Why is it that we count calories?

I know that sounds odd, but for me counting calories is just easiest. I mean, I can clearly read on almost any label how many calories are in a given object, and then I can just add up numbers and not go beyond the number of calorie intake that I want..

...but by counting calories what am I actually doing? What am I trying to stop in my body? I've heard of "low carb" diets...and I think I've heard of a few more besides...I just want to know exactly what I'm doing to my body ^_^ Thanks.

What you're stopping is overindulgence and overfeeding.  What you're doing to your body is giving it the proper amount of fuel to run and function without excess.

If you take chemistry then you'll probably have to learn about this. 

Calories are a way to measure the energy you get from the food you eat.  When you read the calories on something, that means that's how much (heat) energy it will take to burn off all the calories from that food. You don't want a ton of unused calories because it will be converted to stored energy (fat).  Do some reasearch on calorimeters and that might give you some info.   But there's a process they do with all foods where they have to burn the food and see how many degrees it raises the temperature of water.  How ever many degrees the water is raised, that's how many calories that food contains.  The longer  something burns, the more it will raise the temp of the water..and the more calories it will have..then the longer it will take for you to burn off in your body. 

Sorry...I didn't get into too much detail because I didn't want to confuse ya!

 

Thank you cntrygirl87! You were very informative, and have answered my old questions, and now I have even more new ones. Ahhh, curiosity! ^_^ This was very helpful indeed!