written by: Tony Junkin

Your diet is one of the most important components of overall physical health. What you put into your body determines how well fueled it is, so it is important to make smart choices each time you eat, whether it is a meal or a late night snack while watching TV.

Take a look in your pantry (or wherever you keep your dry goods) as well as your refrigerator. What do you see? Are there fruits and vegetables where you can easily see them? Is there lean protein in the fridge? How much of the food that you have is processed? It’s probably a pretty large amount because you’re busy and they are the quickest and easiest options available. That’s totally understandable, but they could also be the reason that you exercise and don’t lose weight or never seem to reach your weight goal regardless of the approach you take.

Chips, cookies, dry sweetened cereal, sodas, energy drinks, candy, frozen treats, sweets, “instant” foods like ramen or frozen meals, etc take up a lot of space in most American kitchens and they are all the leading cause of weight and health issues. It’s perfectly fine to have these items once in a while, but the tough pill to swallow is this: if you are trying to lose weight or improve your overall health, these items have to be occasional treats instead of everyday foods.

If you have surveyed your kitchen and things don’t look conducive to the healthier lifestyle you want, I recommend taking a weekend day and making a project out of giving your pantry (and fridge) a complete makeover. Toss out the bad stuff listed above because it’s not doing anything good for any body. If you live with family or roommates, this may be more of a challenge so there might have to be some compromise, but you can still do it. A good general rule of thumb is to keep processed foods to no more than 10% of your total food storage.

The biggest problem with these foods is that when we are hungry or in a hurry, they are immediately the first choice we go for even though they really don’t do much to satisfy us in the long run. I was at my friend’s house a couple of weeks ago and she has 3 kids so there were multiple varieties of chips and cookies in a large basket on the counter. While we were talking, I watched her reach into a plastic bag for a few crackers to munch on probably because they were sitting there and easy and that makes perfect sense, but I realized that doing that a few times a day could easily add 500+ calories a day to her diet without even thinking about it. You would have to walk briskly for about an hour a day just to burn off the calories you get from those few random reaches into the plastic bag of crackers. Give that a minute to sink in because it really puts things into perspective! An hour of walking a day just to get rid of those extra calories means you wouldn’t gain any weight from those crackers, but you probably wouldn’t lose weight either because those are likely all calories that are above your daily needs to start with. Remember, the only way to lose weight is to create a calorie deficit where you are burning more calories than you are taking in. Looking beyond weight, the health issues caused by these foods full of salt and sugar are serious so they’re just not good for anyone on a regular basis.

How much processed food you keep really depends on how much self control you have. When I decided to lose weight, I realized that I have very little self control. If it’s in the house, I’m going to eat it. For me, the best way to avoid temptation is to not let these foods past the front door. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy because I am married and my husband enjoys sweets. He is also able to keep them in the house without eating them all in one sitting. We compromised and decided that it’s ok for there to be a bag of chips in the pantry or ice cream in the freezer, but none of that sort of food should be sitting out where it is ready to grab on the go. I keep plenty of yogurt, snack veggies like edamame and carrot sticks, lower sugar fruits like berries and apples, lean protein meats, and high fiber breads in the places the bad foods used to be so when I’m hungry, those are my options instead of fattening, energy zapping (but tasty!) foods.

What foods you decide to keep and what you decide to replace the bad foods with is totally up to you, but if you get rid of most of those bad foods, you are taking a huge step towards better health. If you are mindful and consistent with it, I can guarantee you will have better results with your weight and general health and you will absolutely feel better as a bonus!