The 2 fattening foods that I'm going to talk about in this article may actually shock you... most people falsely believe these 2 foods are "healthy". In all of my years working as a Certified Nutrition Specialist, this usually surprises people when I mention they should consider eliminating these foods from their diet.
Everybody these days knows how bad trans fats and high fructose corn syrup are for you, so I figured I'd spare you yet another lecture on those... Instead, read on to see a couple foods that may shock you that they may be packing on the blubber.
The first type of food that is often falsely believed to be healthy is wheat products... this includes most breads, cereals, bagels, muffins, pasta, crackers, and so on. And yes, I am including "whole wheat" in the category of this fattening food.
First of all, a large percentage of the population has some degree of intolerance to the gluten in wheat and some other grains. Full blown celiacs are the most sensitive to it, but what most people don't realize is that the majority of the population was never meant to eat large quantities of wheat. The human digestive system has never adapted to large amounts of wheat in the diet.
The introduction of wheat into the human diet has only been in the last couple thousand years, and it has NEVER been in such large quantities in the human diet until the last 80-100 years. This is a small time frame compared to the traditional diet that the human digestive system developed over several hundred thousand years eating a hunter-gatherer diet of meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
From my experience with many of my clients, when they heed my advice and eliminate wheat from their diet for 2-3 weeks to see if they start to lose weight and feel better, this almost always makes a HUGE difference. Many times, they not only start losing body fat much faster, but they also finally get rid of headaches and indigestion that has plagued them for years. Sometimes even skin problems go away when eliminating wheat from the diet.
The 2nd example of the worst fattening foods that shocks many people because it is thought to be "healthy" is -- fruit juice.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti-carb advocate per se... I actually think most fruits are VERY healthy for us. However, we were NOT meant to separate the juice from the rest of the fruit and only drink the high calorie sugary mixture and leave behind the fiber and other beneficial components of the fruit.
When you only drink the juice of fruits (apple juice and orange juice being 2 of the worst culprits in the western diet), you are not getting the appetite satisfying effect of the fiber in the fruit, and you're left craving more carbs. Also, the fiber in whole fruit helps to slow the blood sugar response when eating whole fruit compared to fruit juice.
Bottom line... overconsuming fruit juices makes you fat. On the other hand, eating whole fruits including all of the fiber helps you maintain a healthy balanced diet and high nutrient density (as long as the rest of your diet is whole unprocessed foods as well).
