> A healthy diet can easily include occasional sweet foods and drinks. When I was counting calories I actually agree with this. From a pure calorie-counting an

> A healthy diet can easily include occasional sweet foods and drinks. When I was counting calories I actually agree with this. From a pure calorie-counting and weight loss standpoint, you can almost always make room for sweets and still achieve your goals. A caloric intake is like any other budget. Sure, I can come up with money for a Burberry hoodie but it means delaying that GPU upgrade for another year (needless to say my clothes do not come from couture houses). I just find it hard to put sugar calories in my body when those calories could be going to protein for building muscle or fats and low-gi carbs for sustained energy. About the only time I can consume very sugary foods these days is on long and intense cycling workouts, and even then I have to force myself to do it. > Unless you are a tiny woman, in which case it seems really really difficult to restrict calories enough to lose weight but still eat a healthy minimum of calories per day Really really difficult is spot on. My SO is a tiny female and managed to drop from 53kg to 45kg. It required an extremely well controlled diet, 600-700kcal workouts 6 days a week, and took around 9 months. Restaurants were all but off the table since you never know where they sneak in calories and even sharing a plate with me might be too much. She sustains at around 46-47kg right now, which does allow some wiggle room in the diet, but the weight loss part itself was definitely beyond what most people are willing to do.