after a couple of weeks of looking up the # of calories in foods, you pretty much know how much you're consuming. then the trick becomes making it EASY to record the # of calories you're eating.

I use the blackberry app called Brio Calorie Tracker, which just lets me type in the food + calories instead of making me go through an annoying lookup like on the Livestrong Daily Plate app. it also keeps a list of recently-eaten foods so I can pick from the drop down easily.

I've done tons of diets, but calorie counting is the best b/c you can eat any type of food you want without feeling like you've "blown it." also, because you're counting calories you soon realize that the reason to avoid starchy carbs and sugar is not because they're "forbidden foods" but because they won't fill you up, and you'll be hungry again shortly, and then you'll bust your daily allowance.

I keep a spreadsheet with the following for each day:
1. weight
2. basal metabolic rate (calculated from weight)
3. calories burned in excess of basal metabolic rate
4. calories consumed
5. daily deficit (calculated from 2-4)

I then calculate what my weight SHOULD be based on my daily deficit. it comes out surprisingly close to what the scale says.