This one is tough to swallow, but I’ve gotta say it… Even healthy food contains calories. Choosing nutritious foods is smart, but just because they’re good for you doesn’t mean you can eat unlimited amounts and continue losing weight. A dinner of salad, salmon, and whole-grain pasta is certainly healthy, but don't discount the numbers. A 6-oz. salmon fillet with two cups of whole-grain pasta clocks in at about 700 calories; a salad of lettuce and tomatoes with a tablespoon each olive oil and vinegar brings the total to well over 800 calories.

Pat yourself on the back for fitting in a lunchtime run, but don’t consider it a free eating pass. It’s easy to miscalculate how many calories you’re actually burning. Your gym may promise that you’ll burn 500 calories with an hour of spinning, but every person is different -- you might burn just 300 calories. For the most accurate info, wear an activity monitor that tracks calorie burn. And remember, if you reward yourself with a treat equal in calories to the calories you burned, it's as if you never burned any calories at all...

Brace yourself for some not-so-fun facts... A single tablespoon of ketchup on your eggs or burger adds around 20 calories. (And most likely you're using more than one tablespoon!) An ounce of half & half (the kind you splash in your coffee) has about 40 calories and 3.5 grams of fat. A tablespoon of mayo adds 90 calories and 10 grams of fat to your sandwich. Even if you’re being super careful about your choices, it’s easy to forget about the little extras.

I love a good restaurant meal as much as anyone, but here’s the problem: You never know exactly what’s in your dish. Even if the restaurant provides nutritional info, those are just estimates based on precise recipes passed down by the folks in charge. Do you really think every member of the kitchen crew is weighing and measuring each ingredient? Now, there's nothing wrong with dining out -- especially if you ask questions and make smart choices.

Do you regularly munch on some amazing snack you discovered... You know, the one with stats that are almost too good to be true? Whether it's an 80-calorie fudge brownie or a monstrous bag of chips claiming only 150 calories, it's possible your snack stats aren’t exactly right. Labels aren’t always accurate, especially when products come from our small mom-and-pop shop pals. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

You’ve definitely heard this before, but it bears repeating: Watch your portion sizes! Sure, that cereal box says 110 calories, but check the portion size... then check how much you're routinely pouring in your bowl! Another portion trap? Packaged snacks that look like single servings but are actually 2 to 3 servings. Read labels carefully, people! Check out five ways you're reading nutrition labels wrong...

Don’t consume unlimited amounts of “zero calorie” foods. As long as a product has less than 5 calories per serving, companies are allowed to round down to 0 calories per serving -- and often, the official serving sizes are unrealistically small. Watch out for salad dressings, sweetener packets, and cooking sprays. Click for more info on this topic!