for woman, it is 500ca or 500Ca?

This topic contains 5 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by russianbluecat 7 years, 9 months ago.

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

lotusnail

6:09 pm
3 Feb 17
Permalink

500Ca=500kca

if I confine my calories to 500ca, I could almost eat nothing, perhaps 1/1000 toufu (500g).

So does it mean 500Ca (500kca) ?

Lolly_

9:28 pm
3 Feb 17
Permalink

Your question is a little confusing, but it is 500 calories for a fasting day. This is around 1/4 of what you would eat on a non-fasting day (depending on your TDEE), if that helps you see it better.

Some people do prefer to eat nothing on a fast day and just drink water, but with a little creativity most of us find ways to make 500 calories stretch with soup, salads or perhaps only eating one meal in the evening.

Welcome to 5:2! Read through some of the topics for inspiration on finding what works for you. Good luck!

LJoyce

2:58 am
4 Feb 17
Permalink

Hi lotusnail,

The energy is expressed as either calories (usually abbreviated to cal or ca); or as kilojoules (usually abbreviated as kj or kcal). There are also abbreviations for 1000 times the basic measure – eg Mj means 1000 kilojoules – however these types of abbreviations usually only occur in scientific papers.
1 Calories equals roughly 4.2 Kilojoules. So the daily limit for a fast day (for women) is 500 calories or 2100 kilojoules.

Whether you use calories or kilojoules to count your food intake will usually depend on where you live. Kilojoules is a metric measure and tends to be what is on all of the food labelling in countries that use metric (litres and grams) as their official measuring method (eg in Australia). Countries that use imperial measurements (pounds and ounces) use calories (eg US and UK).

It doesn’t matter what measurement system you use as long as you consume the right amount of food, so 500 calories or 2100 kilojoules.

Regarding your tofu example. The energy in tofu varies a lot between brands, but the one in my fridge at the moment has 270kj or 64 calories per 100grams (just over 3 ounces).

Vaderz

5:28 am
4 Feb 17
Permalink

LJoyce, you’re confusing KCal and KJ (they aren’t the same).

The confusion lies in that there are two types of ‘calories’… the gram calorie (energy needed to raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree celcius), ‘cal’ = 4.2 ‘joules’, and the kilogram calorie (or food calorie, the one you see printed on food lables), ‘Cal’ = 4.2 KJ

…so, the answer to the original question is 500Cal (with the big C – and yes, that = 500kca, not that you would ever see ca printed on a food lable – I hope)

…more info than you ever wanted to know about the definition of a calorie, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie

LJoyce

3:14 am
5 Feb 17
Permalink

Sorry, all the food labels in Australia just say kilojoules or kj, I always assumed that when people in other countries referred to kcal they meant the same thing. Always happy to learn new things.

russianbluecat

8:58 am
14 Feb 17
Permalink

In the UK it’s always in kj and kc … they give both on all the packaging I’ve seen.