I counted my calories for a half year and successfully lost 14 kilos. But since I like to feel full and I enjoy eating I only ate foods with low calories/gram ratio. These foods are generell also healthy as well.

Calorie-couting definately works, you just have to be honest with yourself and count everything you eat and measure always exact.

I recommend you workout a bit while doing this though, I lost not only fat but muscle mass and my daily calories intake my body need went down about 400 calories.