While weight gain and obesity are on the rise, so are the desires of many people to avoid the traps of weight gain and disease. It seems that the country is divided between people who eat fast food and 
guzzle soda, and those who are always looking for healthier options.
The problem is that the marketing machine puts out lots of confusing messages to trick and confuse consumers into purchasing products that are not as healthy as they seem.
Nothing is sadder than someone attempting to eat healthier but falling short due to misinformation.
Marketing Weight Gain Traps
Let’s go over just a few of the health marketing traps that are easy to fall into so you can recognize and avoid them in the future.
Marketers have discovered that they can use certain health buzzwords to attract unsuspecting consumers. The dangers of these buzzwords are that they make consumers think that they can eat twice as much of the product than generally recommended.
Misleading Buzzwords
Two of the most commonly deceptive buzz words are sugar-free and fat-free. Ironically most of the foods that have those words on the label are the ones that can make you fat and sick.
When foods are sugar free that means they don’t contain regular white sugar. But to make them tasty and appealing, manufacturers will often use artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols, which can cause digestive distress and still disrupt the body’s metabolism.
Drinks
Drinks are some of the worst culprits when it comes to this. Let’s look at one of the most popular ones that should be avoided: vitamin water.
While it sounds healthy, vitamin water is typically full of food coloring, chemicals, artificial sweeteners or sugar. These drinks can be harmful to the teeth, liver and waistline. Not healthy at all.
If you want to get your vitamins, a better choice would be drinking water with added green juice powder. Green powders are available at many health food stores and are made from actual green veggies and are supportive to your bones and liver. Just read the label and make sure there’s no added sugar.
Green powders will boost your energy through actual nutrition and not just a sugar rush. Mix a scoop of green juice powder with 16 to 32 ounces of water and enjoy the natural buzz.
Breakfast Cereal
Breakfast cereals are another category of food to watch out for to avoid weight gain.
While they are delicious, easy, comforting and nostalgic, many of them are not very healthy. Don’t be led astray by the cereal boxes labels that boast antioxidants, minerals, fiber and essential vitamins. Typically these cereals are fortified with synthetic vitamins, which are not naturally found in real food ingredients.
You’d be better off taking a multivitamin, especially since some grains, proteins and ingredients in the cereal may actually block your absorption of vitamins.
These cereals are fortified with good things to distract your attention from how much sugar they contain. Consuming sugar robs the body of many essential vitamins, especially if that sugar causes inflammation in the body.
Eating cereal for breakfast will make you hungry soon after as blood sugar spikes and then drops. A breakfast full of protein, healthy carbs and fiber will fill you up and keep your blood sugar stable.
Vegetable Chips
Vegetable chips are one of the sneakiest health food deceptions.
While they sound like they should be healthy, the truth is revealed from reading the label. Most veggie chips are made mostly from potatoes fried in oil. There are some other veggies mixed in for show, but the nutrients are processed out of them.
These chips are fried in hydrogenated fats, which produce the byproduct acrylamide, shown to cause cancer in some studies. This is the opposite of healthy.
Those chips are also full of salt, bad fats and are high in calories. This is a sure way to weight gain. Always read labels and choose veggie chips that are baked instead of fried and contain few chemical or white potatoes. Or make your own sweet potato “fries” by baking them. You can also snack on fresh veggies with salsa and guacamole.
Store-bought Smoothies
Lastly, store bought smoothies are not as healthy as homemade ones. That’s because they are loaded with sugar in the form of juice, fruit or sweeteners with little healthy fat or protein to balance the blood sugar spike.
Instead of buying a smoothie, make your own with low sugar fruits, veggies, coconut water, and healthy fats and proteins like nut butter, pea protein, coconut oil or avocado. Put a handful of greens in your smoothie, like kale, you won’t be able to taste it combined with all the other ingredients. Not only is this a blood sugar balancing treat it can also be a healthy meal replacement.
One of the best ways to ensure a healthy diet is to minimize processed foods. If you do eat prepackaged foods read the labels to make sure there are no hidden sugars, chemicals and toxins.
The bottom line is: Don’t trust food manufacturers to look out for your health, they just want to sell you their products.
While packaged foods may be convenient, nothing is as healthy as eating foods in their natural, whole form. The 21-Day Body makeover preps the body for this kind of real food diet by decreasing sugar cravings and priming the taste buds for wholesome foods.
