You can lose as much weight as you'd like to by counting calories. In fact, counting calories is one of the surest methods of achieving weight loss because the absolute only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume.

Effect

Counting your calories is the best way to guarantee that you are creating the calorie deficit needed to achieve weight loss.

Process

In order for calorie counting to be effective, you not only need to know how many calories you're consuming, you also have to know what your overall daily calorie need is.

Recommendation

It's generally suggested that you trim your caloric intake by 250 to 500 calories less than your daily calorie need if you want to lose weight.

Objective

If you reduce your calorie intake too much, you risk pushing your body into starvation mode where it will turn to the catabolism of muscle protein, not body fat, to meet the majority of its energy needs. But the goal of weight loss is to reduce body fat, not muscle mass. That's why a modest calorie cutback is recommended.

Method

Use the Calorie Calculator resource at the end of this article to calculate your estimated daily calorie need, and deduct between 250 to 500 calories from this estimate. The result is your daily calorie allowance. Use calorie counting to make sure that your food and drink intake do not exceed your daily calorie budget.

Tips

Using a digital food nutrition scale really helps to make calorie counting easier.

Source:

UMM: Common-Sense Strategies to Long-Term Weight Loss

Harvard: Food Insight - Managing the Risks of Eating

Resource:

EatSmart Nutrition Scale Demo