One key to maintaining a healthy weight is to balance the calories you eat with the calories you burn.  But that’s sometimes easier said than done.

Balancing your calories sounds deceptively simple.  Eat more calories than you burn and you’ll gain weight. Take in fewer calories than you burn and you’ll shed some pounds. Keep your “calories in” and “calories out” about the same, and your weight should stay pretty stable.  So why is it that hardly a week goes by that someone doesn’t complain to me that they’re “exercising like a madman, but not losing any weight” or, “eating like a bird but the scale won’t budge”?  It simply boils down to this: when it comes to counting calories accurately – the ones you eat and the one you spend – there are so many ways it can go wrong.

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Let’s face it – losing weight is no simple task.  If it were, we’d surely see fewer people struggling to get their weight down and keep it off.  Taking in fewer calories than you spend every day sounds like a simple enough formula, but counting calories accurately – both the ones that you eat and the ones that you burn – takes considerable practice. 

 On top of the calorie counting problem, I’ve found many dieters – with good intentions, mind you – who make critical mistakes when it comes to devising their own health plans.  So when patients tell me they can’t lose weight, it’s often because they’re committing a few of these common dieting mistakes.

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