In your endeavors to eat healthy and lose weight, you've heard about the benefits of cutting calories. Of course, in this age of fast foods, health claims and hectic lifestyles, that's easier said than done.

The real challenge in cutting calories is finding the point where you can live physically and psychologically in optimum health, experts at the American Institute for Cancer Research say.

For adults with healthy weights who want to do more for their long-term well-being, sensible calorie restriction can be accomplished without rigid diets. Simply see if you can comfortably eliminate 50 to 200 calories a day of nutrient-poor foods, like pastries or sodas, from what you eat.

If you feel you need more calories, try adding some back diet as nutritionally rich plant-based foods.

There are more reasons to avoid excess calories than controlling your weight, because permanent, modest cuts in your calorie consumption may help prevent cancer and possibly improve your heart's health.

Furthermore, long-term calorie restriction by people with  healthy weights may also lower their blood cholesterol and blood pressure and significantly reduce heart-threatening build-up of plaque in their blood vessels.

In fact,  people with weights at the lower end of the healthy range and a body mass index reading of  18 to 22 may fare better than those folks at the upper end of a healthy range, considered BMIs of  23 to 25.

Downside of cutting calories

However, as with most things in life, you have to walk a fine line if you're seeking to cut calories

Some health professionals think that calorie restriction for people with healthy weights does not improve their health and can risk malnutrition. It seems possible to defuse this criticism by cutting your calorie consumption about 10 percent, while still meeting all of your nutrient needs.

But studies show that meeting nutrient needs with less than 1,500 calories is extremely difficult.

Fully meeting your nutritional needs with a limited number of calories is not the only reason for caution. Excessive restriction may make it difficult or impossible for you to exercise vigorously, which is recommended for many health benefits.

'Weight-obsessed culture'

What's more, experts agree that severe calorie restriction is inappropriate for people under 21, who are still developing physically and mentally.

Studies of the after-effects of food restriction and famine in The Netherlands during World War II show that a sudden or severe restriction of food for a limited time may actually worsen a person's health and increase the risk of cancer by possibly impairing the body's immune system.

It's also critical that limiting calories for better health does not hide an eating disorder, such as anorexia nervosa. Anorexia nervosa restricts calories without regard for nutritional needs, aims for physical perfection at lower and lower weights, and is based on low self-esteem.

Yet, a rational desire to restrict calories will meet all nutritional needs, avoid perfectionist rules and always show self-respect.

There is a danger in our weight-obsessed culture that some vulnerable people who begin calorie restriction for valid reasons could develop an eating disorder as they strive for harmfully low weights.

For the majority of our overweight and sedentary population, cutting back on excess calories and exercising daily are obvious steps to better health. Adults with a healthy weight can also prevent the usual, small yearly weight gain with a slight reduction in calories and an increase in activity.

The 'buzz'

At the same time, you're dealing with three prevailing weight-loss myths:

•  Carrying a few extra pounds is good for you;

•  Trying to lose weight is pointless, because you can't change your "set point weight."

•  People who've been heavy all their lives are better off staying heavy.

Most of us know people with firmly held beliefs about why they can't lose weight. But  accumulated science on weight management and weight loss over the years solidly reinforces the often-heard common sense advice to eat less and exercise more.

Unfortunately, such studies tend not to generate much public attention. 

"That's not the research that people talk about around the water cooler, says Karen Collins, a nationally known registered dietitian and the institute's nutrition advisor.  "But if a study about weight loss comes along that seems to contradict the eat less, exercise more advice, that's when you get buzz." 

Collins carefully notes that the mere fact that a study doesn't agree with what has gone before doesn't invalidate it. Such studies are valuable additions to the mass of research because their findings are factored into ongoing scientific debates, she adds. 

Look for 'consensus'

The problem, according to Collins, is that the popular buzz these studies generate has less to do with their scientific merits and more to do with the fact that they tell people what they want to hear.   

"Losing weight takes real effort, and it's just human nature to look for reasons excuses not to make that effort," she says. "That's where these myths come from."     

And not every myth stays a myth. 

With a handful of findings and a little PR know-how, enterprising individuals can turn a weight-loss myth into lucrative products.  The no-carb craze that seized the nation at the end of the 20th century is the most famous example, but bookstores are still crammed with quick-fix weight-loss plans: no fat, no flour, no sugar, all juice, etc. 

But when it comes to the losing weight, it's the basic research, not the buzz, that should guide any decision.

"Look for consensus, not one surprising study," Collins says. "Take a good look at what you do or don't do to lose weight. If you find that you're tracing your beliefs about weight loss to a single study, you're probably just buying into the buzz."

Behind the buzz, the hype and the myths, there's a single unassailable truth:  if you want to lose weight, you have to place yourself into a state of energy deficit by burning more calories than you consume. 

"And that means eating less and exercising more," Collins says.