Getting Rid Of The Wrong Foods and The Bad Habits
There comes a time when you need to make changes that are meaningful in your life. Sure in previous weight loss attempts you have likely limited yourself and focused on healthy eating, but probably for a limited time. In order to get the Dash Diet to work for you, then it’s not about making limited time changes. This is about creating a lifestyle that works and supports you in losing weight and getting healthier.
The Dash Diet is focused on what makes for good, healthy, and proper eating. You see by now what makes for the right foods in the perfect blend. This will lead you not only to long lasting weight loss, but also better health as well. So you know what you need to focus on in terms of the right foods, but there’s more to it than that.
What about the wrong foods? How do bad habits factor into this? The truth is that in order to let the good and proper nutrition of the Dash Diet work and really take place in our lives, we must first start by getting rid of the wrong things. This will only be as effective as the parameters that you set up around it. In order to make the good take effect, you must first usher out the bad.
Getting Rid of the Things That Are Holding You Back
This is about changing your lifestyle, but also your habits. This is about trying to avoid the “cheat” and getting rid of the excuses or justifications. If you know the food is bad for you, then avoid it. If you aren’t sure then here is the list so that it’s all clear. If you know that you need to change something that isn’t working in your life, then now is the time to do so.
You must abandon once and for all the things that are holding you back, and seeing that list here will help you to move forward in the most productive manner possible. So here are the foods and habits that have likely caused you problems in the past and what you need to avoid and get away from in order to let the Dash Diet be effective and successful for you.
The List of Things to Avoid and Get Away From For Good
You know what the RIGHT things are to do and to eat, and now it’s time to look at and fully understand what the WRONG things are. Here we look at a comprehensive list of which foods and habits have been keeping you from progress, and which must go away to make the Dash Diet take full effect.
• No more red meat:
Sure you may enjoy it, but red meat is loaded with all of the wrong things. While it is a source of protein, it is also a fatty type at that. You will find plenty of other sources of protein that don’t introduce so much fat and so many unwanted calories.
If you think about why the Dash Diet was started it was to help relieve hypertension, and so it makes sense that red meat is off limits for this condition. So to make the Dash Diet work and be truly effective, you need to avoid red meat and know that a healthier and lower fat source of protein awaits you.
• No more salt:
This may sound like a tough one, but it’s much easier than you might think. Sure there is a certain element of salt present in some foods, but that’s not what we’re referring to. We’re talking about table salt that is added in preparation, in cooking, or even after the food is presented to you and ready to eat. This extra salt of course adds to the possibility of hypertension and can also lead to weight gain.
You retain a lot of water when you use excess salt and therefore you want to get this out of your diet. You can find some great salt substitutes or turn to other herbs or spices to offer flavor without the added sodium. Get rid of the salt and see some results from this almost immediately.
• No more processed or fried foods:
The processed or fried foods that you have eaten out of either temptation or convenience are holding you back! They are loaded with unwanted fat, calories, and excessive sodium and additives. They will never help your efforts and will only ever hurt your ability to lose weight.
Stop allowing yourself to eat these as you get no nutritional value out of them and therefore they must be avoided to allow the Dash Diet to really work for you.
• No more high fat dairy products:
There’s a reason that the Dash Diet stipulates low fat dairy products—because the high fat versions offer you nothing that you need. If you turn to low fat cottage cheese, yogurt, and skim milk you get all of the nutrients and benefits of dairy products, but none of the fat.
Higher fat dairy products may taste better to you, but you will get used to the lower fat versions in no time. There’s no reason to opt for a fuller fat dairy product, and every reason to avoid this group of foods.
• No more white sugar or flour, nor starchy foods:
This is one of the core foundations of the Dash Diet because as we know too much sugar is never a good thing. Neither is too much flour or starch for that matter. If you are going to eat carbohydrates then it’s imperative to turn to whole grain versions that are loaded with fiber.
White sugar and flour and all such starchy foods are going to help you to feel full quickly and therefore cause your insulin to rise. About an hour later you will feel hungry and eat whatever you can find, and so the cycle continues. These simple carbohydrates will only hurt your weight loss effort with this cycle and they introduce all sorts of ingredients that will work against your weight loss efforts.
• No more unnecessary or unhealthy additives or preservatives:
Here’s a great rule of thumb to always remember—if you can’t pronounce it or don’t really know or understand what it is, then don’t eat it. There are far too many foods out there that are simply made up of additives and preservatives, and this ends up becoming toxins in the body.
The Dash Diet promotes clean, whole, and healthy eating, and the unnecessary additives and preservatives are simply holding you back. They will never give you anything that you need, so avoid them!
• Stop eating on the run:
Sure we’re all busy and have hectic schedules, but eating on the run is never good for you. This leads to convenience based eating and that means that you turn to whatever sort of food choices are before you—and they are usually not good ones.
Take the time to prepare and cook healthy meals and snacks that you can take with you wherever you go. Then you have everything you need to make the right food choices. Take the time to sit down and eat whenever you can as this aids digestion and ensures that you eat the right portions in the appropriate way.
• No more skipping meals and then binging:
The extreme calorie counting, the deprivation, the starvation—all of this contributed to the weight loss and then weight gain cycle in the past. Never again! No more skipping meals or going to extremes when it comes to losing weight the right way.
You will only binge the next time you eat and this creates a very unhealthy cycle. You need to be sure to eat the right portions all day long. No more skipping meals, no more binging, and no more extremes when it comes to the way in which you eat. It’s time to take care of yourself and that starts with what you eat and HOW you eat as well.
