Improper nutrition is the main reason for gaining excess weight.
We gain weight primarily because we consume excess calories every day that are found in unhealthy products. These products are sometimes colloquially referred to as “calorie bombs.”
Contrary to popular belief, you can lose weight even without sports if you eat properly. To do this, it is important to understand which products should be excluded to lose weight, as well as what to eat to lose weight and in what quantities.
Main thoughts:
Many food products on store shelves (primarily those made by humans) contain “empty calories,” meaning they have little to no nutritional value and only provide energy.
The excess energy is carefully stored by the body in our unwanted fat reserves, causing weight gain. Consuming such products can also lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, as they are simply absent in these products.
Below we provide a list of products that must be excluded from the diet to lose weight, as well as recommendations on which products should form the basis of the diet.
Both are of colossal importance for overall health.
As someone wise from ancient times once said: “You are what you eat” (Hippocrates).
What should NOT be eaten to lose weight?
To understand which products to exclude to lose weight, it is important to be able to read labels. Pay attention primarily to the content of solid fats and sugars.
Solid fats are fats that remain solid even at room temperature. These primarily include butter and margarine.
Sugar can be added during the cooking process either in its pure form (as it will be indicated on the packaging) or in the form of syrups.
Both ingredients enhance the flavor of products, making them “melt in your mouth.”
This is a kind of deception of the senses, a conversation in a language that the manufacturers of “treats” have mastered.
But despite the fact that such products are pleasant to taste, they mostly do not provide the body with the substances needed for normal functioning.
Vitamins and minerals are present in them in minuscule amounts or are completely absent. The same goes for fiber. However, to smooth over this significant drawback, some manufacturers resort to another trick and enrich cookies with vitamins, minerals, and fiber, allowing them to label it as a “healthy product.” But the calories remain…
Moreover, always remember that synthetic vitamins are less beneficial than natural ones, which are naturally found in whole foods.
Manufacturers often enrich their unhealthy products with vitamins, minerals, and fiber to give the packaging a healthy appearance: this does not make them more beneficial or less caloric.
It is the excess calories that lead to weight gain. Burning them off through physical exercise is very difficult, which is why recent scientific studies indicate a relatively low effectiveness of sports for weight loss.
For example, a chocolate bar, like a Snickers, has a caloric content of 488 kcal. This is approximately… 1 hour of slow running, ~40 minutes of high-intensity interval training – exercises recognized as some of the most effective for weight loss. Both activities are not easy even for a physically fit person. Or you could… simply not eat the Snickers!
A characteristic feature of “empty” products is that despite their high caloric content, they do not satiate. Very shortly after consuming them, the feeling of hunger returns. And if you try to satisfy it again with “empty” calories, by midday you will exceed your daily norm…
We recommend: How many calories are needed per day to lose weight
Which products should be excluded for weight loss
| Which products to exclude to lose weight |
|---|
| Sweets in the form of pastries, cookies, and donuts contain both solid fats and sugar. |
| Sugary drinks such as sweet soda (Pepsi, cola, etc.), sports and energy drinks (if you are not an athlete), and packaged fruit juices – all contain a huge amount of sugar. |
| Dairy products, ice cream, and other whole milk products – contain solid fats and sugar |
| Meat products, hot dogs, pork, beef – contain solid fats |
| Fast food: pizza, burgers, fries, milkshakes – contain both solid fats and sugar |
| Hard candies and bars – contain both sugar and solid fats |
Visually, products that should be excluded from the diet are easy to recognize in the store: they are usually concentrated on the central shelves and packaged in colorful wrappers.
Important: Remember the universal rule: everything that nature grows is generally healthy and good for weight loss; almost everything that is produced by humans are products with enhanced flavors, aimed not at making you healthy, but at pleasing you, your taste, so that you… buy them again.
It is very difficult to overeat any natural products; processed refined products can be eaten without control.
If you want to lose weight, you should definitely exclude from your diet products that contain “empty” calories in the form of solid fats and sugar: these are usually NOT natural products produced by humans (candies, cookies, ice cream, fast food, meat products)
What SHOULD you eat to lose weight?
Experts in dietetics recommend getting no more than 30% of daily calories from fats and consuming no more than six teaspoons of sugar per day.
Products that are beneficial to eat for weight loss are usually not in the most visible places in the store.
Many of them do not have colorful packaging, but rather are dirty and unappealing, as they have just been pulled from the ground.
However, they have not undergone technological processing: they have not been touched by human hands ;). Therefore, they do not contain unhealthy fats, sugar, flavor enhancers, and preservatives.
Recommended: The harm of sugar to the human body. Scientific research
What foods can you eat to lose weight
| What foods to eat to lose weight |
|---|
| Fresh and dried fruits – apples, oranges, bananas, berries, lemons, peaches, nectarines, pears… anything |
| Vegetables (fresh and frozen) – carrots, leafy greens (spinach, lettuce), broccoli, beets, herbs (onion, dill, parsley) |
| Whole grains – whole grain bread, brown rice, oatmeal, buckwheat, whole grain pasta |
| Lean protein – eggs, legumes, fish, nuts, poultry |
| Legumes – lentils, peas, beans, chickpeas |
| Low-fat dairy products – skim milk, cheese, yogurt |
One of the recommendations is to try to eat a rainbow over the course of a week or a few days, i.e., foods of various colors. The color in vegetables and fruits is due to so-called phytonutrients, which are incredibly beneficial for health.
For example, today you can have a red-orange day and eat apples, oranges, carrots, and red peppers. Tomorrow – a yellow-green day, including yellow peppers, bananas, lemons, yellow squash, green beans, or asparagus. Blueberries, purple potatoes, cauliflower, and blackberries complete the spectrum from the other end of the rainbow.
Supermarkets benefit from selling processed foods that have incredibly long shelf lives and create a dependency, encouraging customers to buy them again and again.
If you find it difficult to locate healthy products from the list above in the store, head to the market to the village grandmothers and grandfathers for wormy… but fragrant apples and other vegetables and fruits with imperfect, non-store geometry.
P.S. I recently realized that, probably, in the European and American countries with their praised level of high technological development, you might not find delicious wormy apples anywhere…
To lose weight, eat more natural products that have not undergone technological processing: fresh, dried, frozen vegetables and fruits, whole grains, dietary proteins (eggs, fish, lean poultry), legumes, seeds, and nuts. Even with a strong desire, it is very difficult to overeat them.
Conclusion
To lose weight, you need to eat whole natural products and exclude processed foods that contain sugar and solid fats.
If you are a big fan of empty calories, then a certain amount of them per day is acceptable. After all, you can even lose weight on fast food. The overall calorie intake of everything that goes into your mouth throughout the day is important. Therefore, learn to count calories.
But once you appreciate the power and fall in love with whole natural products, over time you will start to feel disgust for unhealthy foods and begin to avoid the corresponding sections in the store. They will simply become uninteresting to you.
Here are a few tips to help you transition from foods that should be avoided for weight loss to those that are beneficial:
- buy low-fat cheese instead of full-fat;
- use unsweetened yogurt with fruits instead of sweetened;
- choose sugar-free cereals instead of sweet ones;
- drink plain water instead of sugary sodas or juices;
- better popcorn that is high in fiber than cookies;
- better dried nuts, beans, and seeds than potato chips.
If desired, almost all unhealthy foods that are harmful for weight loss can be replaced with healthy alternatives. Learn to do this as well.
For example, if you like the taste of a strawberry milkshake that contains quite a bit of fat and sugar, learn to make a fruit smoothie with healthy ingredients. For the base, you can use sports protein, which contains almost no carbohydrates and fats but has the same creamy taste.
