Years and years ago before I had the kid I did calorie counting and it was fantastic until I became so obsessed with counting the calories that I spent hours a day doing spread sheets and graphs and took it to the worst extreme. But that's me, I tend to jump in with both feet and get obsessive about stupid shit especially if there are numbers involved (as we all saw last week)... but of all the weight loss methods I have tried and tested over the years calorie counting is the most successful and the easiest maintain. However if you have OCD tendencies then just tread carefully.
So lets look at some things here... 1, you can't give up eating, you have to create new habits... 2. the more gradually you loose the weight the longer it will stay off (and this really is true).. so an average woman needs to eat about 2000 calories per day to maintain, and 1500 calories to lose one pound of weight per week. An average man needs 2500 calories to maintain, and 2000 to lose one pound of weight per week (As frickin usual the guys get the best of everything).. you shouldn't need to do more exercise than you do either. 3. When counting calories it includes everything that goes in your mouth, including drinks.... 4. When you feel hungry have a glass (250ml) of water (preferably cold) and wait 15mins, if your still hungry 15mins later then have something to eat, most of the time when we feel thirsty we are actually thirsty but as our bodies react to the hunger sensation quicker than the thirsty one our bodies will send the hungry message. .. 5. Try and drink 2 litres of water a day.... 6. Strawberries, walnuts and almonds are all great snacks AND they are appetite suppressants... 7. Celery and carrot sticks make good snacks...
If you want there is a pretty intense kick start diet the CSIRO invented to give any weigh loss diet a boost at the start. (The CSIRO are the ones who invented myxo but don't you let that put you off).. If your interested I'll hunt it out and post it... Its for a week or 10 days from memory.
I'm not going to wish you luck because you can do this, no probs... and you can still have the occasional KK...