Diet tips -calories-

Calories represent the energy your body takes in through food, which it processes and uses to fuel your body - the trouble comes in when you take in more calories through food than you burn off through activity and exercise, as your body stores the excess calories in the form of fat.

Aside from exercise, the simplest way to lose weight is to reduce your caloric intake, by eating less calories. You can do this in one of two ways - either choose foods that contain less calories, or eat smaller quantities/portions of the same foods that you are already having. See our reference page for examples of the number of calories found in a variety of common foods.

A simple rule of thumb is that 3500 calories equals 1 pound, so if you can reduce your daily intake by 500 calories/day, then you should lose roughly 1 pound/week. To maintain a healthy diet, avoid cutting calories alone without exercising - find a balance between both approaches, as you will not only end up with a much more healthy end result (as exercise offers health benefits above and beyond weight loss), but if you avoid exercise your body's metabolism will adjust by burning less calories, so you won't end up being able to sustain any weight loss.

In order to determine how many calories you should be cutting, you need to determine how many calories your body needs to get through the day - every height/weight has a basic requirement for calories, so look at what your body needs and what you're normally taking in - this will provide you a starting point so that you can compare your current intake with what your body really needs.

Different kinds of exercise will burn different amounts of calories, so plan your regular exercise routine into your calorie counting, it will give you an idea of how many pounds you can expect to lose and how quickly, so you can determine if you are on track to meet your goals.