Weight Loss Secrets - Counting Calories To Lose Weight: Is It Necessary? By Yudi Kerbel http://www.losefatatwork.com

One of the oldest weight loss wisdoms is that you need to be aware of your exact caloric intake in order to lose weight.

However, the truth is that counting calories is hard to do and many people struggle to sustain it long term.

As we all know, it's hard to lose weight with any method that you can't adhere to over the long run, so the question begs: is calorie counting really necessary?

To first examine that question we need to understand why people count calories in the first place.

The reason for this is because of the basic formula for weight loss, which states that if you eat more calories than you burn, you put on weight.

So, in order to know the balance between the two, we have to know how many calories we are taking in via food, so that we can tweak this number and lower it (through eating less food) if we aren't losing weight.

The problem with this simplistic view of weight loss is that it doesn't take into account the quality of the food that you're eating.

What if you're only eating a small amount of calories but all of those calories are from junk food? Are you really still going to lose weight? And even if you do, will you be healthy?

The truth is that counting calories is part of the process but not an answer in itself.

If you're eating healthy foods like fruit and veggies all day long, chances are that you won't have to count calories much because all of your intake will be from healthy sources that don't contain a lot of calories.

Conversely, if you eat tons of junk food, you're going to have to monitor your intake very closely to make sure you don't over indulge yourself.

So really, counting calories becomes more important as your eating habits get worse.

If you eat healthy all the time, your caloric intake pretty much takes care of itself and the counting is no longer necessary.

Losing weight is about more than counting calories.

It's about eating right, exercising right and ensuring that you're developing lifelong healthy habits, not just watching the pounds on the scale.

For a more in-depth discussion about calorie counting, including the crazy story of how you can learn about weight loss from two construction workers, some sticky mud and a rickety wall, check out:

http://bit.ly/countingcalories

Weight Loss Secrets - Counting Calories To Lose Weight: Is It Necessary? By Yudi Kerbel http://www.losefatatwork.com