As women, we all know weight loss is a challenging and difficult task both mentally and physically. However, we often realize we need to trim down for sake of our appearance and more importantly health. A good exercise and diet plan will only go so far if we continually fall into the traps of eating the wrong types of food!
Snacking on junk food is one of the largest reasons why women become overweight or obese. Women love eating junk food and because we develop a conscience we’re often left feeling guilty and depressed. Lots of the time, eating junk food is only concluded when the entire bag of potato chips has been consumed.
If you are currently overweight and are looking to trim down substantially, you must avoid snacking on junk food at all costs. You wouldn’t have even guessed some of the foods listed here counted as junk food so you’ll be well on your way to losing weight after reading. Here are the worst snack/junk foods that you should avoid religiously.
Potato Chips
Potato chips are by far the world’s most popular snack food. Potato chips come in many forms such as chips, pretzels, puffs, squares, and balls. They also come in a variety of flavors such as cheese, jalapeno, sour cream, onion, and barbeque to name a few. What makes potato chips downright fattening is that they contain nasty vegetable oil loaded with refined sugars, salt, and artificial flavoring. These are all bad for your heart functions, digestion, metabolism, and many more.
Soda and Juices
Soda and juices are many people’s favorite companions to drink with most meals. These beverages are packed with sugar, artificial sweeteners, and numerous other preservatives. When your body regularly receives sugar, your blood sugar spikes and so does your insulin production. When these occur, your body stores fat at an alarming rate. Even with diet sodas that report to have zero calories, they contain artificial sweeteners that are known to increase hunger levels and slow down your metabolism.
Crackers
Crackers contain refined grains, refined sugars, salt, and many times, artificial flavors. People eat crackers when they are hungry between meals. What makes them bad is that they are known to make you hungrier as you eat them. It also increases the production of insulin that acts to remove sugar from your blood stream, which should be used for burning stored fat.
Candy
Candy such as chocolate covered nuts like M&M’s and most candies of that sort are also food to be avoided at all costs. Candies such as these have high amounts of sugar, salt, artificial sweeteners, and vegetable oil which can work to overload your daily calorie requirement.
Sweetened Yogurt
Sweetened yogurt is most popularly enjoyed as fruit flavored. These snacks contain high amounts of sugar, artificial sweeteners, and preservatives that can also ruin your metabolism and store high amounts of fat in your cells.
Dried Fruit
Dried fruit is actually better than all the food that made this list. It is still a food that you should avoid because in many dried fruit products, the fruit is actually fried and contains vegetable oil which becomes just as bad as the other refined foods previously mentioned because your body absorbs sugar more rapidly and converts it into excess fat.
Granola Bars
What many consider a health food is actually unhealthy for weight loss. Granola bars have vegetable oil, artificial sweeteners, and a good amount of sugar. These spike your sugar levels and allow you to once again, absorb sugar at a very fast pace.