Okay you now know what calories are and how they work to help your body function. The next part to making your weight loss journey successful is being able to work out your daily allowances (and we mean everything - fat, protein and sugar).

Now most people will tell you to check the food label, and we recommend you do the same, but life doesn't always make it that simple. Take going out to a restaurant – how can you truthfully know what you are eating and how many calories are in it? The real answer is, is that you can't, but you can gain a grasp of what individual food groups contain so that you can have a fair idea.

But first to help you gain a clearer perspective, below is the daily allowance for a woman (on 2,000 calories):

We know that for a woman they have only have an average daily allowance of 2,000 calories, compared to men who are allowed around 2,500 calories. Most people do not even know what calories are. All they know is that too many calories will contribute to gaining weight.

So what are calories? Calories are essentially units of energy. Energy which is used to raise your body temperature. Take this example. One calorie equals the same amount of energy that is needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1 degree Celsius.

We know, what has this got to do with food, but calories are our way of measuring the energy content of the foods we eat.

Another metrical tool you need to know when you are losing weight, which you won’t traditionally find on a food label, is joules. These measure food energy too, but work on a higher setting. In this case, 1 calorie equals 4,184 joules (with such high figures it is easy to see why companies opt for calories).