Discretionary calories.
Those two words are likely to become part of the nutritional lexicon when new U.S. Dietary Guidelines are unveiled early next year. The guidelines, updated every five years, provide a nutritional blueprint for the nation.
So what are discretionary calories?
| | | | | | | | | | ___ Lean Plate Club ___ The Lean Plate Club is about smart eating. It's not about dieting or deprivation. Read past columns.
___ Live Online ___ Want to eat healthier, move around more and otherwise get better but not bigger? Join Sally Squires every Tuesday for the Lean Plate Club Discussion.
___ Video ___ In the Lean Plate Club video series, get tips on portion control, getting a healthy snack and improving your eating habits. | | | | | | | |
|
They're the equivalent of a little loose change in your pocket -- the difference between the calories needed to provide all the essential nutrients for health and the calories burned daily. They're not just the icing on the cake, they're the cake and the icing. They're also the cream in whole milk, the added sugar in a soft drink and the fat in fried food. In other words, they're the high-calorie foods that may appeal to your taste buds but carry minimal nutritional benefits and aren't so great for your waistline.
And we eat far too many of them.
Here's how it shakes down: A typical 40-year-old sedentary man who burns about 2,350 calories per day needs 1,938 calories to meet his basic nutritional needs. The difference -- 412 -- is the number of discretionary calories that he has left. He could use them, for example, to drink a beer and eat a small bag of potato chips.
Doing that will keep his weight stable. But if he goes overboard day after day, as too many Americans do, there's a problem: weight gain.
It's learning to balance energy consumption with physical exertion -- something that will sound familiar to Lean Plate Club members -- that can help more people achieve a healthy weight, the committee said.
Here's a taste of what else committee members -- 13 experts in nutrition and physical activity -- chewed over in writing their report, which is slated for delivery this month to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Calories count. In fact, the idea of finding your own daily caloric balance -- how much you eat vs. how much you burn with physical activity -- is likely to be a mainstay of the upcoming guidelines. The data suggest that "most people need to improve the quality of their diets and . . . need to reduce their calorie intake somewhat," the scientists noted in their draft report. "They need to choose meals and snacks that are high in nutrients, but low to moderate" in calories.
