Snacks to Avoid when you’re dieting to shed off those nasty pounds!
We all like to have a little snack every once in a while. It builds up our energy, helps us get away from our boring work at our boring desk. And of course, our day just gets much better when we gorge down a melted chocolate brownie or a large chocolate chip cookie. But all these habits certainly don’t go well with our healthy when we’re trying to shed away those nasty pounds. Snacking is usually avoided during a diet but if you do it the right away, it can actually help you speed up your weight loss and shed more pounds quicker!
You see, proper snacks that are high in nutrients and low in fats actually work to speed up your metabolism and control those pangs of hunger that cause you to crave huge slices of pizza and baked potatoes. But eating the wrong kind of snacks can most definitely ruin your diet, and that means you should watch out for packaged foods that say “healthy” on the label and are actually brimming with carbs, sugars and fats.
Here are the kinds of snacks you need to avoid religiously if you want to shed those pounds for good!
1. Rice Cakes
The popular opinion about rice cakes portrays them as the healthiest food choices for snacks since they are extremely low in calories and contain absolutely no fats. But hey, they are also extremely high on the glycemic index.
While sugar itself has a rating of 100, rice cakes rate up to 82, making them bad choice during a diet regardless of the calorie count. So if you feel like having a rice cake, treat yourself to air-popped popcorns and gorge them down with different healthy toppings, like mustard or olive oil.
2. Trail Mix
Trail mix is a snack that we all love gorging on at our desk or practically everywhere else. It is yummy, supposedly light and very sweet. But it contains a great deal of processed chocolate and that is definitely not going to help you with your diet. Therefore, if you want to enjoy a sweet bar of goodness, why not opt for fruity bars or nut bars.
You can even make your own bars with fruits and nuts, like walnuts, almonds, apricots, cherries and many others. They will enrich your body with countless nutrients, energize you during the day and fill you up unlike those fat filled empty calories you take in with trail mix.
3. Pretzels
As much as you may like stocking up on pretzels, you simply cannot deny that these all-time favourite snacks are horribly rich in sodium. When you’re consuming a high quantity of sodium, which in the case of one serving of pretzels equals to 20% of your daily diet, your water retention speeds up and you feel bloated and puffy.
The worst part is, high levels of sodium have been directly linked to heart diseases. So, if you feel a craving for pretzels, delight yourself with salted peanuts or slated and shelled pistachios. They are rich in fibers and proteins and they will also fill you up so you don’t feel too hungry and end up making another unhealthy eating choice.
4. Bottled Smoothies
Bottled smoothies are often considered a good choice among the low-calorie items. But if truth be told, they contain more than just one serving in a bottle.
The best way to ensure how many calories are present in your smoothie is to make it yourself. You get to add all the ingredients you want and enjoy the essential nutrients present in fresh fruits. Besides, there are countless smoothies that can help you slim up and delight your taste buds with their fruity essence, so why waste your money and your health on the bottled ones, hmm?
5. Diet Soda
Diet sodas contain heaps and heaps of artificial sweeteners that tend to fill you up and control your cravings, but also, slow down your metabolism and your digestive system.
If you’re hooked, stopping yourself from craving diet soda can be a hard decision, but once you get started on avoiding it, it seems like the best decision you ever made. So, next time you start craving a diet soda, have some detox water or sparkling flavoured water instead.
6. Banana Chips
Most people tend to believe that banana chips make a healthy snacks because they are rich in bananas. Allow me to break it to you that this is an utter and complete myth.
These banana chips are fried, making them extremely rich in saturated fats. So, if you’re gorging these down by the minute and wondering why you’re diet isn’t working, there you have it! Instead of wasting your money on banana chips, treat yourself to the best alternative, an actual banana.
A banana will provide your body 121 calories and loads of fiber along with vitamins B and C, without a single trace of saturated fat. But if you really want to munch on chips, try kale chips which make a much healthier treat.
7. Chocolate Pudding
A cup of chocolate pudding is largely hailed as a low calorie trick to give yourself a quick chocolate fix, but it’s actually a bad trick because it lacks the essential nutrients a snack must contain to energize your body.
Instead of chocolate pudding, why don’t you go ahead and take the liberty of indulging in dark chocolate?
Dark chocolate is rich with cocoa, which has a huge antioxidant makeup, and also, it contains less amount of carbs and sugar while the fiber content is way higher than chocolate pudding. So, here’s the perfect excuse you need to add a little bit of chocolate to your diet!
8. Cheese Crackers
We all love cheesy crackers such as Cheez-Its, they just pop right into your mouth and taste all the more delicious when you’re watching a movie. But these unhealthy snacks are highly rich in carbs, which can raise your blood sugar and increase the pangs of hunger.
Now that completely goes against the whole purpose of eating snacks, they are supposed to help you fight hunger not increase it. So, do whatever you can to quit these quick snacks right away.
9. Skimmed milk & Granola Bars
Even though this is considered the go-to breakfast for a healthy diet, one cup of skimmed milk and half a cup of granola gives you 360 calories. And that’s all because behind all the pretentious healthiness that is shown in advertisements, granola bars are mostly made up of fats and sugar.
So, if your breakfast wasn’t too filling and you feel like grabbing another one around 10am, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with energizing your body. However, quit the granola bars and opt for a much more nutritious snack instant oats. They are much more filling and satisfying!
10. 100-Calorie Cookie Packs
Most 100-calorie cookie packs such as Chips Ahoy or Oreos tend to be a really bad choice when you’re trying to lose weight. Even though the popular opinion believes them to be healthy and low in fats, studies reveal that they create the same weight loss problems as any other processed cookies.
Cookies are cookies, they are unhealthy and they shouldn’t be a part of your diet. So, try to substitute your Oreo cravings with something healthier, for instance roasted pumpkin seeds that contain lesser calories and tend to be more filling.
11. Baby Carrots
Baby carrots have been a much celebrated snack for diets but they’re not very nutritious since they don’t fill you up and energize your body for a long time. However, if you eat them with a protein rich dipping, for instance hummus, then your stomach will fill up and you won’t find yourself struggling against hunger until your next meal.
12. Flavoured Yogurts
No matter which flavour you pick out, flavoured yogurts are rich in sugar because the strawberries weren’t freshly added, the taste comes from artificial flavouring.
A better and healthier idea is to add plain Greek yogurt along with fresh strawberries to your snack times.
Greek yogurt is low in sugar and extremely rich in proteins, while fresh strawberries will fill you up with plenty of essential antioxidants.
Snacks are always meant to energize you and help your body cope with the loss of food quantity during your diet. You must avoid all such items that won’t fill you up and leave you craving for more. Or worse, food items that are high in processed fats or added sugars. Keep your snacks simple and light, yet nutritious and filling.
informative sight for people with diabetics
popcones is also cooked using oil which alsois not good for the body
Well, I am a bit concerned about that first snack you said we should avoid, because I’ve been following a diet that a renown bodybuilder told me to follow and as a snack this diet includes two rice cakes with sugar free jelly and for me it had worked too great. Maybe, because I combine it with exercise at the Gym that would be the reason! Anyways, this concerned me to know!!!