Losing weight successfully through dieting means burning more calories per day than you consume through food. Your body metabolizes those calories in three ways: through activity, through the digestive process and through the energy required for basic functioning, or your basal metabolic rate. Your BMR burns up to 75 percent of the calories you take in each day and digestion takes care of another 10 percent. The remaining 15 percent depend on your lifestyle and how much exercise you get. A number of diets try to tweak this process, and each has its own list of "bad" foods.
Low-Calorie Diets
Traditional low-calorie diets usually confine your intake to 1,500 to 1,600 calories a day. Some very low-calorie diets cut back calories even more, but MayoClinic.com advises against these unless prescribed by your doctor. Bad foods on a low-calorie diet are any that are excessively high in calories. A single fast food cheeseburger can contribute 550 to your daily diet all by itself. One slice of pizza can contribute more than 200 calories. A Snickers candy bar can give you almost 300.
Low-Carbohydrate Diets
Low-carb diets work on the assumption that carbohydrates raise your insulin level. If you reduce your carb intake, which your body converts to glucose and which raises your insulin level, your body will theoretically turn to burning your fat for energy instead. If you choose a low-carb approach to dieting, then consuming starchy foods, sugary foods and grain products will wreck your diet. Some of these diets also ban many fruits because they contain fructose, which convert to glucose. For example, 1 cup of raisins contains almost 115 g of carbohydrates. A baked potato has almost 32 g and if you make a sandwich using two slices of white bread, they'll contribute about 25 g. Most of these diets limit your carb intake to under 90 g a day, so these foods can easily push you over your limit.
Low-Fat Diets
Some diets count fat grams in the belief that foods high in fat cause obesity. Generally, these diets limit your fat intake to 20 percent of your daily calories. Because 1 g of fat contains 9 calories, if you follow a 2,000-calorie diet, only 400 of your calories can come from fat, or less than 45 g. On a low-fat diet, meats and processed foods can put you well over that limit. For example, a fast food cheeseburger has almost 31 g of fat, so you can nearly reach your total for the whole day in just a few bites. A Danish pastry contributes almost 25 g of fat to your daily diet. A 1 oz. serving of cheddar cheese will add more than 9 g and 1 cup of whole milk has almost 8 g.
Tips
Many "bad" foods are the same from diet to diet. For example, fast foods are almost always high in fats, carbs and calories. Candy, cakes and other sweets also tend to be high in all three categories. Almost any weight-loss method you choose will tell you to avoid these foods. The fat content isn't healthy, the simple carbohydrate content isn't healthy, and by the end of the day, they will probably have given you more calories than you burned off.
References
- MayoClinic.com; Weight Loss: Choosing a Diet That's Right for You; June 2010
- The Cleveland Clinic; Very Low-Calorie Diets; November 2006
- U.S. Department of Agriculture: USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 22 Nutrient Lists
- MayoClinic.com; Metabolism and Weight Loss: How You Burn Calories; October 2009
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