In the diet world, so many tips and tricks are flung around that it’s impossible to know what’s actually true and helpful. One expert will say so-and-so is incredibly good for you, while another will say that it should be avoided at all costs. Some so-called experts (mostly influencers) also love to tout amazing-sounding diet tips that are meant to generate attention, not help you. You should always listen to unhealthiest healthy habits with a grain of salt for this very reason.
Today, we’ll be looking at seven different healthy habits that are actually the unhealthiest. We hope this helps you understand your body’s needs more, and we sincerely hope it can help you achieve your body goals!
1. Jumping Into a Diet
When people commit to losing weight, oftentimes, they do it suddenly. They suddenly purge their house of every unhealthy food and strive to eat half the calories they normally would. But this is like ripping off a Band-Aid—your body will not be used to these sudden changes and will suddenly panic. It’ll think you’re suddenly out of food and will quickly go into starvation mode. You’ll notice you’re holding fat in for longer because your body thinks it needs to store food, making it the unhealthiest for those wanting to lose weight through healthy habits!
People also think that a healthy lifestyle, and thus a healthier body, can be achieved in a short time as long as you’re committed. They set unrealistic goals for themselves and end up being frustrated because their unrealistic goals hadn’t been met.
The truth is that becoming a healthier version of yourself takes a lot of time and effort. It’s not going to be achieved in a month or two despite what the influencers led you to believe. On top of that, it’s not going to be a straight line—you can take two steps forward and one step back, but don’t worry. All that matters is that you’re moving forward.
2. Skipping Meals
Another faux pas people make when they’re dieting is thinking that skipping meals is the way to go. Since you’re not eating any calories, surely your body would just use your excess fats to fuel your body, right?
Wrong! When you’re starving yourself, your body will do everything in its power to hold onto your excess fats. What’s likely to happen is you develop digestion problems because your body still expects you to eat normally.
Besides the digestive problems, your brain will also suffer too. What typically happens is that we restrict ourselves from eating, making ourselves feel miserable. Then, when we decide to eat again, we end up eating and eating and eating to make up for all the meals we skipped. You just ate back all those calories you supposedly lost!
All in all, we highly discourage you from skipping meals. Eating isn’t inherently evil—you just need to control your portions. Instead, strive to eat less during your meals, and focus on replacing unhealthy foods with healthy foods.
3. Eliminating Unhealthy Foods Completely
When people go on a diet, a lot of the foods they love to eat are suddenly off-limits. No longer can they reach for a bag of chips, a tub of ice cream, or a sleeve of cookies.
But that’s not necessarily true. Again, eating isn’t evil in itself—it’s overeating that’s a problem. Eating a cookie or two shouldn’t derail your diet, but eating a whole package definitely will. A scoop or two of ice cream makes for a tasty treat, but a tub is way too much!
Essentially, the problem with eliminating unhealthy foods is that you start craving the foods you can’t eat. You stare longingly at all the tasty treats you can’t have, making yourself feel depressed and moody. You look at your healthy meals with contempt and wish you could have a bite or two of something unhealthy.
Besides that, you also develop an unhealthy relationship with food. When you do succumb to cravings, you hate yourself for eating a small cookie or a small bag of chips. And that’s not sustainable in the long run.
You can eat anything and everything you want when losing weight. Just practice portion control.
4. Going for Diet Foods
A common misconception people have about dieting is that it’s better to replace everything in your diet with the “healthier” version of it. For example, some people will replace chicken or beef with plant-based meats, dairy milk with plant-based milk, and baked goods with sugar-free, gluten-free goods. It sounds too good to be true, and it probably is!
For example, while plant-based meat is devoid of animal products, they’re also filled to the brim with preservatives, additives, sodium, and other potentially harmful chemicals that’ll do more harm than good. They’ll completely negate the supposed health benefits you got from abstaining from meat! Plant-based kinds of milk like coconut milk and oat milk aren’t unhealthy, but they are full of carbohydrates and fats, which can hinder you from losing weight.
Always look into what you’re eating, and don’t be fooled by flowery words. We reiterate: no food is bad if you eat it in moderation.
5. Eating Less Overall
In a previous section, we described what it was like to completely get rid of all the unhealthiest foods you enjoy eating as habits. You end up feeling cranky, annoyed, moody, and all the other negative feelings because you think of all the foods you can’t eat anymore. You then start to villainize the healthy foods you do eat and not savor the taste of them. Finally, you might even end up skipping meals because you just hate the act of eating!
That’s not right. Instead of focusing on subtracting foods from your diet, start thinking of ways you can add to your diet. Think of fruits and vegetables you can start eating. Start going around your grocery store and looking at unfamiliar foods that would make great additions to your diet. Browse through healthy recipes online to find something new to try. Pretty soon, you’ll have so many foods you love that unhealthy foods aren’t the only foods you crave for.
6. Using Too Much Protein
Protein is an ingredient the diet industry loves. It helps you build more muscle and reduce the carbohydrates you eat, helping you lose weight and get a more toned body. But people tend to go overboard with the protein, adding heaping spoonfuls of protein powder into their smoothies, or eating huge slabs of steak to make up for the lack of mashed potatoes. Too much of a good thing can be bad, even with protein, and eating too much protein can quickly bite you in the butt.
Firstly, you’re not too sure what goes in protein powders as they’re not heavily regulated. For all you know, you could be ingesting more sugar than you thought. Secondly, there’s a limit to how much protein you can eat. Your body just excretes the excess, and research even suggests that the body can convert excess protein into carbohydrates! Lastly, overconsumption of red meat and seafood can lead to high blood pressure or mercury poisoning.
Practice portion control as habits even with healthy ingredients to not be unhealthiest.
7. Drinking Too Much Juice
The problem with fruit and vegetable juices is that it’s completely stripped away of any fiber that makes fruits and vegetables healthy in the first place. Without the fiber (and a bulk of vitamins and minerals), all you’re drinking is a glass of pure sugar that’ll get quickly absorbed into your system. This will raise your blood sugar levels way too fast, and will probably be digested just as quickly too. You’ll end up feeling hungry quicker than you would have been if you had just eaten the fruit or vegetable regularly.
Additionally, our brains aren’t great at differentiating food and drink. It often forgets that drinking can be a source of calories too, which is why soda addiction is a huge problem. We can drink lots and lots of juices but still feel unsatisfied even though we’ve already ingested a lot of calories.
It’s best to eat fruits and vegetables as they are, or at least blend the whole of them into a smoothie so you still get that fiber. These are healthy habits you need that’ll prevent you from being the unhealthiest.
