Let's start with the calorie. We see calories everywhere. Everyone's chanting, cut your calories with this, cut your calories with that. Too much calories is bad for you. First of all what is a calorie?

A calorie an amount of energy contained in any given amount of food. Technically, it's a measurement of the heat energy in your food. It's the 'fuel' energy of your body. This is the broadest, most general and least helpful bit of information about calories. Ok, so what are some of the characteristics of calories and how can you use this information to burn that fat?

First of all, the amount of calories you take in on a daily basis will directly or indirectly determine whether you put on weight (both in muscle and fat), lose weight (both muscle and fat) or maintain weight.

The simple rule is:

• If you are eating more calories then you are using, then you will gain weight.
• If you are eating fewer calories then you are using, then you will lose weight.

But, for our purposes of losing fat, we just don't want to look at weight. If we gain 1 pound, purely because of an increase in our muscle, then we have not necessarily gone backwards in your progress, we've actually moved forwards because we are now burning more calories in our day without having to do any more work. It's made it easier to burn calories and lose fat.

This information is not emphasized in most diet programs. The problem with most diet and weight loss programs is that all they put very little emphasis on long term results. For anything to be lasting, you have to make it a lifestyle.

Eating fewer calories than you use is important for you to lose fat, but so is where you get your calories from. Why? As the old saying goes - 'you are what you eat'.

The type of calories you eat is extremely important, yet is an often overlooked in many popular weight loss diets. The type of calories will greatly influence the type of body weight you gain or lose - fat, water or muscle.

You want to eat the foods and exercise to promote muscle pounds and lose fat pounds. Muscle will burn much more calories at rest and will actually shape your body.

This is why a calorie is not just a calorie.

To understand this, compare two different people eating the same amount of calories per day, one eating just chocolate bars and saturated fatty foods and the other eating a mixture of fruits, vegetables, and meats. Do you think they would end up with the same body shape, body composition (muscle to fat ratio), energy levels and in general quality of life?

The person on the chocolate bar is putting amongst 300 other chemicals a lot of sugar and fat. Basically nutrient empty calories into his body.

The person with the balanced diet of fresh fruits, vegetables and meats is consuming an array of calories that are nutrient rich. Some of these foods may actually even be negative calorie foods (yes - they do exist!) You want to support and work with your body by nourishing your body with nutrient dense calories. In this same way, you want to work towards eliminating or greatly reducing nutrient empty calories from your life.

What about calories from your drinks? Does the same principle apply?

Yes it does, and drinking your calories can be quite dangerous to your weight loss goals. You see, if you are drinking your calories through soda's, meal replacement products or even through fruit juice, you may not realise how many calories you are taking in.

Let's take fruit juice for example. It is always better to eat the fruit, then to drink the juice from that fruit. The reason is because you are getting a most of the calories from the fruit (from the juice squeezed out of the fruit), but not all the nutrition (because the 'meat' of the fruit is thrown away). So its much healthier to eat the fruit because you get all the goodness from the nutrition with the calories.

In terms of drinking for weight loss, we recommend water. To learn about how much water you should take in, read our article on "The Amount Of Water For Weight Loss". That should give you a good guideline about how much water you should take on.

So yes, calories do matter. And the type of calories you get matter too - for both foods and drinks.