What NOT to Eat

If you are not sure about what food to avoid to lose weight, please read on for some simple guidelines.

Food to avoid to lose weight: foods with a high fat content
This is obvious, when you want to lose weight, or more accurately you want to lose fat, it doesn't really make sense to eat exactly that. Having that said, fat itself is not your worst enemy, but you still should cut down on it if possible

Examples:
excess pure fat on meats, too much butter or margarine on your bread, bologna and hot dogs, etc.

Food to avoid to lose weight: foods high in sugar
The second group of foods that you better give a miss are foods with a high content of sugar or highly refined carbohydrates which the body treats also as sugars. Apart from the obvious higher calorie content, the bigger problem is that these foods spike your blood sugar level quickly, your pancreas reacts by releasing lots of insulin to get the blood sugar level back down. Often the blood sugar drops then to an even lower level as it was initially which quickens subsequently your appetite. And that is certainly a condition that you would want to avoid when being on diet!

Examples:
the worst foods in this category are soda pops, fruit juices, white bread, white rice, cakes and cookies etc.

Food to avoid to lose weight: foods high sugar AND fat
Foods from this category you must try to eliminate totally from your food plan! The reason is that the high sugar content primes the body's insulin response, which in turn opens so to speak your body's cells to take up the sugar - and in this case also the fat! You see, the calories from foods high in sugar and fat go directly onto your hips! Or wherever ...

Examples:
foods high in sugar and fat are: potato chips, french fries, cakes and tarts, chocolate, white bread with butter etc.

Now, that you know what food to avoid to lose weight, you might wonder what there is left to eat? I know, it first seems like that, but there is still plenty of choice. Stick to lean protein, lots of vegetables, low fat products and for the carbohydrates, opt for the whole grain versions and try to limit their the portion size. And to make you life easier while dieting, better focus on what delicious food you still can eat and not what food to avoid to lose weight!

Claudia Ohst - EzineArticles.com Expert Author   
Claudia writes articles about health and weight loss issues and is the webmaster of the blog "Diet on Autopilot". Instead of the latest diet schemes, more emphasis is put on installing new eating behaviors to achieve weight loss on autopilot.

And here are two more links about what NOT to eat:
http://arthritisfordogs.net/top-foods-to-avoid-to-lose-weight/  (DEFINITELY read this one!)
http://www.happynews.com/living/weight/foods-avoid-during-weight-loss.htm