Diets have been around for years – while some come and go, there are a few healthy eating routines and diets that can really help you lose weight, or maintain your current weight. What’s most popular though and in demand, is dieting to lose weight, and some even go extremes.

Simply put, diets are all about watching your calories from the food you eat.

•    For losing weight, eat less compared to what your body requires for energy. If you eat more than what you can burn (based on your activities), then the excess calories may be stored as muscle, but more often than not, it is stored as fat, accumulating as time goes on.
•    When you count calories, you are in control of how much calories goes in to your body, and you will be conscious of how much you need to burn. If you eat 2000 calories per day, make sure you have activities that can burn them, otherwise, it will be converted to fat. If you know you will be less active, then eat less.
•    Counting calories should not be based on daily activities alone. You should consider your lifestyle as a whole. If you ate one whole chocolate cake yesterday, it should have been yesterday that you burned it, not today.
•    For example, when you eat a 300 calories snack like apple pie, or two scoops of ice cream, make sure you burn 300 calories in your activities like walking for an hour, or a strenuous exercise for 40 minutes. Add to that your breakfast, your lunch, and your dinner of heavy meals, then you’ve got lots of calories to burn already. If that sound like too much, then watch your calories.
•    Calorie information is readily available in websites dedicated to calorie count, and even most restaurant have the calorie information of their menu. In some countries like Japan, calorie information is printed on your receipt.
•    Calorie counting ensures you don’t take in what you can’t consume, and that means you don’t take in what can be possibly stored as fat.
•    It’s not about restraining to eat, it’s just about knowing how much you’ve eaten. Opt for equally delicious and more filling substitute to a high-calorie food.
•    Keep a record or a mental note of how much calories you’ve taken in.

Calorie counting is healthy because you are not completely deprived. As extreme dieting can lead to illnesses and health conditions like anorexia, some of them may even require immediate medical and mental attention as these are life-threatening.

It has been said that too much of anything is not a good thing – and that goes for food, and calories as well. Too much resting is bad too, all those energy has to be released or else they are stored as fat in you body.

If you aim to lose weight, try doing it by the numbers and pretty soon, those numbers are going to go down, and so does your waistline.