Whether you sell calorie counters, recommend them to clients and employees, or want one yourself, you'll find all types of calorie counters on the market. A calorie counter can benefit anyone who cares about fitness and health, enjoys tracking activities and progress and genuinely wants to know how many calories they consume and expend daily.

Relying on a nutritional calorie counter and an exercise calorie counter can help those who want to lose, gain or maintain their weight by helping them achieve the right balance of calorie intake vs. calorie burn. As you begin your search for the calorie counters that interest you, keep the following in mind:

1. If you work on the computer all day, consider an online daily calorie counter.

2. Gadget gurus will have fun with hand-held calorie counters.

3. Book lovers can add to their collection with a calorie counter book.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Find an online calories counter to start tracking what you eat

Online calorie counters offer a convenient way to enter or search for calorie counts whether you're at home or work. If you access the Internet via your cell phone or PDA, you can check calories at a restaurant or in a grocery store.

I recommend: Join SparkPeople for free to take advantage of its calorie counters. Not only does the website include a daily food and fat calorie count, it also incorporates an activity calorie counter. The site's database contains more than 10,000 foods and hundreds of activities and exercises in its counters, and you can add additional foods and exercises, too. Join MyFoodDiary for a small monthly fee to reap the benefits of their calorie counters for food and exercise. This site's databases include calories for more than 50,000 foods and 600 activities. For a simple, free exercise calorie counter, bookmark the Food & Exercise Diary tool at CalorieKing. After you fill in exercise duration, weight, height, age and gender, it takes you to a list of exercises and activities to calculate total calories burned. If you want a fast food calorie counter, bookmark CalorieLab and scroll down to the fast food or another restaurant of your choice. This website claims to maintain the world's largest and most current calorie and nutrition facts database.

Purchase a portable calorie counter

Some prefer the convenience of owning calorie counters that don't require Internet access.

I recommend: Visit the Coheso website to order CalorieSmart, a handheld electronic calorie counter that comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. This calculator stocks calories, carbs, fiber, protein and nutrition values for more than 35,000 foods. The useful tool also calculates calories spent and lets you add up to 1,000 of your own foods and exercises. Order the BioTrainer calorie calculator counter at Improvements. This device clips onto your waistband and affords easy access to every feature by pressing a single button.

Order a calorie counter book that you can mark up and dog ear

Calorie counter books work well for people who love to quickly flip through pages to find what they need. Many of these books are pocket sized and very easy to use.

I recommend: Order the calorie counters book "2008 CalorieKing Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter," by Allan Borushek, especially if you eat out routinely. This pocket-sized book travels easily to restaurants or drive-through windows and also includes a Diabetes diet guide. Purchase "The Complete Book of Food Counts," 7th edition, by Corinne Netzer. This 928-page paperback provides calorie counts for thousands of generic, name-brand, gourmet, health and ethnic foods.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Make sure you get what you need in a calorie counter. For example, a counter may let you input activity and duration, but it may not allow for distance covered if you walked, ran, swam or biked. You'll burn a lot more calories walking four miles in an hour than you will walking two miles for the same time.

Calories schmalories. The world might be a better place if calories just didn’t exist; but since they do, it’s wise to keep track of them with help from a calorie counter. They say healthy living is the key to having a long, happy life, and keeping track of what you put into your body is one major way to contribute to a healthy lifestyle. A food calorie counter is a great tool to use to ensure the foods you choose are good for you and that the total amount of your daily caloric intake is on track with what you need.

There are a variety of calorie counters available online – most of them free – including a daily calorie counter, an activity calorie counter, a fast food calorie counter and more. All will provide helpful information toward an overall goal of a healthy lifestyle, but you can also select a calorie calculator counter that can help you reach specific goals, like losing two pounds per week. Explore your options when choosing an online calorie counter that’s right for you:

1. Consider a basic daily calorie counter to help you assess how many calories you should have each day based on your current body weight.

2. Check out an activity calorie counter to see how many calories you can burn doing everything from everyday housework to strenuous exercise.

3. Focus on the fat as well as the calories by using a fat calorie counter.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Use a daily calorie counter for the basics

A great place to start when it comes to calorie counting is a daily calorie counter that shows you if you are eating too many calories per day based on your height, weight and age.

I recommend: The Daily Plate offers a daily calorie counter to help you reach your goals, whether that’s maintaining your current weight or gaining or losing a certain number of pounds per week. You do have to register with the site to take advantage of the tool, but membership is free. Check out the Mayo Clinic’s website to help you determine how many calories your body needs each day to maintain your current weight.

Factor activity into your goals with an activity calorie counter

Just because you take in a certain number of calories per day doesn't mean you can't work a bit harder to get rid of them. Have fun seeing how much you can burn doing average activities every day.

I recommend: The Fitness Jumpsite has an activity calorie counter that calculates the number of calories a person burns doing more than 200 activities, from bicycling to dancing, to mowing the lawn. Find a similar exercise calorie counter at Blaha.

Control your fat intake with a fat calorie counter

Most nutritionists say fat is the real culprit when it comes to unhealthy eating. Evaluate your fat intake as well as your caloric intake with a fat calorie counter.

I recommend: CalorieKing has a food database that lists the calories, fat content and other nutritional information for more than 50,000 foods. Check out Popcorn! for a fat and calorie counter that compares what you eat on an average day compared to what you should eat in terms of calorie and fat intake.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Remember that calorie counting isn't the only factor that goes into maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Physical fitness and mental well-being play major parts as well, so work on these aspects while you find a calorie counter that works for you.