We have always underlined how important it is to maintain a robust metabolism to melt off excess fat and lose weight. Revving up your metabolism is one sure-shot way to burn fat because once the metabolism becomes sluggish, dropping the extra pounds and flab becomes an uphill task. As we all know, metabolism is the engine that torches up calories and helps body use up fat storage. If you have been doing everything right, from working out regularly to adhering to a healthy diet, but still do not see any major difference on the weighing scale, it’s time to find out if “all is well” with your metabolism. Though we are geared up to move mountains and become a gym rat to get lean, do we pay enough attention to straighten the diet and weed out unhealthy food items that are probably slowing down the metabolism. You would be surprised to find out that some of these foods have become staples in our diet!
1. White Bread: Made from refined flour, it’s a staple breakfast in many households, but do avoid it to keep metabolism robust. In fact, stay away from all foods that are made out of refined flour.
2. Alcohol: Alcohol is known to slow down metabolism quite significantly and consumption of the beverage in excess is guaranteed to mess up the metabolic rate quite severely. So we must watch out to ensure that our occasional indulgence does not go out of hand and make it extra difficult to lose weight than it already is.
3. Fruits and Vegetables sprayed with Pesticides: Fruits and veggies that have been raised using pesticides and miscellaneous insecticides have been shown to a great impact on metabolism. Hence, switch to organic produce and steer away from food laced with pesticides.
4. Flavoured Yogurt: Flavoured yogurt has loads of sugar with high number of calories, and with regular consumption, it can lower metabolism.
5. Artificial Fruit Juices: Artificial fruit juices are the worst when it comes to lowering metabolic rate. They contain too many artificial sweeteners, artificial colors and added chemical preservatives that lower metabolism and lead to rapid weight gain.
6. Soda/ Soft Drinks: Soda and soft drinks can do worse for our health, totally avoid soft drinks and soda, and switch to good old water.
7. Refrigerated/Frozen Food Items: Although in comparison to all the food items listed above, frozen food contains lesser amount of calories, most of them have preservatives, sugar, sodium, and hydrogenated trans-fat that slow down our metabolic rates.
8. Regularized Sea Salt: Instead of regular iodized salt, certain other salt varieties can affect thyroid hormone and impact metabolism. Cut down salt consumption, but do not give it up completely.
9. Candy Bars: They are almost entirely made of sugar and artificial preservatives, and affect metabolism in a negative way.
10. Junk Food: Junk food such as fried items and excessively oily food items not only add to our pesky pounds but they act to inhibit our normal rate of metabolism, making it difficult for us to lose weight.
11. Artificial Sweeteners: A lot of us replace regular sugar with artificial sweeteners, but some of them slow down metabolism, and can even alter the gut bacteria, raising inflammation in the body.
12. Canned Fruit: Exotic fruits dipped in sugary syrup with high fructose corn syrup is considered healthy! It’s absolutely not because the high sugar content elevates blood sugar, raises inflammation, has a lot of calories, and affects metabolism in a negative way.
So, this was the list of 12 food items that are bad for your metabolism and reduce all our efforts to lose weight utter futility. We hope that you found the article useful and informative.
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