There's No Such Thing as Bad Foods ...

1. What Are the "Bad" Foods?

In nearly every diet or weight loss gimmick you come across, you will be told that there are certain things for you NOT to eat at any costs. And although it is certainly true that there are some foods you would do best to avoid for health reasons, weight is a completely different ballgame. Picking out what I like to call the main "bad foods" is how companies set up their customers to want to try their spicy new diets. And that's just one of the reasons why there is no such thing as bad foods.

I am sure you have all heard the basic baddies gimmicks like to go after: sugar, bread, and fat. The fact is that people enjoy having a bad guy to blame for their weight failures, so those tend to stay the same. What changes from gimmick to gimmick are the "miracle foods."

2. Are There Really “Miracle” Foods?

Unfortunately, the answer is probably not. To diet companies, miracle foods are what each gimmick is based upon, and the way that each gimmick makes itself stand out. A miracle food can be anything from broccoli to a chicken breast. The only thing that matters about a miracle food is that it looks good, it sounds healthy, and it can be made to taste good enough that a large population can get behind eating a lot of it for a long time. The only important thing about a miracle food (or occasionally a combination of miracle foods) is that it exists.

3. So What is the Truth about Food?

All of these weight loss gimmicks want you to believe that if you follow their specific regimes, you will achieve your goals -

guaranteed! But as the vast majority of people who have attempted dieting will tell you, weight loss isn't that simple. The main issue with diets is that they are not sustainable. Unless you want to eat nothing but broccoli for the rest of your life, as soon as your “diet” ends all of the weight you lost will come back. Swiftly. Because in the end, what weight loss and weight maintenance come down to is calories.

If you burn more calories than you consume on a daily basis, you will lose weight. If you eat more calories than you burn on a daily basis, you will gain weight. What people fail to realize is that, in respect to weight loss, there are no “bad” or “miracle” foods. All food is food, and all calories are calories.

4. The Takeaway

Since there are no true “bad” or “miracle” foods, all that matters at the end of the day for weight loss is calories. Dieting works because through removing the aforementioned foods and taking in only the foods the diet recommends, you are cutting your calories. But unless you want to eat only a limited number of options for the rest of your life (which can be bad for nutritional reasons, if nothing else), then those diets are unsustainable, and you will regain the weight as soon as the diet has finished. Instead, my advice is to eat all of the different foods that you want, but to do so within reason. Figure out how many calories you burn each day, and eat those foods in relation to that.

As long as you take in fewer calories than you use, you will lose weight. So don't buy into the gimmicks. Eat what tastes good!