There has been an interesting change in the foods we consume over the past century. The Industrial Revolution brought about faster mechanized ways of creating products and it was only a matter of time before this extended to food. This is not to say that all factory made food is bad, in fact there are many businesses that create their food products with minimal preservatives and ingredients. The issue of today is that many people are uneducated as to what goes into their food or how to feed themselves properly. The hidden danger to eating the copious amounts of ready made food is the increased sugar consumption. Sugar now comes in various forms be it high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, glucose, and many other pseudonyms. This increased consumption leads to weight gain and learning to recognize what is bad for you will lead you toward a diet for real weight loss.
Education will take you from your food ignorance into knowing what exactly you have been ingesting for, most likely, years. It is not your fault however because their are no comprehensive programs discussing what a healthy diet. The food pyramid? For most people it hardly makes any sense and many nutritionists would argue that the advice is outdated and relies too heavily on an over consumption of processed carbohydrates. Relearning to eat means relearning how to approach your grocery store.
This means living and shopping on the fringe. Why? Think of what is within the perimeter of a grocery store – dairy products like milk, creams, and butter; the meat section, an in house bakery filled with freshly made items, and of course a produce section over flowing with fruits and vegetables. These are whole foods and that just means that they are natural and not overly processed.
This is not to say that all processing as bad, canned tomato sauce for instance does not contain many ingredients. A good rule of thumb of processed food is to see if you can recognize the ingredients. Eating something with only five ingredients is infinitely better than going for the food that contains over twenty and is unintelligible to those who are not food scientists.
These rules and incorporating more made foods will only come after a two week detox. Throw out any juices and sodas you have in your house and this includes diet soda. While it does not contain any calories, the fake sugar has been found to stimulate appetite. It also acts as a crutch to your system to never really get off of sugar.
Water should be the only drink you consume. If this is difficult there are sugar free options that are better than diet soda and this includes some of the flavor packets you can add to your water. These are not the best things for consumption, but it can be difficult to wean yourself off of the liquids you never paid much attention to other than for their flavor. Eating clean does not mean you have to deprive yourself. In fact, for the first week eat as many vegetables as you want!! There are no limits, as long as you are no sabotaging yourself with additional condiments like ranch dressing.
This is not to say that you should bypass flavor. The best foods are full of flavor, but that comes from cooking technique, like roasting as well as any added spices. This is the time to see what you can do when you are not relying on something prepackaged.
Carbohydrates should be kept to a minimum and should be natural, like those found in potatoes. Following your first week, start to eat fruits. These contain real sugars and after your first week you will be able to tell the difference. Once you have detoxified yourself you will see that the way you approach food will have changed and you will be on a diet for real weight loss.
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