Calorie Counting for Weight Loss
Oh dear.
The hard, fast fact is, you can’t lose weight without taking in fewer calories then you expend. There are any number of ways to be approximately sure this happens, rules for eating or rules for exercising – but to be absolutely sure, you need to count your calories.
Great, boring advice.
There’s definitely diligence involved. Keeping a food diary on paper is a good start – but to really drill into the calories you’re consuming, plug that diary into an online service (if you found this, it’ll be just as easy for you to find a free calorie-counting service), be super exact in your serving size measurements, and don’t don’t don’t cheat! It’s so easy to slip in a few grapes or crackers or little delicious somethings – without even thinking about it. Don’t let it happen! Keep track for awhile if possible – if donut day is once a week and you eat four donuts (er… maybe that’s only me :S i like donuts) and you just happen to not keep track that day – your entire week’s worth of calories will be very skewed.
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And in the end, it’s what you eat over the course of the entire week, week after week, that determines your body composition. Eating like a monk during the week and partying like Bacchus on the weekends might not even out – it might, but your figure knows. (Partying so hard you don’t retain a good deal of the night’s indulgences does NOT constitute healthy! I think you should count all of those calories 
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Be faithful to the calorie counting. Don’t let it lie. If you’re not desperate to start your weight loss, eat normally. The week of baseline, this-is-my-comfort zone data will pay off in spades more weight loss down the line. The knowledge that your after-work bowl of cereal should really have been counting for half your supper, or that you actually eat very few vegetables despite your traditional evening side dishes, will be a great point of reference. You won’t simply have the ‘this is what you need to do’ of most food plans – you’ll know ‘this is how I need to change’.
If your resolution to count calories has come at the dramatic realization that NOW! is the time to start losing weight (and more power to you! that’s a great way to begin) try to do a comparison. Without triggering your food cravings, be detached and write down both what you have eaten, and what you would have eaten without your new determination. Or try to draft a ‘this is how I used to eat’ document all at once – carry it with you throughout the week and discover how right you were. Just seeing how many calories it was taking to uphold the bulk – and how many snack points you’d forgotten about - might be a lasting spur to healthier ways. Stick to your new resolutions – a weight solution well begun can be gold in your efforts. Good luck!
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