Are there foods you avoid for weight loss/maintaining?

FangsForYou · June 2023

Hello everyone, I’ve been on this app for over a year now and just barely discovering the community section, so I thought what better introduction than posting a discussion.

I’m happy to say that I’ve lost a whopping 65lbs within a year and kept it off; and I’ve completely changed my eating habits, however there are certain foods that I now avoid like the plague and others that I limit, and those that I am cautious about. Here’s my personal list of food items that I’ve changed from my diet, feel free to share yours. 🤓

1) Energy Drinks, I was a sucker for energy drinks, whenever I went to work I’d drink 1 and even on blue moon occasions 2 a day. More particularly I loved Red Bulls and Rockstars. Now I avoid these at all costs, I substituted for a much more healthier energy alternative and that’s black coffee. ☕️

2) Sodas, to be honest I never was much of a fan of sodas, however whenever I would crave them I would get the large sizes and drink it throughout the day. Now I rarely order a soda and prefer nice cold water or my favorite, cans of flavored Seltzer water at home, I’ll drink one of these with every meal. 🥤

3)Whole Milk, I do enjoy whole milk, but I have found a much healthier alternative that works for me, which is the Blue Almond milk, lower calories and overall lower macros. I can literally drink 2 cups, feel full and not exceed my daily calories. 🥛

4)Processed Foods, I love making me sandwiches, I could easily spend all day eating turkey/ham sandwiches and hotdogs. However, high in calories, sodium and even some harmful additives I’ve completely switched to buying meats from my local market and grilling them myself to make a nice hefty sandwich. 🌭

5)Fast-Food, Boy, this was the hardest one for me to give up, I would eat out roughly about twice a day for YEARS, now I’ve gotten into habit of cooking my meals at home and truthfully I use to HATE cooking, lol, I was a terrible cook, but now I enjoy making my own food. I have complete control on how my food not only tastes but also what goes in it and it’s so much more affordable. I can make me a nice meal and freeze the leftovers to take to work the next day or even enough for the next 2-3 days. I still do go to a fast-food place, although it’s only about 1-2 a month to satisfy my cravings, although now I can imitate my favorite restaurants like Jack in the Box and Taco Bell at home with much healthier/ low calorie alternatives. 🥤🍔🍟

6)Potato Chips, Another one of my favorites, I would eat a whole bag or even 2 in a day with my favorite energy drinks. Now I rarely get a bag of chips, too many carbs, calories and sodium for me and I realized about myself that I enjoyed eating something crunchy with my meals and Celery has fit that role. One of my favorite go-to’s is a double turkey avocado cheeseburger served with celery—-roughly about 700 calories—-and I’m stuffed and satisfied! 🥔

Anyway, hope this was an interesting read, I think it came out longer than expected. Would love to hear you all’s list of foods. Anyhow, best of luck to everyone on their wellness goals. 🤓

neanderthin · June 2023

Good job. You'll have a leg up keeping the weight off when the time comes with all those great lifestyle changes.

For me, it was removing most things sugary and highly processed which left me consuming pretty much a whole food diet. Good job getting a handle on fast foods. Fast food was never a problem for me, mostly because how bad I thought the food tasted and the quality of ingredients and my jaw still drops when I drive by Micky D's and see the long line of vehicles any and all times during a day. Literally 90% of all the food I consume, I make, and I like that. Cheers

emmaprocopiou · June 2023

Not hit maintenance yet , hopefully this year 🤞
personally I try to avoid foods I know will trigger me into binging on - I have a terrible sweet tooth especially chocs so I get my choc fix from a protein bar if I fancy it and it’s always logged for the end of the day.
Well done to you and your achievement

ByteLily · June 2023

I don't eat things like nuts and peanut butter. I know they are healthy if you only eat a little but I find it hard to control myself. I don't eat salads at restaurants. With the exception of chick filet market salad it's low on calories and fat and high In fiber and protein if you get the light vinaigrette or honey mustard. I prettyucj make my own salad dressing at home to avoid all the salt sugar and weird ingredients. A serving for me is 60 cals vs store bought.

As a rule I don't eat chips anymore, or cheese. There are abstainers and moderators. I can't moderate myself around those foods so it's best I just don't have them in the house.

nossmf · June 2023

I'm one of the aforementioned "moderators" meaning I still allow myself to eat whatever, but I control the portion size. To whit:

Sodas - old me: 2 liters/day, today: 2 12-oz cans per week
Chips - old me: 1/2 large bag per "serving", today: 1 oz measured out
Bread - old me: 5-6 rolls per meal, today 1-2 rolls per meal
Donuts - old me: 4+ at a time, today: 1-2 per week
Pizza - old me: 5-6 slices per meal, today: 2-3 slices
French fries - old me: large size, today: 1/2 of a small

I still indulge in burgers, pizza, ice cream, sodas. But they are logged, they are intentional, they fit under my macros and calories for the day/week, and they are limited to once per week, not every other day. And honestly, I enjoy them much more now than before, in part because there's no guilt attached to them, in part because my palate is now more sensitive to tasting them.

FangsForYou · June 2023

@neanderthin Luckily for me, I was never much of a sweets guy, where I struggled with was always salty junk/fast-food. What I didn’t know was that the body processes carbs and turns them into sugar, once I lowered my carb intake I stated noticing drastic weight loss. I also heard fast-food is the absolute worst food one can eat, however I truly believe that I had formed an addiction to it. Have you found any substitutions for your sweet cravings? Anyway, best of luck to you, I wish you nothing but the best in your health journey.

neanderthin · June 2023

FangsForYou wrote: »

@neanderthin Luckily for me, I was never much of a sweets guy, where I struggled with was always salty junk/fast-food. What I didn’t know was that the body processes carbs and turns them into sugar, once I lowered my carb intake I stated noticing drastic weight loss. I also heard fast-food is the absolute worst food one can eat, however I truly believe that I had formed an addiction to it. Have you found any substitutions for your sweet cravings? Anyway, best of luck to you, I wish you nothing but the best in your health journey.

