipping on that throughout my evening shift if I had a lot for breakfast/lunch. If I need to cut weight, i intermittent fast, and eat my calories at 2 set points- giant smoothie time and later, enormous salad time. 1800 calories derived from the right variety and volume of stuff satisfies me for the entire day, but I can also eat 1800 calories of brisket and potato salad at lunch and still want dinner lster
That’s basically all you need to know. You can maintain your weight on strictly candy and fast food, but you’ll become unhealthy quickly. Not fat, but very unhealthy. Hence my “bit of restraint and bit of common sense” comment. You don’t have to be perfect to eat a healthy diet, and hit your macro and micro goals every day to achieve perfect health, skin, etc. think of your nutrition levels as a summary of your recently lived chapter of life rather than adding in extra calories because you realized your magnesium consumption wasn’t dialed in last Wednesday or something. Eat sensibly, eat a variety of foods, don’t keep sugar bombs in the house. I’d argue (for me at least) it’s so much better in the long run to make an extra trip to the store to pig out on garbage one night than to buy it and save it for a rainy day. Sweets disappear quick after a grocery run, and often I don’t actually intend to eat them that first night, so it’s after an already full meal, just because I knew there was frozen pecan pie in the house, and I turned the experience into a high-stakes sporting competition with myself. I’ll talk myself out of leaving the house if I get a craving, but I can’t talk the pie out of my hands if it’s within reach
Look at it as a ratio.
Calories:nutrients - something like an avocado is pretty high calorie, but also has pretty decent amounts of nutrients. It does mean you should limit intake, because getting too much of the same nutrients is kind of pointless.
A burger by itself is actually pretty nutritious, (Skip the fries) heaps of nutrients and a wide range. In fact depending on what’s on the wrap it might have less nutrients… but also the same is true for the theoretical burger.
Tofu is also extremely low calorie for a ‘meat’Same with salmon (but less so)
Sweet potatoes are also only about 100 calories each, and like most root vegetables/starchy carbs are very satiating and high nutrient.
Eh? None of these things are high in calories. What the hell is in a chickpea wrap to make it 1000 cals?! Must be either 3 cans of chickpeas or a shit tonne of high-sugar dressings. I make chickpea and salad wraps that are about 400cals tops. I also eat bulk amounts of baked-tofu and come NOWHERE NEAR 1000 calories.
This is not a simple answer but, yes not all calories are the same. 1000 calories from mashed potatoes is not the same as 1000 calories from spring mix salad with chicken. They have the same potential energy, but your body cannot absorb all the calories in raw vegetables. Raw vegetables and complex carbohydrates are not just nutritionally better, but tend to be better for gut biomes.
It’s very hard to overeat real food. Unless you’re specifically eating foods that are high in calories all the time and not exercising, you’re not gonna just gain weight having an avocado or some nuts every day
Every calorie counts. But what counts more is the chemical components of the calorie itself including minerals vitamins etc. there is no such thing as “healthy calorie” that does not count toward your caloric intake.
Are you counting the calories of your ingredients correctly (by the actual weight you will be eating and not the listed calories per serving)? Your wrap would have to be absolutely enormous to have 1000 calories of these ingredients. It seems like you have to have a whole avocado a whole can of chickpeas a whole block of tofu etc to get the calories this high.
I think there’s 2 things you’re trying to balance. One is calories and one is macronutrients/micronutrients. That’s the balance we are all striving to perfect. Losing weight / dieting is all about calories in and calories out. Period. You can certainly eat steak, salmon, potatoes, rice, and all fruits and vegetables. But if you go over on calories, you’re gonna gain weight.
Avocadoes, chickpeas, tofu and sweet potatoes are not high in energy.
All calories count.
Different foods (volume, water content, fiber content, how much you like it…), preparing methods (liquid/solid, hot/cold), eating velocities and environments, subjective dispositions, own perceptions of the meal… affect satiety differently and thus the amount of food you have.
A few energy dense foods are health promoting: nuts (walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts…) and seeds (flaxseed, chia, pumpkin seeds…).
Eating just your daily recommended servings of the food groups with proper portion size measuring may help you be in your energy requirement range. Practice qualitative measuring: small coffee cups, glasses, table spoons, plates, handfuls, slices…
It’s more complicated than mere calorie counting, and has a lot to do with the effects of various foods on our body’s production of hormones (most notably insulin, which promotes fat storage for reasons of surviving sparse winters).
Ghrelin and leptin are also players, but they more affect feeding behavior, as they influence satiety and hunger.
Finally, there’s the effects of uric acid, which is produced in response to sugar (particularly fructose), salt, and msg.
See Dr. Richard Johnson’s “Nature Wants Us To Be Fat” and Dr. David Perlmutter’s “Drop Acid” for more info (or, if you don’t have space for reading a whole book at the moment, search YouTube for interviews with them discussing these books or lectures presenting their research findings, if you dig the lecture format like I do).
The recipe calls for adding 1.5 tablespoons of oil.when you are roasting the chickpeas. That alone is 180 calories.
Instead lightly spray them with spray oil.
The hummus uses another tablespoon of oil. The hummus alone is 200 calories
If you skip the hummus and you use spray oil you can eliminate 300 calories