9 Best Foods to Avoid To Lose Weight

Best way to lose weight? Start with foods to avoid eating. When it comes to dieting and counting your calories, every bite matters. It's so easy to take a wrong step in your journey to lose weight. And since dieters are constantly looking for quick and easy ways to slim down, this list made its way to claim its own page for those of you who might just be needing it!

Any changes you see fit into your daily habits can make a huge difference.

Here is a list of 9 foods to avoid eating that can strengthen your chances of reaching your weight loss goal:

Soft Drinks

Your favorite fast and easy go-to "diet" drinks may easily be one of the biggest problems to losing weight!

Soft drinks like soda and other high-calorie containing drinks can quickly add inches onto your waistline if consumed regularly. This means it's easy enough to accumulate unnecessarily chunks of calories no matter which brand you buy. So if you were thinking about creating your own list of foods to avoid eating, make sure to include some soft drinks!

And the worse part about that, is that we humans have a habit of mindlessly drinking them.

Related: How Coffee Can Help You Lose Weight

Research suggests that regularly consuming sugary drinks has a firm link to weight gain, diabetes, and insulin resistance. Health experts recommend that we try to avoid sweetened soda (as well as other sugary drinks) as much as possible in order to improve overall health.

Here are some of the benefits from cutting back on sugary drinks:

• Reduced total sugar intake
• Improved heart health
• Improved blood pressure levels
• Improved energy levels (especially if you replace your soda with water)
• Better dental health
• Better sleep
• Decreased nervousness or anxiety
• Decreased risk of osteoporosis
• Reduced risk of having type 2 diabetes

Curious to know what belongs in the list of soft drinks? You can have a look at this wikipedia page for an extensive list.

Some of the common soft drinks include:

• Soda
• Energy drinks
• Sunny delight
• Minute maid
• Hi-C
• Green river
• Ale-8-One

"Sugar-Free" Products

One sugar-free product that gained traction in recent years are artificial sweeteners.

Why, you ask?

Although artificial sweeteners are low in calories, they have been found to increase your hunger--making it harder for you to lose weight by mindless or emotional eating, as well as causing increased cravings for sweet products (1).

Related: Tips To Healthy Eating On A Budget

And now it becomes a toss between choosing a sugary drink or a non-sugary drink, right? What a world!

Alcohol

Drinking any form of alcohol (from beer to wine to alcohol) friday nights is the reason your belly isn't getting anywhere. After all, the calories in alcohol are considered empty calories that contain little to no nutritional value.

One can of beer is already 155 calories in a 12-ounce. Yikes!

Related: 10 Proven Benefits of Drinking Water for Weight Loss

But the most frightening thing about drinking alcohol regularly... is that when consumed it's being burned first as a fuel source. It's practically "cutting in line" before carbohydrates and fats. Here's the real scary part: A leading problem that is making people develop belly fat is due to carbohydrates (glucose) being burned as the main source of fuel for energy, making all the fat (lipids) stored as fat cells. And these fat cells like to hang out in the abdominal area (and also right under the skin). What happens then? You're then forming a beer belly. Oh noes!

Frightening, isn't it? Drink moderately!

White Bread

The thing about white bread is that lots of people prefer eating white bread over the brown bread. Some say it just looks more delicious because its white, and some say it just simply tastes better.

Here's why you should ditch white bread: They're made up of highly-processed simple carbohydrates, which contribute to causing a spike in blood sugar levels. High blood sugar can cause some serious long-term complications in your health, including:

• Blindness
• Kidney damage or failure
• Nerve damage
• Heart disease
• Skin infection
• Teeth and gum problems
• Feet damage leading to amputation

Related: 18 Keys to Healthy Weight Loss

It's essentially important to keep your blood sugar levels in check and preventing spikes to stay healthy. If you're having recurrent spikes it'd be best if you speak to your doctor.

Here's one more side effect: When your blood sugar levels drop after a spike, you will crave for food sooner.

Stay healthy!

Fruit Juice

Regular consumption of fruit juice makes it harder to lose weight. The reason is because all the fruit juices available in the supermarket are loaded with sugar, with all of their fiber content stripped away.

Related: 5 Teas You Should Drink To Boost Weight Loss

And fiber is extremely necessary if you're trying to lose weight. The health benefits that fiber brings is what makes whole foods the most recommended approach to weight loss. To keep it short, fiber has the ability to keep you feeling full longer and suppress your hunger signals so you don't go mindlessly snacking.

Simple Salads

If you are only eating leafy green salads throughout the day in an attempt to shed a pound or two, it's more than likely that your stomach will start to scream at you for something to eat, quickly.

This can happen if you're not incorporating something more filling in your salad like sweet potatoes and brown rice.

Related: 9 Best Health Benefits of Flaxseeds

Don't know what to do? Here's some tips make your salads more filling:

• Use an oil-based salad dressing

  • A study in Iowa State University found that people who ate salad with olive-oil based dressing had higher levels of carotenoids--the antioxidants in the human body. Research show these unsaturated fatty acids can aid in burning belly fat and even make your salad more filling.
• Mix up your greens

• Add cheese.

  • When sprinkled in moderation, low-fat cheese can help burn fat, lessen hunger signals, and maintain a healthy weight because it’s a rich source of calcium, which help release fat.
• Add lean protein
• Add fruits

Snack Bars with High Fiber Content

Avoiding meals and munching on snack bars is often seen as one of the first steps that lead to a diet. However, it will affect your consistency with fiber intake.

Related: 21 Best Fruits For Naturally Fast Weight Loss

What that means is that eating an entire snack bar can provide a large dosage of fiber into your system while your body needs it in smaller dosages throughout the day in order to avoid feeling hungry at the wrong times. And since we're all busy people, sometimes you won't have that one chance to silence your tummy. Play it safe!

Whole Milk

All those who are maintaining their diet should opt for skimmed milk instead, avoiding the unnecessary "cream" and all the cholesterol in whole milk.

According to a study in 2005 published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, extra calories in the form of 3 or more servings of milk was a main contributor to weight gain in children aged 9 to 14.

All of the extra calories were responsible for the increase in body mass index in children and not any other qualities in the milk whatsoever.

Low-Fat Food

Remember how we were talking about artificial sweeteners? Well, they're making a comeback here, because we're going to need that information back.

These "low-fat" diet foods are said to have added sweeteners which are far worse than fat itself. This can cause you to develop bad eating habits by making you crave more for foods shortly afterwards.

Read: Top 10 Uncomplicated Ways to Lose Weight Fast