Is Pecan Pie Healthy? (5 Tips For Weight Loss) 

Pecan Pie can’t be missed in American cuisine. If Pecan Pie is one of your favorite desserts, this article is for you.  Find out what Pecan Pie is and see whether, or not it’s healthy and can fit into your lifestyle.

Pecan Pie is a popular dish in the Southern States, especially in Texas and Louisiana. However, it is said that Pecan Pie was invented by the French who settled in New Orleans, and who got the Pecans from the Native Americans. 

Although Pecan Pie is delicious, is it healthy?

Since Pecan Pie is a dessert, it is not necessarily considered healthy and should be consumed in moderation or rarely. As it is relatively high in calories, fat, and sugar. 

Here are five steps that explain the calorie amount in one slice of Pecan Pie, the ingredients that go into making Pecan Pie, and how to stay in shape while eating this delicious southern dessert. 

1. What Goes Into Making Pecan Pie?

2. How Many Calories Are in One Slice of Pecan Pie?

3. Understand How Many Calories You Need to Consume in a Day

4. How to Increase Your Activity Level

5. How to Stay in Shape Eating Pecan Pie

Let’s take a deeper look at all of these individual steps and see what you can do to stay healthy while enjoying some delicious Pecan Pie. 

Step 1: What Goes Into Making Pecan Pie?

Pecan Pie is considered a sugar pie mixed with nuts, in this case, pecans. 

Traditionally, Pecan Pie is made with either making a pie crust or using a store-bought pie crust, and the filling requires; pecans, corn syrup, butter, granulated sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla extract, and salt. 

You can also substitute the corn syrup with maple syrup, or honey. 

Now that we know what a Pecan Pie is, let’s take a look at the nutrition facts of one slice of Pecan Pie.

Tip 2: How Many Calories Are in One Slice of Pecan Pie?

Whether you live a sedentary lifestyle or an active lifestyle, it’s important to understand how many calories you need to consume daily. As weight loss is really the concept of calories in vs. calories out.

Let’s take a look at the nutrition facts. As you can see, one slice of Pecan Pie has 380 calories with a macronutrient ratio of 58 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein, and 17 grams of fat.  

Not only is Pecan Pie high in calories per one slice but it’s also high in carbs, fat, and sugars, with 49 grams.  

The key to dieting is a nice balance of macronutrients, as well as having an active lifestyle.  

A good rule of thumb for dieting is keeping a nice balance of macronutrients. A great ratio is sticking to 30% carbs, 40% protein, and 30% fats.  

Although this is still relatively high in calories for one meal, it can easily be incorporated into your daily calorie intake, as long as you don’t overeat and work out. 

What’s important when eating food is understanding the balance of both calories and macronutrients. 

Calories define how our bodies look and feel which is a concept that we will talk about in the next section. 

What makes up those calories are really what’s important and having those macronutrients skewed to fats and carbs will be detrimental to your diet.

In order for you to build muscle, it’s important to consume enough protein. Although one slice of Pecan Pie has 4 grams of protein, you want to make sure you eat more protein-rich foods throughout the day. 

The key aspect is to understand how many calories you need to eat in a day and to make sure not to overeat on your total accounted calories for the day. 

Now that we know a little bit more about the nutrition facts of one slice of Pecan Pie, let’s take a look at how many calories you need to consume daily to stay in shape.

Tip 3: Understand How Many Calories You Need to Consume in a Day

Great health and fitness are all about calorie or energy balance, which means that you can still eat your fats and carbs, and stay in shape. 

If you burn more calories than you consume, then you will find yourself in a “caloric deficit” which is the only way fat loss can occur. 

You can easily overeat on unhealthy, processed foods that are high in fats and carbs, especially when something is as delicious as Pecan Pie. Overeating is usually the quickest way to get out of shape. 

To stay healthy and in shape, we need to first go over your daily caloric needs and figure out how many calories you need in a day, as well as figure out how much of each macronutrient you should be consuming.

There are a few factors that determine your daily calorie intake. Such as weight management, weight loss, or weight gain. Other factors that play a big role, are your gender and your height. 

So, how do you know how many calories you should be eating in a day?

The answer is through trial and error and finding a calorie range that allows you to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. 

