I get that is has something to do with energy, but so do a lot of things.
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Calories are just food energy – how much energy do the organic compounds in our food have, which can be released through our body’s respiration processes. It’s also important to note that a “food calorie” and a “science calorie” are different, which can be confusing. In science, a calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 mL of water by 1°C. In food, we actually take 1000 calories (a kilocalorie) and call it a “calorie” for short.
So calories are quite simply the part of food that translates into energy – not into other types of nutrition. These mostly come from sugars, starches, fats, and proteins. Your body needs a certain amount of energy each day, just to continue breathing, keeping the heart pumping, all of the organs working. And on top of that, we need energy for any work we do on top of that. If you get more calories than you need in a day, the body will try to save the extra, mostly as fat. If you get fewer calories than you need in a day, your body will burn fat deposits instead, or if you don’t have enough fat, the body may actually have to start breaking down other parts of your body, just to keep the important stuff working – that’s what starvation is.
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