Top 3 Foods to Avoid While Dieting
Introduction
Most steadfast dieters know the obvious foods to avoid when trying to lose weight. No matter what weight-loss plan you are following, foods like pizza, pasta, cookies, and donuts are always dieting no-no.
However, it might surprise you to know what some of the hidden diet-derailing culprits are. Lucky for you, there are tricks on how to spot and avoid them.
While slipping up on your diet every now and then isn’t terrible (in fact, nutritionists and trainers recommend dieters give themselves an “off” day to keep themselves from overeating down the road), it is important that when you are sticking to your diet, you know how to avoid foods that may be secretly sabotaging your hard work. Make sure you aren’t ruining your dieting efforts unknowingly by checking out this list of foods that often go under the radar.
High-Glycemic Foods
Followers of the South Beach diet know that foods that are high-glycemic cause a sudden spike in your blood glucose levels, which in turn causes a lull in your metabolism when the blood glucose levels later crash. However, many foods are high-glycemic that you would never even suspect. Condiments like barbecue sauce and ketchup and fruits like mango and papaya are packed with hidden sugars and will cause a rise in your blood glucose levels that will misbalance your body and put a wrench in your diet endeavors. For a healthier alternative, replace these fruits with lower glycemic foods like apples and plums, and put pickles and mustard on your sandwich instead of high-glycemic (or overly processed) condiments.
Sneaky Sugar-Packed Drinks
All of us know that soda is bad for us, and many of us have heard those diet sodas can be just as bad as their calorie-laden alternatives, but do you know what other hidden culprit you might be downing without knowing what they are doing to your waistline? Fruit juice.
That’s right, your favorite breakfast buddy can be just as bad for you as soda. Store-bought fruit juice is laden with sugar and additives, and oftentimes even the fresh-squeezed version is no substitute for simply eating the fruit whole. For a healthier morning alternative, substitute fruit juice for vegetable juice, or make a mixture of half fruit and half vegetable juice. Buy a juicer and squeeze the juice fresh yourself, so you always know what’s in the juice that you are drinking.
One of the best rules of thumb when dieting is: If it’s white, it ain’t right!
When following this trick, white bread, white pasta, and any other white, processed foods are all out. That means no potato chips, no creamy Alfredo sauce or Ranch dressing, and no French fries. When you’re cooking on this diet, try to have as much color on your plate as possible. For dinner side dishes, replace starchy rice and potatoes with the more colorful and nutrient-rich alternatives of kale and quinoa. Most of the foods that are white are cream-based, flour-based, or processed, which makes following the color rule an easy trick to increase the number of healthy foods you are eating while avoiding foods that are likely to sabotage your diet. Celebrities like Oprah and Cameron Diaz have hailed the No White Foods Diet as a great way to clean up their eating habits.
There are plenty of other great tips to avoid foods that can sabotage a diet. Always read labels (the fewer ingredients, the better), and try to cook as much of your own food as possible. Your wallet (and your waistline) will thank you.
Grace Davies
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