It's not actually sugar that I have a problem with, it's when sugar is combined with a refined grain that has fat and salt in it as well. For example oreo cookies, brownies and chocolate cake, yeah, can't have them anywhere around. Savory works the same way, and I have a few like chips, and a decent croissant have me handcuffed. Many of us find these food totally and undeniably "addicting" and it's mostly hormones like cortisol, leptin, ghrelin, insulin, serotonin and neurotransmitters like dopamine and endorphins that drive that euphoric feeling of wellbeing which then effect our energy metabolism, our stress levels and addictive behaviors. You've figured this out apparently and good for you.

Like yourself I'm lower carb as well and I find this controls all of this quite adequately in the sense that seeing pastry or having it available to consume or a bag of miss vickies has no effect and actually now I find most desserts kind of off putting, so to speak. As far as substitutions for sugary things I find most fruit to be perfectly acceptable and I have no cravings to continue eating fruit after I consume a portion. Fruit doesn't have any of those other wonderful nutrients like added fat, refined carbs and salt so I hypothesis from my antidotal evidence that it's that combination that handcuffs most people and me for sure. Keeping in mind I'm low carb and I don't eat a lot of fruit per se but berries are my go to and generally add them to a plain high fat Greek yogurt or a salad or I'll make savory crepes or pancakes with ground almonds, yogurt and eggs and add berries and a little honey and that's about as adventurous I get with a sweet taste. Cheers

COGypsy · June 2023

The only foods I avoid are bananas and cauliflower--I find them revolting. Otherwise I pretty much eat and drink what I want as long as it fits into my calories and satiety level. I'm definitely a moderator and hard and fast rules about good or bad foods only trigger every craving I could possibly have. I also don't cook, so I'd definitely lose weight with the rules you named....there wouldn't be much left for me to eat

And yet, I've maintained a 50 pound weight loss for several years and not (yet) died of scurvy!

SafariGalNYC · June 2023

Sushi … I do more sashimi now… I could eat a ton of sushi - all day every day. 🍣

AnnPT77 · June 2023

I didn't eat a lot of the foods on your list when I got fat and stayed fat for around 30 years, and I didn't dramatically change the range of foods I ate to lose weight, nor to maintain a healthy weight for 7+ years since. I changed portion sizes and frequencies, mostly - I eat fewer calories of the same range of foods, with those foods in different proportions than before.

I can't think of anything offhand that I put strictly off limits. There are probably some things that have dropped to zero frequency because I honestly don't like them well enough that they're ever worth their calories to me. For example, I'd formerly eat a donut if they were there at a meeting or something, but they're always kind of "meh" to me, so I can't remember the last time I ate one. I'd rather spend the calories elsewhere.

Like nossmf up there, I can moderate most foods I find tasty (and quite a few of them are nutrient dense, as a bonus).

I have more issues with situations, such as potlucks and buffets. I want to try everything, and eat full servings of all the ones I find tasty - FOMO, I guess. I still don't handle those well, but they're not frequent enough to make maintenance very difficult, let alone impossible.

BeanieBean93 · June 2023

I try to avoid anything labeled "diet." I will make the exception for diet soda because that is my vice but if I'm going to eat a cookie, it's going to be a cookie with real butter, sugar, flour etc.

cwolfman13 · June 2023

I can't think of anything I strictly avoid, but there are a lot of things that I limit.

kshama2001 · June 2023

Someone posted this Moderators vs Abstainers post ages ago and it really resonated with me. Then many posters here said they moderate some food and abstain from others, and I realized I did that too. Sometimes I do both within the same food. For example, I can moderate chocolate chips no problem, but not chocolate bars.

I've given up on trying to moderate pints of Ben & Jerry's. It's just not going to happen. I tend get about one per year. Going to the dentist today, so I think today will be the day.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-happiness-project/201210/are-you-abstainer-or-moderator

...When dealing with temptation, I often see the advice, “Be moderate. Don’t have ice cream every night, but if you try to deny yourself altogether, you’ll fall off the wagon. Allow yourself to have the occasional treat, it will help you stick to your plan.”

I’ve come to believe that this is good advice for some people: the “moderators.” They do better when they avoid absolutes and strict rules.

For a long time, I kept trying this strategy of moderation–and failing. Then I read a line from Samuel Johnson, who said, when someone offered him wine: “Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.”

Aha! Like Dr. Johnson, I’m an “abstainer.”

I find it far easier to give something up altogether than to indulge moderately. When I admitted to myself that I was eating my favorite frozen yogurt treat very often–two and even three times a day–I gave it up cold turkey. That was far easier for me to do than to eat it twice a week. If I try to be moderate, I exhaust myself debating, “Today, tomorrow?” “Does this time ‘count?’” “Don’t I deserve this?” etc. If I never do something, it requires no self-control for me; if I do something sometimes, it requires enormous self-control.

There’s no right way or wrong way–it’s just a matter of knowing which strategy works better for you. If moderators try to abstain, they feel trapped and rebellious. If abstainers try to be moderate, they spend a lot of precious energy justifying why they should go ahead and indulge.

nossmf · June 2023

That's a good point about being moderator some of the time, abstainer other times. Two vices I had to cut out of my life completely were drinking and playing cards at a casino. Never could find a proper level of moderation, so for my sake and that of my family, I stopped both years ago.

Are there foods you avoid for weight loss/maintaining?

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