How do you read calories on food labels?

I was told to read the labels to see how much calories or saturated fat does a food contains...which exactly is the amount or what to look for if you want to loose weight?

Here you can count how many calories you need in a day:

http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2005/1...

Avoid cookies, sugary snacks, ice cream, chips and chocolate. If you crave for sweet, have some dried fruit, but not every day.

Good luck !

sometimes i do

To lose weight has become the order of the day.
What is your BMI. check it out and than take care.

Do you mean where is it printed? Read the entire label and you will find the amount of calories given. All labels list the total amount of calories given.

Don't pay attention to the calorie content. Pay attention to the content and ingredients section instead.

DO NOT EAT anything with "high fructose corn syrup" or the word "hydrogenated" on the label. Also avoid anything that you can't understand, like "glycerol ester of wood rosin."

DO NOT eat McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, etc. Their food is made to keep you eating it, not keep you alive and healthy.

If you can do this, you will be better than 80% of the population health-wise, and the calories you do eat won't make your butt big.

There is no single right answer. The amount of calories you look for depends on your own height and weight, and exactly what kind of food you are buying. For example, 300 calorie on a frozen dinner is not bad, but 300 calorie for a recommended portion of 2 cookies would be really bad. Because 300 calorie dinner may fill you up enough, but the 2 cookies will certainly leave you still hungry and you will be eating still more!

Your doctor can tell you how many calories you should take. From your Yahoo name I guess you are female, and as a general guideline unless you are really tall and big, it is 2,000 calories. So, aim for 1,800 calories.

Calorie is only a small piece of the puzzle. You should also look at the label to see WHERE those calories are coming from. Your body does need fat (to make hormones, make your skin smooth, etc.), but saturated fat is really bad for you. Go for unsaturated fat, and better yet, go for plant fat rather than animal fat (for example, olive oil rather than butter).

I have lost weight, and kept it off, but not by counting calories. I just cut down on the amount of food I eat, and choose healthier options. Lots of vegetables and less on carbs (bread, rice, potatoes, pasta) and sugar even though I love them. The biggest challenge is going away from that "stuffed" full feeling, as I was brought up and fed by my mother until I'm completely stuffed. Once you can re-learn what being full is, it gets much easier. Good luck!

As for calories, if you look at enough nutrition labels you'll start to get the idea of what stuff has too many calories. Typically the more food you get for the same amount of calories is best. For example a sandwich may have 400 calories, but it will fill you up where as some cheese and crackers may have the same amount but your not full so you'll end up eating something else too. For the fat, try to stay away from anything that has Trans Fats and try to eat food with not a lot of Saturated Fat. The ideal ratio between fat and calories is about 2.5 grams of fat for every 100-150 calories. So if something has 300 calories and 6 grams of total fat, thats ok.

There's a diet book out that has a section explaining EXACTLY how to read food labels when counting calories for your weight loss efforts.
It's called The Logic Diet.
Check it out at:
www.thelogicdiet.com