Eating fewer calories than you use is important for you to lose fat, but so is where you get your calories from. Just like the composition of your body is important in the short and long term, so are the composition of your calories. 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.

Remember, we 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. It's like comparing an 'apple with an orange'. Even though they are both part of the fruit family, you cannot compare them, you have to compare 'apples with apples' and 'oranges with oranges'. Using this same concept, just because something is a calorie, it would be pretty unwise to say that all calories are the same, so all we should worry about is calorie counting.

To understand this, compare two different people eating the same amount of calories per day, one eating just chocolate bars and saturated fatty foods (filled with trans fats) 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. 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.

So although you will still will end up losing weight if you have a calorie deficit, where you get your calories from will impact your quality of life greatly because of its impact on your health. So when watching your calories, make sure you also watch what foods you are getting your calories from.