Maybe we’ve been doing this weight loss and weight gain thing the wrong way.
Instead of thinking about what we should cut off, we should think more about what we can add.
You may want to lose weight, but you are making all the wrong choices when it comes to food.
The process of weight gain starts all the way from the foods we choose to eat, how we eat them, how we prepare/cook them, and probably how often we eat them.
More often than not, we eat to fill our stomachs, and yet the body only requires very little.
The body is very wise, because when you eat in excess, the body is forced to store the rest of it as fat, and that is weight gain.
Here is a list of 5 foods that can cause weight gain faster than you’d imagine;
- Chapati.
Made in most of our homes, chapati is a top delicacy.
Chapati Is made of wheat which then means that chapati is a Carbohydrate food.
The process of making chapati also involves the use of fat, and worse is that we often use saturated fats to make this delicacy.
In people living with diabetes, a low carbohydrate diet is always encouraged just to make sure the risk of a sudden rise in blood glucose levels is reduced.
For weight loss as well, this low carbohydrate diet still applies.
Truth be said, we eat too much chapati too often and this highly increases your risk of weight gain.
As much as chapati can be made from whole wheat, it still does not help that you eat too much of it.
Moreover, it goes down to what we eat chapati with, when we include some vegetables, and a protein, in our plate, there won’t be a lot of space left for very many chapatis.
- Soda.
Soda has become more famous than it should. It’s almost impossible to have meals without the company of soda these days, we have made it a sad norm.
Aside from the sugar giving you a bunch of unnecessary calories, soda may not contain any vitamins or minerals.
Taking soda/other carbonated drinks alongside your meals, only means you will be taking in more calories than you initially intended to.
It starts very innocently, then it graduates into a serious addiction that may be hard to let go of.
Instead of soda, we want to opt for healthier drinks.
- Chips.
Fast foods are a convenience. And we can simply order while comfortably sitting at our homes.
When the deal is too sweet, think twice.
Chips are made by deep frying which introduces lots of saturated fats to your body.
In addition to that, most of us enjoy chips with processed meats like sausage and bacon which is bad because the Saturated fats always find a home inside our blood vessels, building up plaques that eventually can lead to heart attacks, stroke, and hypertension.
Aside from the Saturated fats, chips are also made from potatoes which are carbohydrates, that is the number one culprit of weight gain.
Being on a low-carbohydrate diet helps a big deal and it starts with cutting off over-processed foods like chips and introducing more healthier foods into our diet.
- Cookies and biscuits.
Remember the secretary who had a jar full of cookies at her work table, and every time she felt under pressure, or a little hungry she would reach out to that jar for some cookies. Remember also that by the end-year party, she could no longer fit in most of her clothes, she had to buy new clothes.
That is convenience, which creates a bad addiction. Cookies have too much sugar, and eating too many cookies, especially with very little physical activity can lead to weight gain slowly but surely.
And that is why over the years, Nutritionists have encouraged replacing junky foods with healthy snacks like fruits.
- Ugali (maize meal).
This is a very famous Kenyan delicacy. Made with lots of love, and enjoyed alongside different protein foods and vegetables.
For individuals living with diabetes, we encourage portion control to better control blood glucose levels.
When using our hands for portion control, the size of your fist illustrates any portion for carbohydrate foods and that is ugali included.
When using the plate model, a quarter of your plate is for carbohydrate foods.
The reason remains the same, carbohydrate foods get broken down into glucose, and the body converts the excess glucose into fats, which then quickly leads to weight gain.
Increasing your portion of vegetables will definitely help reduce the number of carbohydrates on your plate.
