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Four Foods to Avoid For Losing Weight

When you are looking to control your weight, or lose some excess pounds, you need to be careful about what you eat. It’s also important that you don’t fret, or stress, too much over the things you eat because worry and frustration do more harm than any food you can possibly eat. Just choose wisely and enjoy what you eat. When you eat purely for the palette be sure to eat moderately, and try to focus more on eating for nourishment than just taste.

Here’s a small list of food that you can look to avoid, or reduce, when you are looking to lose weight, or just so you can stay healthy. Also check out how much calories you should be eating per day.

1.) Refined Sugar – This would have to be top of the list. Refined sugar is nothing but processed crystallized sugar extracted from natural sources like sugarcane. Refined sugar or white sugar contains nothing but “empty calories”, no vitamins or minerals. Since refined sugar is a concentrated, and unnatural, form of fruit sugar, it has high calorie content that can cause you to gain weight quickly.

If you are serious about losing weight avoid foods that contain high amounts of refined sugar. Some examples are, cakes, pastries, sugared biscuits, puddings, sweet meats, candies, milk chocolates (some dark chocolates are good for you though), sodas, sweetened soft drinks, artificial juices etc. Basically anything which primarily contains refined sugar as it’s base, is not really good for you. Eat these foods in moderation if you want to stay healthy, and avoid them completely if you are want to lose weight fast.

2.) Refined White Flour – There has been wide spread awareness about the unhealthy tendencies of eating refined white flour. It’s has been studied that white flour, which is manufactured by processing grains by bleaching them, is empty of the essential vitamins and minerals that are needed to digest this food effectively. Moreover, eating refined white flour is known to be highly calorie intensive, causing you to put on excess weight.

Foods to avoid, that contain refined flour as the base, are the likes of breads, pizzas, buns and scones. Of course, you can eat these product if they are made from whole grain flour, but remember that many cereals like rice and wheat are known to induce weight gain due to the presence of complex carbs.

3.) Saturated and Trans Fats – Many people end up skipping fat intake entirely to lose weight. This is a big mistake because our body needs good fats for balanced metabolism and functioning. What you need to do is make a distinction between good fats and bad fats.

The good fats are usually “Monounsaturated” or “Polyunsaturated” in nature, the key word is “unsaturated”. These type of fats are usually found in oily fish (like salmon), walnuts, avocado, olive oil and peanuts. You can also check the internet for a larger list of foods containing good fats. Remember, that it’s a myth that eating fats causes you to become fat – this is only true when you eat a lot of bad fats. Good fats help you stay in good health.

The bad fats are usually “Saturated” or “Trans-fats”. Food products like red meat, eggs, diary extracts (butter, whole fat cheese, lard etc), several cooking oils (like palm oil) contain high amounts of saturated fat that is conducive when you are trying to lose weight. Many process foods like French-fries, potato chips etc are made from hydrogenated vegetable oils which contain trans fatty acids that are bad for your health and cause weight gain. Avoid foods that contain hydrogenated vegetable oils.

4.) Salted Foods – You will be surprised to know that a good portion of your “flabbiness” is caused by the water retained in the body to keep excess “sodium” in a solution, to keep it from harming the cells. People who eat a lot of salted foods, bloat up pretty quickly because of high water retention in their body. Moreover, increased consumption of salted foods can lead to diseases like hypertension.

Popular processed foods are usually high in salt content, examples are frozen pizzas, potato and corn chips, salted crackers, canned soups and sauces etc. Be sure to choose wisely when you look for canned foods, and go for “low sodium” ones.

These are the foods to avoid for losing weight, but you also need to go low on other calorie intensive foods in your diet beyond the foods mentioned here. It’s a good advice to eat a lot of natural foods to aid you quest for weight loss. Eat plenty of vegetables and fruits to satiate you hunger instead of indulging in processed foods.