5 "Healthy Foods" That Create Fat - Avoid These and Lose Weight Fast

It never ceases to amaze me, all of the "hype marketing," that food companies put out there and all of the misinformation that you get on TV and in magazines and articles etc.

They really just want you to buy their food, they don't care if it's going to make you gain weight or lose weight they just want your money.

Now whether this is a good thing or bad thing that's completely up to you to decide, but I thought that you might want to know what to look out for and what to avoid if you're trying to lose weight. So I've compiled a list of the top 5 foods that are labeled healthy but really you want to avoid or at least only eat in limited quantities.

The foods listed below could be the difference between you losing weight or gaining weight at a rapid pace.

Okay so on to the list.

Offender #1: Peanut butter

Many people think that peanut butter is a "wonder food" and that it's very healthy, especially if you get the organic or natural peanut butter. I won't argue with the health benefits of peanut butter, it is a good fat and it does have some protein, but people don't realize that peanut butter has huge amount of calories and the calories are completely disproportionate to the amount of protein that peanut butter actually has.

For example, only one cup of smooth peanut butter has 1,571 calories in it, that's about half a pound of pure body fat! And for those 1,571 calories you'll only be getting 65 g of protein. Compare that with the same amount of protein from a chicken breast, which would be around 300 calories.

So you might want to rethink how much peanut butter you're eating in a day and if you're mysteriously gaining weight you might want to cut it out completely.

Offender #2: Salads

How many times have you heard that salads are great for you when trying to lose weight? Well, when done right this can be true, however if you're getting a salad at a restaurant, or at the store, you might want to check and see the nutritional information on that salad because most likely it has a ton of fat in it from the dressing, cheese and other random tidbits they put in there.

I've seen salads that are in excess of 1,000 calories per serving, and that can do some serious damage to your weight loss program.

Offender #3: Extra virgin olive oil

This offender has gotten a lot of publicity lately, many people think that extra virgin olive oil is the "holy grail" of good fats, and that you should use it in cooking almost in any opportunity that you get. Would it surprise you to know that 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil has an average of 1,910 calories? And one tablespoon has about 120 calories.

That means for about two tablespoons of olive oil you can do just about as much damage as eating a serving of some brands of ice cream.

Also extra virgin olive oil oxidizes much quicker under high heat when cooking than normal olive oil. Most cooks would tell you to use olive oil rather than extra virgin olive oil when cooking under high heat. But even olive oil won't save you from the calories, because olive oil is just about the same as extra virgin olive oil in regard to calories.

Offender #4: Juice

Most people think that juice is really good for them, especially juices like orange juice, grapefruit juice, and apple juice.

From a weight loss perspective drinking 12 ounces of raw orange juice can actually be worse than drinking a soda. Why? because for 12 ounces of raw orange juice you're looking at around 155 calories and an average soda is around 120 to 130 calories.

Also orange juice, grapefruit juice, apple juice, basically any juice is pure sugar and it's going to react just about the same way as any sugar will react in your body. So drinking a Coke or a glass of orange juice is going to do about the same damage to your weight loss results.

Also take a look at a lot of the juice that you see on the shelf. Most of them are actually blends of other juices, and most have apple juice as the primary ingredient, even if it's labeled as something like "cranberry juice." Also note that lot of juices include a ton of refined sugar as well.

Be very careful with juices, my personal recommendation is, if you're going to drink juice, try adding just a few ounces of juice in your cup and then fill up the rest with water or sparkling water to make it more interesting. That will keep the calories way down, and still retain a lot of the flavor.

Offender #5: Whole wheat

It seems like there's a big push in the marketing world right now to sell products by labeling them as whole wheat. On the grocery shelfs we see whole wheat flour, whole wheat bread, whole wheat cereal, etc.

I agree that whole wheat is better for you than refined wheat from a nutritional standpoint, when it comes to vitamins and minerals, and it can digest a bit slower in your system which makes your body have less of an insulin spike, and that can be good for keeping your blood sugar levels even.

But when it comes to weight loss, whole wheat and refined wheat, are pretty much the same. Often whole wheat actually has more calories than the refined wheat. So ultimately, at the end of the day, pay attention to the calories on the back of the box or the package. Because even if it's whole wheat it's not going to specifically help you with your weight loss if you are going over your calorie limit for the day.

One thing to especially look out for are whole wheat bagels. Whole wheat bagels (or bagels and general) can pack from 600-800 calories per bagel so be very careful and wary of those.