Most people will tell you that they love processed foods. And most experts will tell you that processed foods are a huge culprit behind the obesity epidemic. But you don’t need experts to tell you this. Simply watch as new populations adopt a western diet and start to become obese. It is clear that processed foods need to go if we are going to gain our health back. Following is how eating healthy and whole foods helps with weight loss.

Processed Foods VS Whole Foods

Sugar makes everything taste better, and it also contributes to health issues and obesity. Sugar is often found in high calorie foods, and if you look at the ingredients, you will find that most processed food has sugar, sometimes even hidden sugar. Sugar does a number on your body in many different ways.

• Sugar can cause insulin resistance
• Sugar can cause leptin resistance
• Sugar is not satisfying and promotes hunger again quickly
• Sugar causes an energy crash
• Sugar is addictive and keeps you coming back for more

You can spend days reading about how unhealthy sugar is for the body and for weight management. And, the truth is that because manufactures know that it improves the taste in everything, sweet or not sweet, it is overly used.

Whole food, such as fruits, have some naturally occurring sugar, but they also have fiber to help slow down the absorption of that sugar. By eliminating processed foods from the diet and cooking with whole foods, you can decrease your sugar intake by a substantial amount.

Unhealthy VS Healthy Fats

Fats also make everything taste better. But, unhealthy fats are chemically unstable and promote inflammation in the body, which promotes weight gain as well as a whole bunch of health issues. Moreover, processed foods with unhealthy fats often contain a high amount of calories. It is very easy to overeat unhealthy fats (just like sugar) because they are in so many of our favorite processed foods.

Whole foods have healthier fats in them. For instance, olives are known as a high-fat food, but the fat is a monounsaturated fat. This type of fat is known to help reduce bad cholesterol levels and prevent heart disease, as well as contribute an antioxidant vitamin to the body. This type of fat has also been associated with increased fat-burning in the body.

“The study authors think that the [monounsaturated] fats make our mitochondria, the calorie-burning engines of our cells, burn off more energy as heat.” – Shape

Addicting Foods

Most of us know that processed foods have a lot of fat and calories in them, and that they can cause weight gain, so we try to limit the amount of processed foods we eat for that very reason. However, the businesses that make processed foods don’t want us to limit their foods, and this is why our inability to stop eating these foods comes down to more than just willpower.

“What I have found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort – taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles – to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.” – The New York Times Magazine

To get off the hamster wheel that companies have us on, switching to a whole food diet and moving past the addiction to these processed foods is essential. Fortunately, this is possible. Once you stop eating processed foods that do an unnatural number on your taste buds, and start eating healthy, whole foods, you start to crave the healthier food and weight loss becomes less of a struggle.

There are other issues too. For instance, processed foods have additives in them, which interact with our body in a very different way than whole foods and can promote health issues as well as weight gain.

The bottom line is that a whole food diet can make weight loss much easier in terms of fat burning, satisfaction, and motivation. If you’re looking for our most recommended cookbook that is based off of cooking with whole, healthy foods – checkout the Flavilicious Cooking recipe book.