Many people try to eat healthy by shopping at Health Food Stores, but they are usually unaware that the so called healthy foods they are consuming are not healthy! Many health food stores and the health food sections of supermarkets sell a wide range of good organic produce, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, organic cereals, grains, nuts and dried fruits. Others sell more pills than food, and many so-called 'health food' products on the market are not healthy at all. Read the labels carefully before buying health foods such as carob, soy chips, health and fruit bars, and popcorn as they may be high in fats and sugars.

A prime example of a fake healthy food is Carob. Carob is ground from the beans of the carob or locust bean tree, and is used as a chocolate substitute. It is healthy in itself, but it has a bitter taste. To make carob more palatable producers often add sugar and fat, and the fat is usually highly saturated. In some carob bars the main ingredient is glucose syrup. Others have as much as 45 percent fat!

Soy chips are another fake healthy food! Soy chips are not healthy alternatives to potato chips. They have a fat content on par with regular potato chips, although more of their fat is unsaturated. They also have one and a half times as much salt as regular chips. Not good for the abs! Popcorn is healthy if you pop it yourself, but when packaged popcorn has 29 percent fat, compared with the 3 percent found in straight corn, it can no longer be considered healthy.

Health bars and sports bars are handy sources of nutrients, but they cannot provide what you would get in a meal of fresh foods. Various types of sugar are the major ingredients in health or sports bars. Some contain added vitamins, but it would be much better to have some fresh foods if you need extra vitamins. Fruit bars are basically fruit pastes. Some do not contain any of the fruit mentioned in their label name at all, only fruit flavoring. Some have extra sugar, and none has as much fiber as you'd get in real fruit. All these products are hazardous for your abs!

Better Choices

Chocolate: avoid substitutes such as carob, with high added sugars and fats, use real chocolate in moderation.

Snacks: low-fat corn chips, low-salt corn chips, popped corn using a hot-air popper or a little olive oil in a saucepan.

Health bars: read the ingredient list and choose bars that contain only dried fruit, seeds and nuts and no added sugar or fat; soy bars can be used as healthier alternatives to cakes, for those not overweight. Skip fruit bars and substitute fresh or dried fruit. The health halos of healthy restaurants often prompt consumers to treat themselves to higher-calorie side dishes, drinks or desserts than when they eat at fast-food restaurants that make no health claims, according to a series of new studies. The research, published in the October online version of the Journal of Consumer Research, found that many people also tend to underestimate by 35 percent just how many calories those so-called healthy restaurant foods contain. When people go to restaurants claiming to be healthy, such as Subway, they choose additional side items containing up to 131 percent more calories than when they go to restaurants like McDonald's. Many people underestimate the number of calories in these foods and buy into marketing hype. Fact: Subway Jared lost a lot of weight. Fact: Jared is still over 30 percent bodyfat. Do not do as Jared does. I am still wondering when Jared is going to take off his shirt in a Subway Ad.

GLYCEMIC INDEX If you've spent any time looking for information about how to lose weight, chances are you've heard of the glycemic index; GI for short. Despite its popularity, many people are surprised to learn that eating more carbohydrate-rich foods with a low GI and fewer carbohydrate-rich foods with a high GI, without making any other change to your diet actually has very little effect on weight loss.

I'll explain why in a moment. First, just in case you've never heard of the glycemic index, here's a quick primer. The glycemic index is used to rank different types of food according to the effect they have on blood sugar levels. Foods that lead to a rapid rise in blood sugar have a high glycemic index. Foods that lead to a slower rise in blood sugar are said to have a low glycemic index. While the glycemic index tells you how rapidly a food raises blood sugar, it doesn't tell you how much carbohydrate is in that food. To understand how the food will affect blood sugar levels, you need to know both. That's where the glycemic load helps.

The glycemic load takes the glycemic index into account, but gives a more complete picture than the glycemic index alone. The carbohydrate in a carrot, for example, has a moderate glycemic index. But there isn't a lot of it, so the glycemic load of a carrot is actually quite low. Many people invest a lot of time and effort in eliminating foods with a high GI from their diets. Much of this effort, unfortunately, is a complete waste of time.

