Foods to avoid while loosing weight

Losing weight is probably one of the more difficult tasks to achieve, and sustaining the weight loss is even more difficult. People try all sorts of gimmicks and will follow anyone who will assure them of weight loss. And so there are a large number of diet plans and exercise programs being offered, all of which assure the consumer of instant weight loss with the minimum effort.

Foods

However, I believe that while going on crash diets and extreme exercise programs will help you lose weight, it will only be a short term effect. Weight loss through such actions will not be a long term benefit and you will find yourself gaining all that weight back over time.

For a majority of over-weight people the biggest cause of weight gain is unhealthy eating habits. In today's age of fast food and super-sized meals, you end up eating a lot of junk food in large quantities, none of which is good for your weight. In order to lose fat and achieve your goal of weight loss, it helps to avoid certain foods. All these foods are those which you commonly eat/drink on a regular basis.

One of the first foods to avoid if you're trying to lose weight is aerated cola drinks. While colas should be avoided for the obvious reasons like excessive calories due to the sugar and fructose corn syrup, there is another reason to avoid them. This reason is a little known ingredient in colas - phosphoric acid. When losing weight and fat (especially around the belly) an important factor is a balanced pH. When you take in phosphoric acid in colas, this pH balance is altered, and since fat acts as a buffer for phosphoric acid, excessive intake will only increase body fat.

Apart from colas, the second food to avoid is sugar spiked juices and drinks. Most of these sugar-laden beverages are full of artificial flavors and colors and drinking these mean taking in nearly 80-100 calories per serving. Thus, even though it may be marketed as fruit juice which is considered healthy, there is a high amount of sugar and artificial flavors which increase the calorie count. It's best to stick to freshly squeezed juices, water or herbal teas.

A third food type to avoid in order to lose fat is fried foods and trans fat foods. Apart from increasing body fat, trans fat is also linked to several health conditions including heart trouble. Fried foods also have no nutritional value and just serve to pile on the weight.

When losing weight, the fourth food it helps to avoid is bleached white flour. Products containing bleached white flour have almost no nutritional value since the nutrients and fiber are taken away during the refining process. All that remains are calories. Unfortunately we consume a lot of bleached white flour on a daily basis in our bread, pizzas, pastas etc. Try going for whole grains or unbleached flour.

Finally, the fifth food to avoid is refined sugars, try not adding them to your food which only serve to raise insulin levels and encourage storage of fat and weight gain. Try substitution with ogranic honey or fruit for sweetening purposes.