Diet / Nutritional Question

[noel]

Are the words 'kcal' and 'calorie' interchangable, or is there some conversion from calories to kcals I'm not aware of? I've been googling this, but I haven't really found a clear definition and I'm hoping one of you knows.

Thanks in advance.

[masteen]

Main Entry: kcal
Function: abbreviation
kilocalorie, kilogram calorie

[Voronwë]

if i recall correctly: calorie on food wrappers actually is the unit kcal in the strict metric interpretation.

on british food wrappers i think you see it written as kcal.

they are not necessarily interchangible, but in this case they are.

[noel]

Edit: To Masteen:

Understood, but 1 kcal != 1000 calories. I'm certain of that.

I base this on the fact that there are websites advertising 1200kcal diets for weight loss, and I'm certain that 1200000 calories per day is far too many to promote weight loss.

The main reason I'm trying to be clear about this is that I'm burning an average of 4900+ kcals a week during my training rides. My body fat is very low right now, and I'm concerned I'm not taking in enough calories. I'd like to change my diet to take in more to compensate for my energy output, but I need to be clear on the terminology first.

Edit: Thanks Voro, I'm going to keep looking.

Edit2: This is the best info I could find:
1 calorie = 4.18400 joules (Applies to chemistry and biochemistry) = (Heating 1 g of water 1 degree Celsius (1 Centigrade)).
1 Calorie (1 Cal) = 1000 calories (1000 cal) = 1 kcal
Many authors are quite sloppy and use "calories" and "grams" instead of the more correct terms "kcal" and "g".
Don't follow their steps or the advantage of a stringent use will be lost. The SI system use joule instead of calories. 1 cal (thermochemical) = 4.184 joule (J). 1 g of carbohydrates or protein equals ca. 17 kJ.
If you only consumed 5000 calories ( = 5 kcal) a day you would starve to death in less than two months. A normal consumption is approximately 2500 kcal/day (2 500 000 cal/day).
1 g of glucose = 3.81 kcal
1 g of palmitate (fat) = 9.30 kcal
1 g of alcohol (1.4 ml) = 7 kcal
1 g of protein = ca. 4 kcal (It's actually a lot more and differs between the different amino acids, but the kidneys consume a lot of energy to relieve the body from the resulting urea. The net gain is 4 kcal/g.

[Tenuvil]

Calorie - The amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a unit of water, at or near the temperature of maximum density, one degree Celsius (or Centigrade [C]); expressed as a "small calorie" (the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water one degree C), or as a "large calorie" or "kilogram calorie" (the amount of heat required to raise one kilogram [1,000 grams] of water one degree C); capitalization of the word calorie indicates a kilogram-calorie.

Kcals are the measure used in food potential energy measurement.

Thanks to http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumerinfo ... ary.html#C

[noel]

Thanks Tenuvil!

[Tenuvil]

np, this confused the crap out of me back in my heavy training days...it certainly is more than a little confusing when nutritionists and scientists use the same word to mean two different things.

[noel]

Yeah I'm used to seeing Calorie on the labels for food, but a lot of the energy expenditure stuff I see, and my training software has all the energy measurement in kcals.

[masteen]

So Calorie = kcal

but calorie = cal

So the caloric content on food is in kcals?

[Tenuvil]

yup.

[Zamtuk]

so there is 1000 calories in a diet coke?

[Vetiria]

1 Cal = 1 kcal = 1000 cal

[Taly]

twinkies are bad...................