10 Foods to Avoid When You are Trying To Lose Weight

Losing weight is a long and hectic journey. It requires a lot of patience and mixed eating to provide your body with balanced nutrition. The hardest part of a weight loss journey is aligning your kitchen to your goals. If your kitchen is filled with self-sabotaging foods, losing weight can become your worst nightmare.

Many of the foods listed below are everyday favorites, and you might have to let them go if you want to get fit. Most of these items contain many empty calories that slow down your metabolism and make your journey harder.

Ensure that you make the right food choices to help you glide through the weight loss smoothly.

Potato Chips or French Fries

Although a bag of chips accompanied by a feel-good movie can be very satisfying at the end of a tough week, you need to know that potato chips top the list of worst foods. These crispy bites hide dangerous levels of sodium and result in weight gain. 

French fries are a close second to chips and make up the most responsible food for weight gain. Potatoes increase your blood sugar levels at a drastic speed, thus, also increasing your insulin levels. 

Refined Flour Food (White Bread, Pasta)

Whether you’re aiming to lose weight or not, refined white bread is always a poor food choice and you need to avoid it. But, if bread is an essential meal of your breakfast and you do not live without it, then you can follow the healthy bread recipe. 

Add refined pasta to the list of foods that you should avoid while trying to cut on calories. Refined pasta has most of its nutrients and fiber stripped off, so it gets processed by the body like any other sugar. 

Moreover, most people prefer pasta with various sauces that are high in sodium and sugar and contribute significantly to weight gain. These result in deposits around your waistline, forming a saggy paunch belly. 

Whole grains help reduce weight as they lower visceral fat deposits in the abdominal region. On the contrary refined floor can cause massive fat deposits in your body. Ensure that you opt for healthier options of flour such as whole wheat flour, or almond flour, especially when you’re trying to lose weight. 

Processed Meat

Harvard researchers have concluded that bacon, sausages, and hot dogs might be putting your life at stake. Not only do these meats cause weight gain, but eating processed meat often can also lead to life-threatening diseases like diabetes and cancer.

Red Meat

Eating fatty red meat can result in stubborn belly fat. Most ground meats come in a 70:30 ratio of lean and fat. Ensure that you avoid ground beef during your weight loss months. 

Sugary Drinks And Foods

Sugary drinks like soda or even most fruit juices don’t have any function in losing weight. Most of these foods and drinks have high levels of sodium and are dense in calories. Although marketed otherwise, fruity puffs and sweetened cereals contribute significantly to the weight gain of an individual. Often, a bowl of cereal contains more calories than a Kreme doughnut. 

Instead, you can go for something heavier and healthier, like oatmeal for breakfast. Oatmeal is high in fiber and creates fullness, thus, reducing hunger and cravings. Moreover, it is far lower when it comes to the calorie count. 

Canned Soups

Most cream-based canned soups are high in calories and fat, a strict no-no for weight loss diets. Moreover, these soups are processed to last longer, thus, containing a tremendous amount of sodium. 

Adding homemade soup in your diet is one of the best ways to reduce weight. It is good for your health and even helps to increase immunity. To find the soup recipes, click here.

Alcohol

Ensure that you strictly avoid alcohol, especially beer, during your weight loss months. Beer has a very high calorie and carbohydrate content. Studies suggest that beer is usually associated with wider waistlines and higher BMI (Body-Mass Index). Moreover, it is also generally seen that beer drinkers have an overall poor choice of foods adding to their weight issues.

Energy Drinks

Although energy drinks are quite the trend these days, you should keep them at bay while you’re working on your body. These chemical cocktails have a higher caffeine content than coffee and are loaded with sugar and other harmful additives. 

Chocolates And Ice Creams

Although dark chocolate can be very beneficial to health and help reduce weight, the white counterpart can be one of the biggest culprits contributing to the increasing waistline. White chocolate has a very high-calorie count and contains heaps of sugar that can only hinder your weight loss. 

Even a small cup of vanilla ice cream contains 267 calories, 32 grams of carbohydrates, and 14 grams of fat. Although you will get a small portion of calcium from the cup, it’s not worth the empty calories. 

Fruit Jam

Although fruits can be a valuable addition to your diet as they are rich in fiber and nutrients, jams are at the opposite end of the spectrum. Tiny pieces of fruits loaded with sugars and simmered in calories can sabotage weeks of your diet. Instead of the regular peanut butter jam sandwich, you can opt for whole slices of fruit with your toast.