It's not that there's anything wrong with following a diet that has a low GI. However if you make the same mistake that most make and focus only on the glycemic index (without making a change to your calorie intake too), chances are you'll end up feeling frustrated because you're not losing any weight. In fact, you may have gained some weight instead. In one of the most recent studies of the glycemic index, researchers from the University of Minnesota tested whether lowering the GI of a diet already low in calories would have any further effect on weight loss.The researchers compared the effects of three low calorie diets, each with a different glycemic load, on 29 obese adults. All of the diets high GI, low GI or high fat provided the same number of calories.

For the first 12 weeks, all food was provided to the subjects (the feeding phase). Then, 22 subjects were told to follow the assigned diet for an additional 24 weeks (the free-living phase). After 12 weeks, all three groups lost weight. However, there was no significant difference in weight loss between the groups. Subjects on the low GI diet lost, on average, 21.8 pounds (9.9 kilograms), while those on the high GI diet lost 20.5 pounds (9.3 kilograms). In summary, lowering the glycemic load and glycemic index of weight reduction diets does not provide any added benefit to energy restriction in promoting weight loss in obese subjects.

Eating a diet with a low glycemic load can help with weight loss. But, that's largely because many foods with a low glycemic index (with the exception of high-fat foods like nuts and avocados) also have a lower energy density. Most fruits and vegetables, for example, have a low glycemic load. So, when you eat fewer foods with a high glycemic load (e.g. cookies, cakes, or sweets) and more foods with a low glycemic load (e.g. fruits and vegetables), you end up eating fewer calories. The result is that you lose weight. Most people realize that eating cakes and cookies isn't going to help them lose weight. And while some of the recipes in GI diet books are useful, they're not always very practical. Different foods do vary in the way they affect your metabolism. However, when it comes to losing weight, the secret to success is still to consume fewer calories than you burn. Although the glycemic load is useful in some circumstances, it was never meant to be used in isolation. Peanuts and avocados, for example, have a very low glycemic index. But, they're also high in calories. Eat too many of them, and you'll get fat. Bottom line.

ADVICE Stay away from foods with more than 3 or 4 words in the ingredients! Of course over the years we have called these foods "junk foods" and in the United States, these "junk foods" have continued to grow in popularity for many reasons.

If your meal plans are made up of a high percentage of these foods, then you are probably not reaching your fitness and health goals and are struggling to keep the weight off. Despite all of your health food store shopping efforts, the fact remains that MOST foods in health food stores are NOT very healthy. Make sure you read all labels carefully and avoid the food types listed above.

Do not replace natural whole foods with processed man-made foods. Refined carbohydrates that are supposedly healthy are actually making you fat. My all time favorite phony healthy food is low-fat cookies. These things are very high in calories and they will make you fat in no time! Often times these fat-free foods have more calories than foods that are high in fat! Againread all labels carefully. Stay away from processed foods, prepared meals, sodas, snack bars, and refined cereals at all costs no matter what store you buy them from!

FOODS THAT MAKE YOU FAT!

Foods that can make you fat have a few things in common:

1.High in total calories

2.High in total fat

3.High in refined sugars

4.High in calorie density

5.Low in nutritional value

6.High in Sodium

7.Loaded with preservatives

8.Loaded with artificial fillers and additives

9.Come in a box from the middle aisles of the grocery store

10.Have words that you cannot pronounce on the label

They are ready to eat right from a box (convenient) They really tease our taste buds with tons of :

1.Salt

2.Sugar

3.Fat

4.They make you want to eat more and more of them

Here are the Top Foods that help make you FAT:

Ice cream, donuts, pastries, cakes, pies and cookies Typically high in:

1.Bad fats

2.Refined white sugars

3.Refined white flours

All fried foods

1.High in fat

2.Refined white flours from the breading

3.Soda and fruit juices

4.High in refined sugar and artificial additives

5.Look out for other forms of sugar

6.High fructose corn syrup

7.Corn syrup

8.Sucrose

Snack foods, ie. potato chips, nacho chips, etc. Typically high in:

1.Bad fats

2.Refined white flours

3.Sodium

4.Refined white sugars

5.Artificial flavors and colors

6.Preservatives that you cannot even pronounce

Processed meat items - Typically "fast food" Hot dogs, Hamburgers, Bacon, Sausage, etc.

1.High in bad, bad, bad, fat

2.High in Sodium

3.Usually served on Refined white flour breads

High Sugar Breakfast cereals

1.High in Refined white sugars

2.High in Refined white flours

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