Now it's calories that count... ?

How to cook healthy without reverting to fad diets.

From the Atkins diet to the grapefruit diet, nutritionists and scientists keep changing their advice when it comes to losing weight.

A recent study done by the Harvard School of Public Health says that now, it's just the calories that count. In the study, over 800 people spent two years eating reduced-calorie, heart- healthy diets, and working out 90 minutes a day. Results showed that the less calories people ate, the more heart healthy and leaner they became.

Jeff Perricone is a staff nutritionist at Gold's Gym in Fenway. He says that there may be some truth to the Harvard study: "If you eat the amount of calories meant for your weight, fitness level, and body size, you will see results. These people were probably given just that and therefore saw the results."

Nutritionist Jeff Perricone says that the problem here is that most people don't have a team of doctors telling them exactly how many calories they can take in, and end up eating too many or too few calories for their particular body type.

"Most nutrition facts are based on a 2,000 calorie-a-day diet, and that is not necessarily correct for everyone. If a person wants to create a diet that is healthy, they should talk to a professional (dietician) who will get them started in the right direction. I know it's not the easy, quick thing to do, but in my experience that's what gets results."

In Boston, a number of dieticians and nutritionists offer free consultations for the first visit or phone call. All of them also accept health insurance which means a minimal copay would be the only cost to you.

Dietician Debbie Kauffman offers such consultations, and urges people to take advantage of them.

Start with a free consultation, then see if a cost like this can be included in your budget. Ideally you should see a dietician as often as you see a dentist.

While people can try their hand at any fad diet they want, and most do, dietician Kauffman says that doing so will only yield short-term results: "As soon as you stop the diet, you gain all that weight back."

The fact is people need to be educated about what to eat. "Many of these publications say you need to eat this, this, and this, but they don't show you how, so people try their hand at what they think is eating or cooking healthy, and it's really not," Kauffman said.

Cooking healthy doesn't have to be difficult, and it can actually taste good too. In the accompanying two videos, local chef Sean Murphy uses his versatile cooking knowledge to create two heart-healthy, low-calorie meals that are easy to make and won't burn a hole in your wallet.

In 2005, Chef Sean graduated from the French Culinary Institute in New York City, where the nine-month-intensive program fueled his passion for cooking. During the program he interned at Per Se, an upscale French restaurant there. He then moved back to his hometown of Boston where he worked in Saltz, a French fine-dining restaurant in Cambridge. Sean currently works as a sous chef the EMC Club at Fenway Park.