If You Want To Get Serious About Fat Loss You Need To Stop Eating These 4 “Healthy” Foods

Don’t worry. We included what to swap them with.

by The Candidly Team

Maybe it’s because we survived adolescence during the rising empire of Jenny Craig, our fridges full of Lean Cuisines, with moms who handed us Diet Cokes when they noticed our pre-pubescent weight gain, but we have what you might call a slight aversion to telling people what not to eat.

At the same time, the rise of diet culture has fed us some pretty shitty information about what foods are actually “good for us” and “dietetic.” In addition to the sugary, the ultra-processed, and the whatever the hell Snackwells was, we’ve continued to get some mixed messages about what we should be eating if we’re looking to lose weight by staying in a calorie deficit.

There are some foods we label as healthy or helpful to weight loss that we’ve learned are actually calorie bombs (we realize that’s a very diet culture word but it’s also blunt, and we’re not here to beat around the bush).   

There are 4 foods that especially feel like wolves in sheeps’ clothing when it comes to our health goals. They’re relatively painless to avoid and easy to swap out without feeling deprived. So we thought we’d expose them. Shall we?

1. Granola

Remember Frosted Flakes being the GRRRReatest breakfast of choice in the 90s? An individually sugar coated, highly processed bowl of whatever flakes are made of? Well, granola is kind of the grown-up version of that in the sense that is it is very often, full of sugar and calories. In fact, compare one cup of granola to one cup of Frosted Flakes today, and here’s how it squares:

Nature's Path Organic Granola, Honey Almond (1 Cup)

• Calories: 420 calories

• Sugar: 21g

• Fiber 6g

• Protein: 9g

Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes (1 Cup)

• Calories: 130

• Sugar: 12g

• Fiber: 1g

• Protein: 2g

Now, it’s of course worth noting that the granola has more protein and fiber, but if your goal is weight loss, it’s also worth considering which brands of granola you buy and how many added sugars and calories they contain.

In general, convincing Americans that cereal was the best breakfast choice was sort of a corporate scheme that dates back to the 1910s, something we wrote about HERE. Nowadays, knowing what we know about ultra-processed foods, we are better off adding 100% organic whole grain oats or mixing up our own healthier combinations, such as…

The Alternatives:

We assume if you’re reaching for granola instead of something savory like say THIS or THIS, you’re either craving something sweet or you’re short on prep time. So here are some options:

• Good Old-fashioned Organic Oats: You can make them into this gorgeous, high-protein oatmeal, sprinkle them on Greek yogurt and berries, or do a quick and easy overnight oats with yogurt for added protein, fresh fruit, and thereby control the amount of honey, jam, or sweetener you add, if any.

• Muesli: Mix up your own dry organic oats, with dried fruit (the kind that’s not sugar coated), chia and/or flax seeds, and poof, you have a very European base to your breakfast.

• Less Granola: Pick a brand high in fiber and protein and low in added sugar and sprinkle it on top of yogurt or fruit instead of making it the bulk of your breakfast bowl. Measuring cups are quite helpful in this case.

2. Ground Beef

Who else’s parents used to go on diets that included a daily beef patty? Just one. No cheese. No bun. Nowadays, we’re more likely to be flooded with quick, easy, high-protein, ground beef recipes on TikTok. We even have our own personal favorite HERE. A lot of standard, supermarket ground beef is high in fat with a 70-80% lean to 30-20% fat percentage. This can make the calories more than 2x higher and have LESS protein than the same portion of a leaner beef.

Alternatives:

• Lean Ground Beef: Look for higher of lean beef and lower fat. Grass-fed is also preferable. We love THIS brand which is 93% lean. A 4-ounce serving has just 170 calories and 25g of protein.

• Ground Chicken or Turkey: Ground chicken can have just 110 calories for a 4oz serving where ground turkey tends to have about 160. Both have around 22 grams of protein, so pretty similar to lean beef if you’re wanting to cut back on red meat.

3. Flavored Yogurt

Listen, we’ve certainly grabbed our share of Strawberry Yoplaits at 3pm and told ourselves it’s not dessert because it’s yogurt. But the fact is that flavored yogurts are oft packed with sugar, sweeteners, artificial ingredients, additives, and chemicals that counter their nutritional punch, which is of course their probiotics and protein and calcium. Even if your little pot of yogurt has a seemingly harmless number of calories, it can cause a spike in your blood sugar that leaves you unsatisfied and wanting another snack soonafter. On the contrary, plain or Greek yogurt without added sweeteners have a a low glycemic index.

Alternatives:

• Low-fat Greek Yogurt: For all the reasons we just said. And you can add berries, seeds, or honey to add nutrients and control the amount of sugar you’re eating.

4. Trail mix

Ok, none of us really fooled ourselves into thinking that the ones with M&Ms and literal candy were that great for us, but even nuts, while a glorious source of healthy fats and fiber do indeed contain a lot of calories. We’re not telling you to avoid nuts and seeds and dried fruit, but we are telling you that these items have calories, so scarfing down handfuls of them from TJ’s with abandon may counter your caloric goals. Here’s a sampling of calorie contents of some of your fave nuts:

One ounce or about a 1/4 cup of these nuts/ legumes contain:

• Peanuts: 161

• Almonds: 163

• Cashews: 157

• Pistachios: 159

• Walnuts: 185

• Macadamia: 204

Alternatives:

• Measured Portions: There are lots of good nutrients here so you can always measure your nuts and use them as garnish in as opposed to something solo to nosh on. You’ll be shocked how small 1/4 cup is.

• Pickled Vegetables: If you’re eating nuts, we’re guessing you want something salty, and crunchy, and snacky. Pickled vegetables, pickles included, burst with flavor and are so low in calories. The veggies themselves have fiber and antioxidants, and just as an example one whole medium dill pickle has about 10 calories. An entire jar of Giardiniera, a medley of pickled vegetables has about 30 calories.

  Note: Obviously, it also has a lotta sodium so be aware if you’re watching your salt.

And now one more you’re not gonna like…

4. Diet soda

We know it has zero calories. And we know sugar-riddled soda is largely contributing to the obesity epidemic. But we recently did a deep dive into whether zero-cal sodas are actually good for weight loss and some of the findings were … surprising.

We’d heard about how some fake sugars have been linked to various health concerns, including a higher risk of cancer, kidney disease, and heart disease, but we didn’t know that there are concerns about artificially sweetened diet sodas actually creating more cravings for non-nutritious, high-calorie, sweet foods, so ultimately you may end up feeling hungrier from the soda and making poorer food choices. There are even studies linking diet soda consumption to weight gain. It’s not a completely clear picture just yet, but it’s something to think about.

If a diet soda is making us crave a bunch of other things that aren’t good for us, we might ask why make things harder on ourselves. Cause this is hard already. We’d rather get full on the things that keep us full and that don’t throw all that hard work out the window.

This article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be used in place of professional advice, medical treatment, or professional care in any way. This article is not intended to be and should not be a substitute for professional care, advice or treatment. Please consult with your physician or healthcare provider before changing any health regimen. This article is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent disease of any kind. Read our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.