Your body needs at least 2000-2200 calories a day to live and to keep your metabolism going strong. As long as the food you eat is nutrient rich, even with some treats your body won't gain weight. Rather it will use all of those many calories for energy.
Now this would not mean you can eat anything and everything that is put in front of you. Your body needs a dynamic diet that includes more nutrients and whole foods instead of focusing on reducing calories.
If you are eating more leafy greens or other low calorie whole foods, the calorie count is balanced with the whole grains, dairy and lean meat. Your life would also have room for a slice of chocolate cake or two without causing any weight gain.
It certainly does not mean you can go ahead and eat a large fry or a slice of cheesecake every single day. They can easily take up a majority of your calories for the day. Moderation is the key even if you are not counting calories.
Greasy, saturated fats are not your best friends, although they do have their role in a healthy diet. Healthy fats would rather include coconut oil, olive oil, almonds, walnuts, peanut butter and other monounsaturated fats that can easily be found at your local grocery store.
This along with learning how-to handle stress, giving proper rest to your body and working out some strength training & cardio are main ingredients of a dynamic diet. It is about truly giving your mind and body what it needs to live.
You absolutely do not need to be perfect at eating. Some days can be a celebration while others are much healthier. It is about finding a balance that is most important. At times you may eat a slice of chocolate cake, or there may be another day when you have a plate full of salad instead. The key is to release yourself from the calorie counting obsession, focus less on the scale and find a dynamic diet - a true freedom.
And by the way, here is a list of some quick weight-loss diets that aren't exactly the best choice for losing weight if you want to remain nourished and healthy on the long run:
1.The Raw Food Diet
This particular diet is meant to increase your vegetable and fruit intake while reducing the amount of junk you eat. Sounds like a safe and effective way to lose weight. But, because this diet bans all the foods that are cooked or processed in any way, it is not an ideal diet plan. The reason for restricting cooking is because of the belief that heating/cooking reduces the nutrients of food.
Though it is true, cooked vegetables are still packed with plenty of fiber, vitamins and minerals. Sometimes cooking may even enhance the nutrients level while also killing bacteria. The biggest issue with this extreme form of veganism is the hours spent in food preparation - juicing, blending, dehydrating, sprouting, germinating, chopping, and re-hydrating.
2.The Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet
You may find tons of variations of this diet. Pretty much all involve replacing the calories and nutrients in your regular diet by those from the specially prepared lemonade, maple syrup, or cayenne pepper mixed in water. You would essentially just be drinking diuretics. You can take as many glasses of these drinks beyond the minimum required 6 glasses per day.
Common side effects of this diet include fatigue, nausea, dizziness, and dehydration. Further since you are on an extremely low-calorie diet, you would lose muscle (exactly the kind of weight) you do not want to lose.
3.The Cabbage Soup Diet
Some people try it to kick-start their weight loss plan, or to trim some fat for a special event. But it does not help in the long run, because of the lack of nutrients our body needs to stay healthy. It allows you to take a fat-free cabbage soup 2 - 3 times a day along with other low-calorie foods such as bananas and skim milk.
It does work in the short term because you are eating a low-calorie diet full of fiber and water. But this quick fix diet can also promote bloating and gas from all the cabbage you consume. It is also lacking in protein, which is needed to preserve the lean body mass.
4.The Five-Bite Diet
Developed by obesity doctor Alwin Lewis, MD, this diet allows you to eat anything you want, but only five bites of it. Here you are also skipping your breakfast which is discouraged by any other dietician. Further, you can only eat five bites of food for lunch and five more for dinner.
The main idea of this diet is to limit the quantity of food to smaller portions no matter how high or low fat contents it has. On this diet, if you would even take giant bites of high nutrient, high caloric food, you would still barely consume 900 - 1,000 calories a day which is too few to run your brain and body at its best.
Remember, what works for one may not work for someone else. So understand what a dynamic diet means for your body and review the course of your past efforts of losing weight. It is funny, but if you test carefully, your body gives responses on what it needs to be healthy.
In conclusion, do not fall for calorie counting - it can easily become a trap. It can be really difficult to turn that mentality off even when you don't want to do it anymore.