The 2 Types Of Food You Should Avoid If You Want To Lose Weight
But experts say there are two particular types of food that you should avoid if you would like to be a bit more trim, reports Wales Online.
One will be no surprise, but the other might seem to many people like a healthy food.
The first key food type to avoid is, perhaps unsurprisingly, sugar.
The NHS advises that we eat too much sugar, some 700g a week per person on average, or 140 teaspoons.
The NHS says the type of sugars most adults and children in the UK eat too much of are “free sugars”. These are: any sugars added to food or drinks; and naturally occurring sugars in honey, syrups, unsweetened fruit or vegetable juices and smoothies.
Sugar found naturally in milk, or unjuiced fruit and vegetables, does not count as free sugars.
Adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day, roughly equivalent to 7 sugar cubes, according to the health service. Children aged seven to 10 should have no more than 24g of free sugars a day, or 6 sugar cubes, and children aged four to six should have no more than 19g of free sugars a day, or 5 sugar cubes.
When you go shopping, looking at the nutritional labels on packaging to see how many grams of sugar there are in your favourite choices.
Cutting out non-diet fizzy drinks is an easy way to reduce your sugar intake, as nearly a quarter of the added sugar in our diets comes from sugary drinks. For example, a can of cola can have as much as 9 cubes of sugar – more than the recommended daily limit for adults, says the NHS.
You can also gradually reduce the sugar you add to your tea or coffee, or swap to a low calorie sweetener if you really cannot bear the less-sweet taste.
Many common foods are surprisingly high in sugar, such as soups, condiments and jars of pasta sauce.
All the information you need to make more-healthy choices is on the label.
The second food type to reduce if you want to shed some pounds is starchy carbohydrate.
This is found in popular staples such as potatoes, bread, rice, pasta and cereals.
Starchy food does provide a good source of energy and adds a range of other nutrients to our diet, and should make up just over a third of the food we eat, says the NHS. If they make up more than a third of your diet, you’re likely to be eating too much.
By switching to wholegrain alternatives, such as brown rice or oatmeal, and some types of bread and pasta, or keeping the skin on potatoes, you can increase your fibre intake and therefore feel fuller for longer – reducing the temptation to nibble on snacks.
If you’re looking for a wholegrain snack, why not try popcorn – avoiding the the sugar-coated version, of course.
And be wary of the amount of fat you add to your starchy carbs when cooking and eating – a healthy, skin-on baked potato can become a saturated fat and calorie-laden nightmare when topped with lashings of butter and grated cheese.