In the world of diet and nutrition, there is so much confusion, stress, and disappointment with folks like you and me trying to lose weight, to improve our overall health, and to just get that body we have always wanted. During my own weight loss journey, I was fortunate enough to be able to find out the "secrets" on what truly does work and what does not work at all for getting a body you can be proud of. However, during my journey to learning these secrets, I had many bumps along the way. One of those bumps was eating a lot of those "fat-free foods" and "calorie-free soft drinks".
You know, I could have sworn that eating fats was bad for you and drinking anything with too many calories was bad for you as well. This is what everyone says, right?
Well, there are a couple of problems here:
1. Not all fats are bad for you. Completely eliminating fats from your diet can in fact make it more difficult for you to lose fat (ironically), and you miss out on being able to improve your overall health. The reason why is because we all need HEALTHY fats in our diet (monounsaturated, omega fatty acids) for heart health, fat loss, weight loss, and more.
2. With most fat-free and calorie-free foods and drinks, they are usually substituted with artificial sweeteners and other dangerous additives to ensure they still taste good. Those substitutes can be things such as artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, a higher amount of carbs, fats, or calories, and more.
So, what do you do?
Well, as far as soft drinks are concerned, I strongly recommend you avoid them all together. Regular soft drinks are very dangerous to your health and have empty calories (no nutritional value), and "so-called healthier" soft drinks are still bad due to the harmful additives.
As far as fat-free foods are concerned, I recommend you look for foods that do not contain BAD fats (such as saturated and definitely trans fat), and instead has healthy fats (such as nuts and avocados). And if it is fat-free, make sure it does not contain unhealthy substitutions. An example of good fat-free food would be fat-free Greek organic yogurt.
Bottom line, if it's too good to be true... well... you get the point. What I learned during my journey is that nutrition really boils down to what the human body was supposed to have all along (NATURAL foods)! Processed foods and mechanically engineered foods are most certainly nowhere near "natural". So, when getting foods, pay close attention to the ingredients, and don't be fooled by those "so-called healthy option" labels.
