Why You Should Avoid Diet Foods

One of the most common misconceptions about dieting, is that you need special diet foods to lose weight effectively. In fact the food companies have taken the whole diet food idea to ridiculous extremes, and through clever marketing, have largely contributed to this misconception. A trip to any grocery store bears testament to this fact, with aisles after aisles of specialty “diet products” which all claim to help you lose weight faster than you would by eating regular food.

Artificial Sweeteners - Diet Foods

Diet Foods & Artificial Sweeteners

Sadly, this is about as far from the truth as you can get. If you’re looking to improve your health, but don’t have the money to shell out on all of these high priced diet foods, you can still lose weight, and live healthy. The fact of the matter is that if you choose to live healthy, it becomes a lifestyle, not a diet. Eating diet foods may help you lose weight, but unless you choose to camp out in the diet aisle for the rest of your life, the moment you start eating “normal food” again, you are likely to put the weight back on, and will be stuck in an endless yo-yo procession.

The real secret to losing weight effectively, is to make reasonable changes in your lifestyle that you can maintain over a long period of time. If you can’t afford specialty “diet foods”, or you simply have no interest in consuming them regularly for the rest of your life, you’d do well to avoid them entirely. Where you’d eat diet foods, instead start eating fresh fruits and vegetables, and try to stay far away from processed foods of any kind.

Not only are diet foods expensive, in many ways they may be more detrimental to your health than you realize. More and more nutritionists are speaking out against dietary additives like artificial sweeteners, saying that at the end of the day they are both bad for your body and relatively ineffective for losing weight. A better strategy would be to slowly wean yourself off sweet foods in general, rather than simply getting addicted to an artificial means of sweetening products. In addition, there have been some studies that suggest that consuming artificial sweeteners could be harmful to your health. These studies have not as yet been substantiated, but the fact that their harmful capabilities are in question should be enough to discourage you from eating them.

Ultimately, even if you aren’t on a budget, you should avoid diet foods if possible. Instead, learn how to enjoy wholesome fresh food, and you can save both money and inches on your waistline!

What’s your opinion on diet food and artificial sweeteners? Do they work for you, or are they just not worth the expense and potential health risk? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Be Sociable, Share!
 

Leave a Reply