Learning about food is crucial if you want to get control of your body. What you eat will determine how you look more than anything else, including exercise.
I used to be a lot heavier than I am now, and that was mostly because of food. Even after I started working out, I got fatter. This happened because of food. Working out can’t always be enough to offset your diet, especially if your diet is really bad. For a while, mine was.
Avoiding foods that make us gain weight is huge if you want to ‘own’ your body. This lesson will help you to do just that. Here are the biggest culprits:
Processed sugars are one of the most likely of foods to make you fat. You can find them in a variety of sources including pretty much all sweets, sodas, and sweet tasting baked goods such as cookies, brownies, cakes, etc.
You will also find a large amount of sugars in many breakfast foods including waffles, pancakes, crepes, and most cereals.
Processed sugars wreak havoc on your blood sugar and cause excessive insulin response. Since excessive insulin response causes appetite issues, your eating can really get out of whack if you consume processed sugar. Get them out of your diet.
Eating weird, manufactured fats can really mess up the hormones that regulate your body. Many oils are hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated to increase the shelf life. Unfortunately, this process also increases your waist line. These oils make your body believe that it needs to store fat and when you eat them, it does just that.
The oils and fats that you need to avoid are sunflower, canola, and vegetables oils, and fully hydrogenated fats such as Crisco and other shortenings.
I’ll admit that refined grains are much worse than whole grains, but grains are a problem in general. Your body converts grains to sugar and does it in a hurry. There are definitely times when grains are ok to eat, but eating a lot of grains will add to your fat levels, even if you’re eating the ‘whole’ variety.
Artificial sweeteners are perhaps the worst thing you can consume if you want to control your weight. They will really mess with your appetite and I can promise you that you will consume more calories overall if you use these little devils. They trick your body into thinking that calories should be coming and when they don’t, it freaks your body out. If there’s one thing I’ve learned by working with people at The Skinny School, it’s that sweeteners must be completely eliminated before significant, lasting progress can be made.
If you want to make lasting changes to your body, you should start eating whole foods with an emphasis on fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats. This will help your body to heal itself hormonally and get on the right track. Be very careful with processed foods. Nothing from a box will make your body healthier.