Counting Calories?

From one of my favorites - Dr. Bill. A pretty interesting read:

In his book, "The New Diet Revolution," the late Dr. Atkins said

that if you were on a low carb diet, you could eat 2000 calories

and still lose pounds and inches. But if you consumed 2000

calories on a low fat diet, you might not lose weight...and you 

might actually gain weight."

In other words, this means that, "There is no need to count 

calories." The Atkins approach, and that of many other paleo

disciples, is to count carbs, not calories.

There is a plethora of low carb diet books on the market, and

it isn't the least bit unusual to find that there can be two or more

low carb diet approaches on the best seller list at the same time,

along with several other approaches. In a nutshell, diet stuff 

sells 24 hours a day.

So do calories count,or not?

Yes, they do.

Now this is not saying low carb diets don't work, but they 

don't work for the reasons their authors say they work. In

the end, you can be successful using a low carb approach,

but ultimately it's because you are taking in fewer calories

than you did before.

No matter what diet you are following, calories are calories.

Even the author of the popular South Beach Diet admits

that you have to take in fewer calories to lose weight. 

This is a key weight loss concept, and if you don't follow

it, you will not lose weight and keep it off. And keeping it 

off is more important than losing it, in the long run.

If you're taking in 3000 calories a day, that's 21,000 calories

a week, and 84,000 calories a month. To lose weight, you need

to take in less. 

Let's drop down to 2500 calories a day. That's 17,500 calories

a week, and easily achievable. That's 3500 less calories a week,

and 14,000 less calories a month. Many people could do this

by quitting soda. (I used to do a six pack of Pepsi a day, or more.)

You could lose 3-4 pounds a month with this approach. 

This why I say that it isn't diet, but lifestyle changes that

work in the long haul. Keeping a food diary gets you off to

a good start. By simply keeping track of what you eat every

day for a couple of weeks, you'll see the blueprint of why

you are overweight (if you are). And you'll know what you have to 

eliminate, or cut back on.