Why does my fitness watch show calories whereas calories on food packages are in kilo calories?

Question

I am trying to track the calories which I burn during my exercises using wearable fitness tracker watch (Gear Fit2 Pro), but I am pretty confused by the amount of calories which the watch shows me.

Burning Calories:

My watch says, I am burning almost 3000 Calories everyday.

Receiving Calories:

I get 373K Calories (or 373,000 Cal) from my dinner and lunch. I obtained this number from the rice and meat package.

If it is true, it means that, I am receiving much more calories than what i am burning, and definitely I must be a fat guy, however I am 180cm and 74KG (31 year old). So, I am almost fit.

So, I guess, something is wrong! Either the watch must also show more burned calories or the food packages are lying!!!

Anyways, please tell me, how should I track the calories which I burn and receive?

Answer 1

They're actually the same thing as far as this is concerned.

A "Calorie" and "Kilocalorie" is the same when talking about nutrition and exercise. Your watch says you burned 3000 Calories in the day and your dinner was 373 Calories. What food companies choose to put on food packaging is regional and usually dictated by the government. In the United States, they show everything as "Calorie" but other countries may choose the other. Fitness trackers aren't bound by the same laws, so they may just use "Calorie" because it's easier.

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Technically, the calorie the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. This is also referred to as the "gram calorie" or "small calorie". It's still used in chemistry and other science fields.

A Kilocalorie the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius. This is referred to as the "Big Calorie".

The big Calorie is used in nutrition because the amount of small calories food contains is actually in the thousands. So rather than saying something is "100,000 cals" you just say "100 Cals". Likewise, because the amount of calories people burn is in relation to food, so you'd use the big Calorie.