I gain weight easily, and after I gave birth it got easier yet. I can wipe out months of gains with a couple weeks of not being disciplined. While trying to adjust my diet to deal with my autoimmunity, I discovered, basically by accident that there are foods that we deem healthy and yet, they can sabotage your weight loss.
On to the five healthy foods that sabotage weight loss…
NUTS
Nuts are high in proteins and fat, and thus friendly to low carb and ketogenic diets. If you are like me, and deal with gut permeability, you know that nuts are high in lectins. When these lectins breach the intestinal wall, and get to travel places in our body, they can attach to leptin receptors and prevent our brain from receiving a signal for satiety, making you eat more than you need to.
If you are doing everything right on the ketogenic or low carb diet, and the last 10 pounds don’t want to come off, have a look at your nut consumption.
Also, worth mentioning, there are a group of people that react to nuts poorly, and it manifests as constipation and slowing down of the metabolism. If this is you, maybe take a break from nuts.
See my YouTube Video here:
TRAIL MIXES
Close relatives to nuts are trail mixes. They are even more problematic than nuts when it comes to weight loss. Trail mixes are popular as a healthy replacement for highly processed and sugared up snacks. To be fair, if you are going to snack, trail mix is better than junk food, for sure.
Trail mixes though, have unique property that stimulates our hunger and fat storage. They have a combo of fats (50%), sugar (40%) and protein (6-10%) that makes your body receive an evolutionary signal: “winter is coming, store fat”. I recommend a book by Cian Foley “Don’t eat for winter” in which he discusses how such combinations of macros put our bodies in a fat storing mode.
BULLET PROOF COFFEE
Bullet Proof Coffee is one that took me by surprise. It’s such a staple of the ketogenic diet. It tastes delicious, and helps you get in ketosis fast. However, with time, I started noticing that when I was drinking bullet proof coffee on a regular basis, I would actually gain couple pounds back. Don’t get me wrong, bullet proof coffee is one of my most favorite things on the ketogenic diet. It appears though that after the initial effect of putting you in ketosis, prolonged consumption of bullet proof coffee can have a counter effect. And there is scientific merit to it. There is an enzyme in our stomach that upregulates fat storage when fat is delivered in a liquefied form.
If you got through the bulk of your weight loss and the last 10 pounds don’t want to budge, play around with your bullet proof coffee.
TOO MUCH FRUIT
Fruit is my personal favorite and also my downfall. Any time I fall out of ketosis, it will be due to fruit. Granted, if you are going to eat something sweet, always opt for the fruit rather than the sneaker bar, always! But when it comes to weight loss, fruit isn’t always your friend. Also, I wasn’t reasonable with fruit consumption either. I ate way too much fruit, and when I say too much, I really mean it. I can easily eat couple apples, some grapes, cherries and maybe a pear.
Fruit is a better alternative to junk candies and sweets, but when it comes to weight loss, too much of it, can prevent you from losing weight.
DAIRY
I had to stop eating dairy because of autoimmunity. I love cheese, every kind of it, I don’t really care for milk, even if raw. Cheese is rich in fat and proteins and low in carbs, so it is another staple on the ketogenic diet. Many people who do ketogenic diets, will tell you that they tend to eat quite a bit of dairy.
There is also a sizeable group of people who have adverse reactions to dairy. They range from autoimmunity, allergies, constipation and slow metabolism. If you think your diet is perfect and yet you can’t lose weight, play with dairy, maybe you are one those people that don’t react to it well.
HONEY OR AGAVE SYRUP
Honey is indeed a healthier alternative than white sugar. In fact, it has many healing properties, and has been used in traditional medicines across the world. However, if you if put honey in every tea or coffee as if you would sugar, you aren’t doing yourself any good. Honey is high in sugar and if you are on the weight loss journey, you will definitely need to cut down on honey in your tea or coffee.
Another, similarly, looking sweetener is agave syrup. Though marketed as a natural alternative to sugar, there is a quite a number of chemical processes that have to take place before agave syrup comes out the way you see it in the jar. Agave syrup is actually higher in fructose than table sugar, and that over time can cause a lot of problems to our liver, resulting with a non-alcoholic fatty liver. If you are trying to lose weight, you can definitely sabotage it by replacing sugar with agave syrup.
When it comes to dealing with sugar addiction, it is best to just cut it all out, bite the bullet, suffer for a week and be done with it. You will see your weight further going down pretty soon.
FINAL THOUGHTS
My struggles with autoimmunity and constant fine tuning of my diet allowed me to see how my body responds to five healthy foods that sabotage weight loss. I continue to be amazed how different foods can heal you or make you sick. Also, some of them can make you lose weight, and some will help you gain.
