Food calorie counters may be the secret weapon in your weight loss arsenal. There is no doubt that losing weight is hard. The deck is tacked against you these days. Portions get bigger and bigger, and there is continually more calories being pushed into our faces. We are constantly bombarded with ads encouraging us to eat, and our foods are filled with trans fats and high fructose corn syrup.
Frankly, it’s a miracle that anyone ever manages to lose weight and, not surprisingly, most people don’t. You can, though, and food calorie counters can be a real help in getting you there. All it takes is a little knowledge, a little willpower and some help from one of the food calorie counters.
Essentially, all diets work under the same premise. They may claim to have special biological properties or work by some strange mixture of foods, but really, all any diet does is cause you to eat less. Eat enough less, and you will start losing weight. It really is that simple.
Most diets work by omitting one of the three macronutrients, usually either fat or carbohydrates. If the diet restricts carbs, the natural satiating properties of fat and protein will keep you fuller and reduce your calories. If they reduce fat and have you focus on complex carbs, the sheer bulk of the food will automatically reduce your calories.
This can be effective, but it necessarily means that you have to omit a lot of foods you really like, and this is something that food calorie counters can help you avoid. They allow you to have the knowledge of calories and nutrients that will allow you to lose weight permanently, quickly and easily.
Food calorie counters are pretty much exactly what they sound like: books or computer programs that allow you to look up the caloric content of any food you eat. With the arrival of the internet, this has become much easier than it ever was before. Now all you need to do is select your foods from a pulldown menu and the food calorie counters will calculate the levels for you.
This allows you to lose weight by putting the power in your hands. What you have to do is take in fewer calories than you are burning. The easiest way to do this is by making certain food substitutions. If you know, for example, that the mac and cheese you’re eating contains 700 calories, the food calorie counters can tell you about a number of alternate foods that can half that amount.
The food calorie counters can also allow you to tailor your portion size. By properly adjusting your meals, you can have the best of both worlds: you can eat what you want and still lose weight. The thing to remember is that it doesn’t take a huge amount of calories to lose weight; even dropping 200 calories from your daily menu will have you losing 20 pounds over the course of the year. If used properly, food calorie counters can be a powerful weapon in the war against fat.