However, a good place to start is to multiply your body weight by 12 or to use an online TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) calculator.

Your TDEE relies heavily on how active you are and how much movement you see in your day.

Within your TDEE lies a subsection, which is called TEPA (Thermic Effect of Physical Activity) which accounts for 15-30% of your entire day’s worth of calories.

This means, you are in control of 15-30% of how much you can eat, which is a huge portion of calories.

The key here is to find foods that keep you full longer and still deliver a balanced amount of macronutrients. 

If you’re someone who loves to eat a lot while staying fit, then being active is the key to a balanced lifestyle that allows you to eat whatever you like, such as Pecan Pie, and stay in shape. 

Once you know your calorie intake based on your weight and height, you can then decide how much you want to decrease it. 

So, if you want to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, we suggest you start with 100 calories less than what you are currently consuming and see if you notice a difference within a week.

If you don’t see any changes in your weight, decrease your calorie intake by another 100 calories and see how that works. 

However, it is suggested, to not decrease the calorie intake below 1,200 per day for women, or below 1,500 calories per day for men.

So, just calculate whatever calorie range you find, and split up your calories by following those macro guidelines. 

Now that we know how many calories to consume daily, let’s take a look at how to increase your activity level.

Tip 4: How to Increase Your Activity Level

After you’ve figured out how many calories you need to consume daily, you need to make sure that you exercise regularly and increase your activity level.

Therefore it is important you utilize your calories efficiently throughout your day. 

The best way to do this is to build muscle and to also move more throughout your day. 

60-75% of energy expenditure comes from your basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is how much your body burns if it did nothing all day. (NASM)

10% of energy expenditure comes from the thermic effect of feeding (TEF) which is the calories you burn from digesting different foods. (NASM)

15-30% of energy expenditure comes from the Thermic Effect of Activity (TEA) which is movement such as working out and aerobics. Source (NASM) 

To sum it up, up to 30% of our energy expenditure can come from movement and activity so this is a huge portion of our weight loss journey that you can actively control.

The more movement the better and, to utilize and burn those calories, you should be moving all you can.

Now that we know how to increase your activity, let’s take a look at how you can lose weight and stay in shape.

Tip 5: How to Stay in Shape Eating Pecan Pie

It’s crucial to understand the importance of diet and workout, to enjoy foods like Pecan Pie.

I’m sure that you’ve heard that carbs are the enemy and they’re the main driving factor at keeping us from getting a flat stomach or abs.

Carbs are your direct source of energy and they allow you to function properly and fuel your workouts and movements.

The same goes for fats. However, the body needs healthy fats to function properly and to absorb nutrients. As well as to produce hormones. 

The real enemy is inactivity and staying sedentary while eating more carbs than you need to. 

As stated in Tip #3, you need to be able to burn calories throughout your day, to put yourself at a caloric deficit. 

Building muscle allows you to burn calories at rest, which means you can eat more and still lose fat.

This is really the goal of working out and is what keeps you healthy as your metabolism increases.

Although working out and building muscle takes priority, having a consistent cardio schedule can help with expediting the fat loss process as it raises the energy expended throughout your week.

The fastest and most efficient way to build muscle is learning how to do some resistance training.

You can also do a combination of resistance training and LISS (Low-Intensity Steady State) cardio or HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) cardio, to improve your heart health and maximize fat burn. 

LISS is cardio that comes from walking or a brisk walk, you should be able to have a conversation while still building up a sweat.

HIIT cardio is intervals of a very high-intensity movement, such as sprints, battle ropes, or kickboxing movements aiming to quickly raise the heart rate.

The benefit of HIIT is allowing yourself to burn calories in a shorter amount of time. 

We recommend having 80% of cardio coming from LISS while 20% comes from HIIT for optimal fat loss throughout the week. 

LISS is a much more reliable source of consistent movement and does not require rest as it does not shock the Central Nervous System the way HIIT can.

You need to use weights and build muscle by doing a variety of workouts that target each muscle group specifically. 

Although it can be intimidating to get in shape, as it will be hard to learn and might be discouraging at the beginning, it’s definitely worth it in the long run for both your health and fitness. 

