I am a calorie counter myself. I'm quite fanatical about it. I know it goes against sanity and is not generally recommended but I find that when I calorie count I am more selective about what I want to "waste" my calorie count on.
If you limit yourself to 1,500 calories a day you will be reluctant to toss a handful of dates into your mouth when you realise how many calories are in them. A good website is http://www.calorie-king.com.
This is probably the opposite to how most would approach this problem though!