Achieving weight loss is a complex process. In most cases it is never achievable if the fine balance between calories consumed and burned is not realised.
Another factor severely affecting your weight loss journey is the kind of food that you include in your diet. If you don’t have a set routine of your meal times, or don’t meet your regular nutritional requirements, all your efforts will eventually go down the drain.
One of the biggest problems with diet foods is empty calories. While you munch on low-fat cookies or the wholegrain variant of a regular snack, you simply don’t realize consuming hidden sugar in disguise.
Then there are artificial flavourings, sweetening agents and whole lot of things added to make a supposed ‘diet’ product more enjoyable, palatable and ‘delicious’. Diet food consumption can therefore put you in a vicious cycle of regaining all the weight that you once lost.
Diet foods can be low in fat, but many of these are often laden with sugar. Experts from the University of Georgia experimented with mice module to analyse the effect of a diet high in sugar and low in fat. It was found that these mice had an increased body fat mass as compared to rats who were on a balanced diet.
The study was published in the journal Physiology & Behavior and concluded that unbalanced diets harm the gut microbiome and its bacterial diversity. Low-fat, high-sugar “diet” foods could also lead to liver damage and brain inflammation, said the study published in the journal.
Over a four-week period, researchers monitored body weight, caloric intake, body composition and fecal samples in three groups of rats.
One group consumed a diet high in fat and sugar, another group was fed a low-fat, high-sugar diet and a third group was given a balanced or “normal” diet.
Both the low-fat, high-sugar and high-fat, high-sugar groups displayed an increase in liver fat and significant increases in body weight and body fat when compared to the balanced diet group.
According to Shilpa Arora ND, a renowned Health Practitioner, Nutritionist and certified Macrobiotic Health Coach,Sugar should always be taken from a natural source, like fruits. A balanced diet is always recommended to lead a healthy life”.
The so-called “diet” products containing low or no fat may have higher amount of sugar and consuming them regularly could make you fat, new research warns.
“Most so-called diet products containing low or no fat have an increased amount of sugar and are camouflaged under fancy names, giving the impression that they are healthy, but the reality is that those foods may damage the liver and lead to obesity as well,” said principal investigator Krzysztof Czaja.
Diet colas and energy drinks, for example, are loaded with sugar and provide empty calories.
When it comes to your diet, the most current advice is perhaps the kind that begins with ‘eat less’ or ‘restrict fat’. Most of us may feel overwhelmed with conflicting nutrition and diet opinions but It’s learnt that deprivation is not the solution, creating a balance is. It is essential to get the right type and amount of foods to support a healthy lifestyle.
A balanced diet should focus on providing all the nutrients that your body needs. It comprises of macronutrients like protein, carbohydrates and fat along with micronutrients which include vitamins and minerals. Each of them has a different role to play in maintaining various body functions.
