When you're trying to lose weight so you can fit into smaller clothes, what you eat can make a big difference. While limiting your total calories for the day and engaging in regular physical activity are the most important factors in weight loss, some types of foods tend to be more associated with weight gain than others. You'll want to minimize the amount of these you eat to make reaching your weight-loss goals easier.
Foods that are high in fat also tend to be high in energy density, or calories per gram. This tends to make them less filling, so you're more likely to overeat. While some high-fat foods, including nuts, olive oil and avocados, are healthy in moderation even when dieting, others should be limited or avoided. These include fast foods and "junk" foods, which tend to contain very few beneficial nutrients. A review article published in "Public Health Nutrition" in 2004 found that there is convincing evidence that a eating a lot of these nutrient-poor but energy-dense foods increased the risk for obesity. For example, a study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" in June 2004 found that teenagers were more likely to eat too many calories on days when they ate fast food.
Limit the amount of sugar-sweetened beverages you drink because these are high in calories and usually don't provide a significant amount of beneficial nutrients. They've also been linked to potential weight gain. For example, a study published in "Obesity" in May 2014 found that the more often children had sugar-sweetened beverages, the more likely they were to have a high body mass index.
Artificially Sweetened Foods
Using artificial sweeteners instead of caloric sweeteners like sugar to cut calories may sound like a good idea, but the use of these sweeteners may actually be associated with weight gain instead of weight loss. A review article published in "The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine" in June 2010 noted that these sweeteners may actually cause you to want to eat more food, thus resulting in potential weight gain compared to people who ate food containing sugar instead of artificial sweeteners.
Starchy Foods and Refined Carbohydrates
Starchy foods, processed foods and refined grains were associated with weight gain in a study published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" in 2011. Instead of eating sweets and refined grains, opt for less processed whole-grain foods and nonstarchy vegetables, which are associated more with weight loss.
- The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine: Gain Weight by “Going Diet?” Artificial Sweeteners and the Neurobiology of Sugar Cravings
- Public Health Nutrition: Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Excess Weight Gain and Obesity
- Journal of the American Medical Association: Compensation for Energy Intake From Fast Food Among Overweight and Lean Adolescents
- Obesity: Relationship Between Raised BMI and Sugar Sweetened Beverage and High Fat Food Consumption Among Children
- The New England Journal of Medicine: Changes in Diet and Lifestyle and Long-Term Weight Gain in Women and Men
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