Fruit Juice
Contrary to popular belief, fat isn’t the first thing that will make you fat — it’s consuming too much sugar. Drinking fruit juice and consuming too much sugar will absolutely wreck your metabolism!
Fruit juice including most apple, orange and grape juice is basically chemically laden sugar water! I know something like apple juice sounds healthy, but the process of turning an apple into juice is as follows.
First, they press the apple and remove all of the fiber, then they heat it up through pasteurization at 280 degrees, then it’s dried and turned into a concentrate, then finally, they add in sugar, food coloring and flavorings and that is the apple juice you buy today.
One eight-ounce glass of fruit juice contains 30 grams of sugar, while a soda contains 28 grams of sugar!
Also, you should avoid other forms of sugar which can hide under names like: corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, juice concentrate, maltodextrin, raw sugar and brown sugar.
High-Fat Foods
Eating a high-fat diet for just five days can change your metabolism, as well as increase your risk for insulin resistance and diabetes, according to a study published in Obesity in 2015. This is especially true if you experience stressful situations throughout your day, according to a study published in Biological Psychiatry in 2014, which found that people experiencing stressors one day before eating a high-fat meal burned fewer calories over the next six hours than those who hadn’t experience stressors.
Refined Carbohydrates
Refined foods such as white bread, pasta and rice are easily broken down by the body because the complex carbohydrates have been taken out of them. This means that your body doesn’t have to work very hard in order to digest the nutrition found in these foods, leaving your metabolism at a crawl. Refined carbs don’t offer a lot of nutritional value anyway, so you’re better off consuming whole wheat breads, pasta and brown rice. These choices require your metabolism to work in order to digest the nutrients, so it helps to speed it up.
Artificial Sweeteners
Artificial sweeteners tell the lie that you can satisfy your sweet tooth, with no calories, no guilt and a thinner waist line. However, aspartame is actually linked to 92 adverse health effects.
Aspartame and sucralose (Splenda) can stimulate your appetite and increase cravings for carbohydrates. The calorie “savings” from consuming foods sweetened with aspartame ends up not saving you anything due to the increase in appetite and, therefore, calorie consumption.
The MESA study evaluated the effect of diet soda consumption on rates of obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes in over 6,000 participants. It was found that the consumption of just one diet soda per day significantly increased the risk for increased waist circumference and weight gain.
Alcoholic Beverages
A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in January 2003 found that meals containing alcohol decrease the amount of fat you burn at least temporarily. Consume no more than one drink per day to limit this effect and help maintain a healthy metabolism. Instead, focus on drinking water as well as tea and coffee in moderation.