A calorie is simply a unit of measurement for heat; in the early 19th century, it was used to explain the theory of heat conservation and steam engines. The term entered the food world around 1890, when the USDA appropriated it for a report on nutrition. Specifically, a calorie was defined as the unit of heat required to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius.

To apply this concept to foods like sandwiches, scientists used to set food on fire (really!) and then gauge how well the flaming sample warmed a water bath. The warmer the water, the more calories the food contained. (Today, a food’s calorie count is estimated from its carbohydrate, protein, and fat content.) In the calorie’s leap to nutrition, its definition evolved. The calorie we now see cited on nutrition labels is the amount of heat required to raise 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius.

Here’s the problem: Your body isn’t a steam engine. Instead of heat, it runs on chemical energy, fueled by the oxidation of carbohydrates, fat, and protein that occurs in your cells’ mitochondria. “You could say mitochondria are like small power plants,” says Maciej Buchowski, Ph.D., a research professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University medical center. “Instead of one central plant, you have several billion, so it’s more efficient.”

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Calories measure the amount of energy stored in food. Stated another way, calories measure the amount of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins in food. For instance, a gram of protein has 4 calories while a gram of fat has 9 calories. That said, when it comes to losing weight there is a lot more to be taken into consideration such as exercise, portion control, nutrition-focused food choices, etc.. Thus, there can be no magic number of calories that we should eat to lose weight.

So what should be considered in terms of weight loss? For starters, nutrition. A nutrition-focused food choice is more beneficial than a calorie-focused food choice. For instance, choosing a high-fiber food will benefit you more than another that may be lower in calories because more than likely the high-fiber food will keep you full longer than a food choice low in calories. With the low-calorie food choice, you will end up eating again sooner because you are hungry, thus consuming extra calories in order to fill yourself up. Another is that you begin to identify foods high in calories and/or that have little to no nutritional value that you can eliminate from your diet. Also, you can reduce your portions as well as switch to low-calorie alternatives. A cup of raw broccoli contains only 31 calories, while the same amount of chocolate ice cream has close to 285.

Finally, increasing your activity level could also help. Becoming more active can greatly benefit you by burning calories. Some foods require more energy than others to digest and metabolize, particularly high-fiber, protein foods. You could save about 12 to 15 calories per day by merely walking for about 4 minutes. Most experts agree that its easier to exercise than to cut the same number of calories that the exercise burns off. Bottom line, it’s best to focus less on eating from a measuring cup or scale and focus more on what you’re eating, portion control and activity levels. Calories count but they are far from being the whole picture. Besides that, counting calories is way too complicated. Most times we either underestimate or overestimate the calories in our meals. So go ahead and take the easy route and start making calories count!