Please help!!! HUGE confusion on calories per gram and oz.

IsaCaliBel

I track calories but also make sure I get in enough protein grams. When I looked up chicken breast no skin 5 oz (141.7g) is 234 calories. However if there are 4 calories in every gram of protein that makes it 566.8 calories. What am I doing wrong or not understanding???

Ninkyou

1g of protein isn't equal to 1g of weight. In other words your 141.7g chicken is not 141.7g of protein.

rankinsect

Yup, muscle contains a lot of protein but it's by no means pure protein. There is a lot of other stuff in the chicken breast too. A good portion of its weight is water, for one.

jemhh

IsaCaliBel wrote: »

I track calories but also make sure I get in enough protein grams. When I looked up chicken breast no skin 5 oz (141.7g) is 234 calories. However if there are 4 calories in every gram of protein that makes it 566.8 calories. What am I doing wrong or not understanding???

100 grams of chicken breast contains 31 grams of protein and 3.6 grams of fat, according to the USDA.

fittrain299

There are 4 calories in each gram of protein and carbohydrate. There are 9 calories in each gram of fat.

chastity0921

You're counting the grams of the chicken, and getting confused.

You should be counting the grams of protein in the chicken. Let's say you are eating chicken and there is 20 g protein in the chicken. Since there are 4 calories in each gram of protein or carbohydrate, you will have consumed 80 calories from protein. If there are 3 g fat in that same piece of chicken, you will have consumed 27 calories from fat (since fat is 9 calories per gram). Alcohol has about 7 calories per gram.

Those are just random gram amounts I made up, by the way

IsaCaliBel

I see what I did wrong now... thanks!!!

AnvilHead

I just looked up the USDA entry for "chicken breast, no skin". Adjusted serving size to 5 oz and it shows 194 calories. Macros are 4g fat, 40g protein.

4 x 9 = 36 (fat has 9 cal/g, there are 4 grams of fat in the serving)

40 x 4 = 160 (protein has 4 cal/g, there are 40 grams of protein in the serving)

160 + 36 = 196. Allow for rounding errors (fat could have actually been 3.8g or protein could have been 39.5g or whatever) and it's only off by 2 calories.)