All you need are a set of dumbbells, such as these adjustable dumbbells, and a reliable treadmill such as the Bluefin Fitness Treadmill that tracks your calories and you’re on your way to controlling the number of calories you burn. 

Regarding working out with dumbbells, it’s important not to add too much weight too soon because that could result in injury if you are unfamiliar with the correct body positions. It is better to start small and then increase the weight level. 

Here is a workout plan we’ve created for men and women, where you can get started if you are someone who is new to a resistance training regimen.

MEN:

Day One: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Abs (Push Day) : 

• Cable Crunches: 4 sets 15 reps 

• Triceps Rope Push Down: 3 sets 15 reps

• Lateral Raises: 3 sets 15 reps

• Shoulder Press: 3 sets 10 reps

• Dumbbell Press: 4 sets 12 reps

• Bench Press: 3 sets 10 reps

Day Two (Legs & Abs):

• Weighted Toe Touches: 4 sets 25 reps

• Weighted Sit-Ups: 4 sets 25 reps

• Jumping Squats With Resistance Bands: 5 sets 20 reps

• Glute Bridges With Weight: 4 sets 20 reps

• Stiff Leg Deadlift (Romanian Deadlift): 4 sets 15 reps

• Weighted Walking Lunges: 2 sets 20 steps

• Goblet Squats: 4 sets 20 reps

Day Three: Back & Biceps (Pull Day):

• Hammer Curls: 3 sets 10 reps

• Bicep Curls: 3 sets 10 reps

• Seated Cable Rows: 4 sets 15 reps

• Dumbbell Rows: 4 sets 10 reps (Each Side)

• Lat Pulldowns: 4 sets 12 reps

• Assisted Pull-Ups: 3 sets 10 reps

WOMEN

Day One (Full Upper):

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 

• Lateral Raises: 4x15

• Lat Pulldowns: 4x12

• Knee Push-Ups: 4x20

• Seated Shoulder Press: 4x20 

• Dumbbell Row: 3x10

• Dumbbell Fly: 3x10

Day Two (Back/Hamstrings/Biceps):

• Hammer Curls: 3x10

• Bicep Curls: 3x10

• Hamstring Curl: 4x15

• Stiff Leg Deadlift: 4x15

• Cable Row: 4x15

• Lat Pulldowns: 4x12

• Assisted Pull-Ups: 3x10

Day Three (Legs/Butt/Abs): 

• Leg Lifts: 3x35

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 

• Jump Squats: 4x20

• Glute Kickbacks: 4x20 each leg

• Glute Bridge: 4x20

• Goblet Squats: 4x20

• Squats: 5x5

We recommend working out at least three times per week in the beginning, since the resting days in between are important to build muscle. 

Building muscle will happen relatively fast if you are new to working out, so this is great news for anyone looking to get in shape.

That’s why it’s important to increase your activity level at least 3 - 4 times a week if your goal is to get lean. 

So if you love eating more than one slice of Pecan Pie, you have to make sure your activity level is higher than usual, especially if you want to lose weight. 

Pecan Pie is a type of food that, if eaten by someone sedentary, will probably make the individual gain weight as it is packed with unused calories. 

If you actively workout and build muscle, however, there is so much room to eat this delicious dessert and still look great.

Fats and carbs are the two macronutrients that will be more likely to be stored as energy. 

Therefore, you don’t want all of your calories simply coming from carbs or fats, you want there to be a balance coming from carbs, protein, and fats.

If you put calorie tracking, muscle building, and actively moving more altogether, desserts such as a Pecan Pie won’t get you off track because the formula provides so much leniency for you to shed some fat.

Make sure to stick with it for a long time and understand that fitness is a lifelong journey that takes time to cultivate.

Working out allows you to be more flexible in your diet and lifestyle, which is so important if you want to sustain a lean body and stay healthy. 

This is why we need to control the number of calories we get from carbs and fats in order to utilize the energy we gained through movement and workouts.

The tip here is to live active and go out and seek a workout regimen. 

So, next time you’re wondering how you can lose some weight, remember that you need to build some muscle and track your calories to your specified amount. 

THERE IT IS!

The key to healthy eating is balance and moderation. Our five tips will help you stay fit while eating a Pecan Pie. 

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