Weight Loss - Junk foods

What junk foods you should ditch?

There are a number of "popular" junk foods that you should ditch if you have any chance of achieving an effective weight loss diet. The top ten junk foods you should leave well alone are:

• Crisps

  In UK we eat about six billion bags of crisps every year. Crisps are relatively high in saturated fat (even when they are advertised as otherwise). This is because ultimately they are still deep-fried and devoid of nutritional merit. A healthy alternative to crisp is the ready toasted wholemeal pita breads, that are cut to look like crisps.

• Fizzy Drinks

  Fizzy drinks are full of sugar which converts into fat. Even diet fizzy drinks aren't as healthy as they claim (needless to say that some sweeteners used in popular diet drinks have been linked to cancer and brain tumors). The excess sugar can also erode tooth enamel, cause bone density loss and the sweet taste can trick body into feeling hungry. This also applies to some health drinks such as "isotonic drinks" which contain more sugar than Cola! An alternative is to have water, fruit juice or carbonated water.

• Ready Meals

  In UK people spend over £2 Billion a year on ready meals. In fact, Only US consumes more ready meals than UK, which is very alarming considering the population size of UK! Ready meals are very fattening as they are often high in salt, sugar and saturated fat levels, even when they are advertised as "healthy" eating! They also lose vital nutrients via the processing methods, needless to say the harm the additives do to your body. To make matters even worse, they almost always contain more of the cheap ingredients and less of the healthy ones! Most of us buy ready made meals because they are convenient, so next time you cook, cook a lot more and divide it into portions and freeze them. Just defrost them the night before and then when u get home and you feel hungry, just pop the defrosted portion in the microwave.

• Shop made sandwiches

  As with all ready made meals, these are high in calories and not enough nutrients, which means you will soon feel hungry afterwards, making you want to eat more. They also go over board with sauces, such as mayonnaise. Did you know that certain sandwiches have in fact more calories than a Big Mac!? An alternative is for you to make your own sandwiches.

• Pizzas

  Pizza in general uses white flour which has very little nutritional benefits and provides your body with empty calories. To make matter worse, some brands offer deep crust with full toppings. This means one slice of such pizza contains 417 calories and 9.5g of saturated fat! Considering most of us have at least three or four slices, that means in one sitting you would have consumed over 1600 calories. No wonder people who regularly consume Pizzas are often obese! If you must have pizza then try to go for the thin crust Weight Loss Vegetarian.

• Non Weight Loss Breakfast

  Most cereals sold in supermarkets are nothing more than sweets. They are high in sugar which provide your body with an initial rush of energy but 30-60 minutes later, you become physically and mentally exhausted and craving for food. A healthy alternative to sugary cereals is to eat things like Porridge and museli.

• Pork Pies

  More than 225 Million Pork Pies are consumed a year in UK alone! Pork Pie on average contains 529 calories and 36g of fat, most of which is saturated fat which not only causes obesity, but also increases the cholesterol level. A healthy alternative is to have a lean slice of cold meat.

• Creamy Coffees

  People don't often realise that a creamy coffee with chocolate contains a massive 396 calories and with 12.3g of saturated fat. A healthy alternative is to have either black coffee or coffee with skimmed milk.

• Ice Cream

  Not many people realise how fattening the more popular brands of ice creams are. Just three scoops of a popular brand of ice cream contains 1,270 calories with 38g of saturated fat! The other problem with ice cream is that we are not likely to buy a tub and just stop after three scoops. So you can imagine how much fat and calories we consume when we feed our ice cream craving. A healthy alternative is for you to have frozen yogurt.

• Fried Chicken

  Although chicken in itself is healthy (specially skinless ones), the high street Friend Chicken (specially the popular brands) are among the most unhealthiest fast foods you could buy. This is because majority are cooked with highly fattening ingredients and fried in trans fat, which are even worse than the saturated fat. A healthier option is to eat grilled skinless chicken.