My Top Three Suprising Foods to Avoid for Weight Loss
I first decided to change my unhealthy lifestyle, and lose the weight I’d accumulated from years of eating rubbish and avoiding exercise, at age seventeen.
My first step was swapping my food choices to low-fat whatever I could find, the white pasta and baguettes to brown and skimmed milk instead of semi, in my low-fat cereal.
When my weight continued to pile on and I felt even worse (constant tiredness, bloating, lethargy, disrupted sleep…) as well as extremely frustrated, I thought surely there had to be another way?!
Luckily there is. And it doesn’t involve fads, pills or shakes. My results really started when I cut the following three out of my diet:
- Low fat/Light anything
I found out the hard way just how much these hindered weight loss – they had the exact opposite effect! These types of ‘foods’ have been tampered with, now containing additional sugar, chemicals and salt to make them palatable and often addictive. A good rule of thumb is if you spot any ingredient on a food label you cannot pronounce, it probably isn’t any good for you.
2. Dairy
Not only does dairy create excess mucus and slow down digestion, its acidity levels are so high, they actually encourage fat storage. Fat and disease cannot survive in an alkaline environment. Dairy therefore hinders weight loss quite spectacularly.
Plenty of non-dairy calcium sources exist, including almonds, tinned sardines, kale and white beans.
3. Brown/wholegrain foods
Swapping to brown may be the lesser of the two evils, but bread and pasta are still processed foods. The long-term effects of regular wheat/gluten consumption have been found to contribute to a range of digestion problems; often labelled IBS.
Many of my Personal Training clients had previously believed they were ‘addicted’ to these kinds of carbs, from craving them constantly. In some ways, they were. This is because the more wheat consumed, the more the body expects it. Wheat consumption creates lethargy, which can make exercising an even bigger challenge!
For me, it wasn’t as simple as cutting these foods completely and never looking back. It took a while to realise their true effects on my health and size. I eventually linked the tale-tale signs of feeling drained, having a dodgy stomach and wanting to go to sleep after eating them.
These responses only confirmed how much my body was thriving without them. Try cutting them out for yourself and see how much yours can thrive too!