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The US Department of Health recommends a daily calorie intake of 1940 calories per day for a woman and 2550 for a man. If you eat less calories than this, you will lose weight.

All food stuffs contain a certain number of calories. A calorie is a unit of un-used energy. If you eat food, you take those calories into your body. You body can either burn the calories off by using them to pump blood, make your legs work etc, or it can store them for later - AS FAT!

Knowing this, it stands to reason that the less calories you put into your body the less weight you will gain. Obviously you need a certain amount of calories to give your body the energy to do basic tasks like cell renewal, growing hair etc. Also, you will burn off some of these calories if you do any exercise. Different exercises burn off different amounts of calories.

If you visit http://www.weightlossresources .co.uk/calories/calorie_counti ng/1000_diet_menu.htm you will see the details of the 1000-calorie diet. Read this carefully. You will see that it tells you not to do this diet for more than ONE WEEK. If you continue for longer you body will think it is in a famine and will start using up calories more slowly in case it doesn't get any more - it's not as stupid as you think!

This site gives you sample menus for the week. After this time, you can continue on a calorie-controlled diet by limiting the number of calories you eat. How can you do this? By visiting sites such as www.caloriecounter.co.uk or www.thecaloriecounter.com. Use these calculators to work out how many calories there are in your favorite foods. This might take some time, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Make yourself a set of little cards with all the foods on. For example have one card with 'banana 70 cals' written on it. Have another with 'tea with milk 40 cals'. Have a third with 'bowl of cereal with milk xx calories' etc. Decide how many calories you want to eat a day, eg 1500 and put out a pile of cards for that day's meals. You should have three meals, some snacks, fruit and drinks all included. When you eat something, remove it from the pile and put it to one side. When you've got to the bottom of the pile, stop eating! Repeat the next day with a different pile of cards showing different food, but still adding up to 1500 calories. Simple!

The 1000-calorie diet is great for one week. DON'T go over this time. DO continue with a calorie controlled diet if you need to lose more weight and DO introduce some exercise into your daily routine.

Here's some interesting information. A pack of fun-sized peanut M&Ms is 110 grams (read it off the side of the pack). You can do about 30 mins walking to burn this off. Worth it? I'd say so! Use the calculator at http://walking.about.com/libra ry/cal/uccalc1.htm to work out how far you need to walk to burn off what you eat.

So, balance your calorie intake against your calorie usage and you're winning! Good luck!

Learn more about this author, Susan Hibberd.
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