Losing weight is an uphill battle. It seems there are more obstacles that you must hurdle than openings. Choosing the right foods to eat is one of those obstacles.
There is so much information about what you should eat or shouldn’t eat, and sometimes foods that seem healthy may not be the best choice at all. In this piece, you’ll find 20 foods that may contribute to slow weight loss. Keep reading to find out more.
What Makes Weight Loss Slow?
The body is very resilient and can sometimes fight against losing weight. If you do things that make your body feel as if food will be scarce, it will respond by going into something like a “survival” mode. Your body will slow your metabolism down to conserve energy, and you won’t be able to drop those pounds like you need to.
Even if you go hard in the gym, when your body is in survival mode, you won’t lose weight very fast. It’s essential to make sure your body doesn’t enter into this state. A few ways to avoid survival mode is:
- Avoiding fad diets
- Taking rest days from your workout schedule
- Make sure your overall health is well.
- Avoiding certain foods
This article will address the last tip – avoiding certain foods. Some of these foods may make you go into survival mode, while others may work against your weight loss because they aren’t as healthy as you think they are. Keep reading to find out the 20 foods that can slow your weight loss efforts.
20 Foods That Cause Slow Weight Loss
1 – White Potatoes
White potatoes have a lot of health benefits, such as being full of antioxidants and fiber. However, they contain a lot of natural sugar. Although the sugar is raw, it’s still sugar. They can put you over your sugar limit for your diet without you realizing it’s happening.
2 – 100-Calorie Snacks
If you’re counting calories for your weight loss, having controlled, 100-calorie snacks may seem like a great idea. However, the 100-calorie label is simply a marketing scheme. These snacks are still full of sugar, flour, and other culprits that can derail your weight loss efforts.
3 – Chicken Thighs
Chicken is lean meat and is great for anyone on a diet. However, thighs are the fattiest part of the chicken. This is especially true if you eat the skin. You could be unsuspectingly increasing the overall amount of fat in your diet.
4 – Cereal
A lot of cereal claims to be full of fiber or great for your heart. While this may be true, cereal can have a lot of sugar. This is even the “healthy” cereal – it’s not healthy if you’re trying to lower your carbohydrate intake. Adding fruit to it doesn’t make it better because fruit adds more sugar to the meal.
5 – Diet Sodas
Diet sodas use sugar substitutes and have zero calories. This fools people into thinking they can drink as much of it as they want with no consequences. However, these sodas have no nutritional value. They’ll fill you up, and you won’t have room for foods with vitamins and minerals that you need. You might cause your body to go into survival mode because it’s not getting what it needs.
6 – Baked Beans
It’s no secret that beans are a fantastic food to eat when you’re on a diet. They’re full of fiber, and this fiber keeps you full longer so you don’t eat as much. However, baked beans are full of sugar from the sauce that’s on them. Baked beans have a lot of sugar. You should avoid them and opt for raw beans that are not in a can.
7 – Corn
Corn tastes great but has no nutritional value. Even worse, the human body can’t process it. Eating corn fills you up with a food that doesn’t give your body the nutrients it needs. This can push you into survival mode if you eat corn often.
8 – Protein or Cereal Bars
These bars are great for athletes or people who work out a lot. They help to replenish nutrients lost in sweat. However, many of these bars are full of carbohydrates, and up to half of those carbs can be sugar.
There are versions that are sugar-free or low sugar, but you’d still be adding a ton of carbs to your diet.
9 – Sports Drinks
If you work out a lot, sports drinks are necessary to replenish nutrients and electrolytes that are lost when you sweat. However, many sports drinks are full of sugar, so they aren’t great for a diet. Try to get sugar-free sports drinks instead.
10 – Sardines
Seafood is one of the best food categories you can eat from when you’re trying to lose weight. However, not all seafood is the best choice.
Sardines has one of the highest fat contents of all seafood. While it’s generally good fat (Omega-3), too much of it can cause slow weight loss. Try eating fish that has a lower fat content.
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11 – Walnuts
Nuts are full of fiber and antioxidants, so they’re great for snacking between meals. However, nuts are high in fat, and walnuts have one of the highest fat contents of all nuts. Even worse, it’s easy to overeat nuts, so you may be overeating fat without realizing it.
12 – Cheddar Cheese
Cheese isn’t too bad for weight loss as long as you eat it in moderation. Some cheeses are higher in fat and calories than others, and cheddar cheese is one of them.
In fact, cheddar cheese has the highest fat content of all cheeses. Try switching it out for a different cheese to keep your fat intake low.
13 – White Rice
A half-cup of rice is great to add to your diet when you’re losing weight, but the wrong type of rice – white rice – can cause slow weight loss.
For one, all the grains and nutrients have been stripped away from white rice, so you’ll be filling yourself with empty calories. Another consideration is that white rice has more calories than other types of rice.
14 – White Bread
You may have heard that white bread is terrible when you’re trying to lose weight. Despite this, people eat white bread a lot. It tends to be in so many different processed foods, so it can be hard to avoid.
White bread has a ton of sugar and little to no fiber, so it’s something you should try to cut out when you’re losing weight.
15 – Sauces & Gravies
It may not seem like adding a little sauce, dressing, or gravy to your food is causing any harm, but these things are full of sugar, salt, and even flour.
All three of these can derail a weight loss plan quickly. Even if you use just a little, those amounts begin to add up, and before you know it, you could be over your limit.
16 – Veggie Chips
Surprisingly, veggie chips are still made from fried potatoes. Sure, they have some vegetable powder sprinkled over them, but they are still a high-fat, high-calorie, low-nutrient snack.
They’ll expand your waistline just like regular chips will, cause slow weight loss, or possibly even cause weight gain.
17 – Fruit Smoothies
Fruit smoothies are touted as being healthy. In fact, you can find smoothie places near gyms because they’re targeting health nuts.
However, some smoothies are full of sugar, even the ones that have all the essential nutrients you need. You must be sure to pick the sugar-free smoothies.
18 – Canned Vegetables
Canned vegetables aren’t too bad, but some of them can be full of sodium. Too much sodium causes you to retain water, which can slow down your weight loss. Avoid this by getting low- or no-sodium canned vegetables. You can also opt for fresh or frozen vegetables.
19 – Coffee
Coffee itself isn’t bad for weight loss. In fact, the caffeine in coffee is great for weight loss. However, it’s what you put in the coffee that can cause you to retain weight.
Many people fill their coffee with sugar and creamer. They may choose sugary iced coffee or other coffee drinks. This will work against your weight loss.
20 – Breakfast Meat
Breakfast meats like bacon and sausage provide you with a ton of protein, but they are full of sodium. As explained before, sodium will make you retain water, which causes slow weight loss. You should choose low-sodium breakfast meats or use eggs as your source of protein.
Final Thoughts on Foods That Cause Slow Weight Loss
It’s great that you’re making an effort to eat healthily, but you must be careful with the foods you choose because they can have hidden ingredients that contribute to slow weight loss.
This is especially true with processed foods that have misleading labeling. They’ll tell you the food is healthy because of one particular point but fail to mention the other unhealthy ingredients.
Hopefully, this list of 20 foods pointed out some things you may not have been aware of. Following the advice given and avoiding these foods can help put you back on the path of dropping those unsightly pounds, your body has been clinging to.
