Counting calories is creepy and wrong. There. I’ve said it. Well, someone had to. All that fiddly obsessing about the precise calorific value of what you choose to put in your mouth; weird and uptight.

But you’re overweight, and want to do something about it. You know there’s a problem, because you can’t shift the fat. You’ve tried dieting and it just makes you miserable and washed out. You’ve tried working out, but that just leaves you tired and cranky. What is the solution?

Apply a little common sense to the snack issue. You should try to eat five meals a day, to make sure your blood sugar level stays on an even keel and you don’t have hunger pangs. A good pattern would go like this:

1.Breakfast. 2.Mid morning snack. 3.Lunch. 4.Mid afternoon snack. 5.Dinner 6.Supper

I know, that’s six meals a day. Hey, I got hungry. Let’s get into what those snacks might be. Obviously, you had a good breakfast, so you don’t need a lot to eat come mid-morning. (You did have a good breakfast, didn’t you? Best meal of the day.) All you need is something to tide you over until lunch, so you don’t slump into a starving heap before then. You’ve got a ten minute break. What do you eat now?

Do you head for the nearest vending machine and buy chocolate? How about a bag of potato chips? There’s nothing really wrong with either choice – I love chocolate – but you’re trying to lose weight. Shoveling in fat and sugar won’t help you do that. So plan ahead and make your own snacks. You can’t rely on vending machines for healthy choices.

A sandwich is an obvious possibility. Wholemeal bread – any bread, as long as it’s not made from white flour – with some low fat protein and healthy fat and salad. The protein might be chicken breast, or cottage cheese, ham, or tinned fish like tuna or sardines. The salad might be lettuce and tomato, onion, celery; whatever you prefer. The healthy fat could be a thin scrape of butter or a drizzle of olive oil. The important thing is that you get some healthy food into you. The protein kills your hunger pangs. The carbohydrates in the bread keep you fueled up and active. The fat gives your body vital ingredients it needs to maintain good health.

How many calories is it? I don’t know. I don’t count calories. I don’t have to, because I know if I make a few sensible choices when I’m grocery shopping I don’t have to worry about them. What are these choices? Simple. I check the fat content and sugar content of everything I buy by reading the labels on the packaging they come in. And I mostly buy food as close to its natural raw state as possible. You will never find tinned peaches in my larder, for example. Fresh peaches in season? I’ll take some of those. Cooked fruit in a sugary syrup? I wouldn’t eat that. Understand me, I wouldn’t be so churlish as to refuse the tinned fruit if it was offered. There’s nothing wrong with tinned fruit except this: it’s full of sugar. A little bit of sugar will sweeten your day. A lot of sugar will, over time, make you chronically overweight and damage your body chemistry. It’s not really the calories that I’m worried about.

Let me make an important point here: if you keep an eye on your sugar and fat intake, you don’t really need to worry about calories.

So, got you here under false pretenses really.

No, read on. If you really have to count the calories, here’s a list of snacks you might like to try, and they all come in at 100 calories or less. You’ll notice there’s a lot of fruit on it. That’s because fruit is great food for humans. We’re descended from apes who lived on a diet of fruit and nuts, and we’re well adapted to it. I could go into details about the precise health benefits of each particular fruit – but that would set off my creepy radar warning system. Don’t obsess about food. If you’re eating a varied diet that includes fresh fruit and vegetables and lean meat from several sources, along with dairy produce, you’re pretty much covered in the health stakes. There are no magic foods.

- Big apple and a handful of nuts – about 100 calories
- A small banana – 90 calories
- Two medium sized peaches – 76 calories
- Six figs – 96 calories
- A chocolate digestive biscuit – 83 calories
- Two squares of dark chocolate – 88 calories
- A bag of ready salted French Fries – 97 calories
- Half a pint of lager and some peanuts – 99 calories
- A cereal bar – 95 calories
- A mini pitta bread with reduced-fat cottage cheese – 97 calories
- A tortilla wrap – 97 calories
- Two ounces of Edam cheese and 5 sticks of celery – 99 calories
- Cream cheese on crispbread with a tomato – 100 calories
- A rasher of grilled bacon with ketchup – 87 calories
- A slice of brown toast and Marmite – 100 calories
- A hard-boiled egg – 78 calories

Lord, what a miserable way to live. Counting every item you eat. Obsessing over the precise calorific value of it. Fretting about the weight you’ll put on. Who really sets out to eat two ounces of Edam cheese with five sticks of celery? That’s not a snack, it’s a punishment. Cream cheese on crispbread? Wall filler on cardboard. Much the same thing. What is the point of eating this way?

Here’s a better way.

- When you shop for groceries, buy fresh produce. When you buy packaged food, check the label for the sugar and fat content, and adjust your purchases to cut out high-sugar, high-fat items.

- Eat five (or six) small meals a day, made with the food you bought. Eat when you’re hungry, and eat enough to satisfy your hunger. Never, ever count calories.

- Ramp up your activity levels. If you have a sedentary job and you spend your evenings slumped in front of the TV, you’re a prime candidate for health problems like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease…do I need to go on?

To sum up, a healthy diet starts with choices you make before you get to the supermarket checkout. Get those right, and all that calorie counting can be left behind.

This is one of several articles I’ve written on the subjects of weight control and exercise routines.To see more, go to GoodShape.Biz for more weight loss advice. Flat stomach workouts, dietary tips, recipes, all you need to get swimsuit ready in time for summer.

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