Diet Pitfalls: 5 "Healthy" Foods to Avoid

If you are one of the 70 million Americans on a diet, you know how difficult it is to actually lose weight. After all, our bodies have many homeostatic mechanisms that program us to stay at the same weight as we are. While outmaneuvering these mechanisms is tricky enough on its own, compounding the misery is the sheer amount of misinformation, or lack of readily available information, regarding healthy choices. Many foods are marketed as "healthy," but in reality are diet killers. Here are the five most prominent "healthy" foods to avoid if you want to shed those extra pounds:

1) Trail Mix: The very idea of trail mix conjures up images of natural, active living. However, even though trail mix is not necessarily "bad for you," the typical ingredients-peanuts, raisins, and other extras such as candy and coconut shavings-are very high in calories. After all, trail mix was originally intended for those few who go on day-long hikes, and who were looking for a portable source of calorie-dense food. And that it is: just two tablespoons of trail mix, or about a golf-ball sized portion, can contain up to a quarter of your daily fat allowance! So, unless you're going on a long mountain trek, choose another snack, such as pretzels.

2) Salad: A well made salad is obviously a good food choice, but all too often this quintessential diet fare can go awry. For example, fast food restaurants are starting to push various salads as their "healthy" alternative to burgers and fries, but many of these salads contain high calorie, high fat ingredients such as "crispy" (read: fried) chicken. For example, Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad contains 540 calories and 26 grams of fat! Negotiating salad dressing is also a tricky proposition, as a vast majority of them are very high in fat and calories. Finally, many salads are composed mainly of iceberg lettuce, which has no real nutritional value, being mostly composed of water. Instead of salad, choose carrots, broccoli, or other veggies high in vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.

3) Fruit Juice: Always touted as a natural, healthy alternative to soda or coffee in the morning, many fruit juices are almost as high in calories as those beverages they should be replacing. In addition, unless you squeeze your own, the juice likely contains high fructose corn syrup, which has been shown to trigger fat storage instead of being processed by the liver into glycogen for energy use, a process known as "metabolic shunting." When you can, opt for fresh fruits, which are more filling, and have just as much or in some cases more vitamins.

4) Diet Soda: Many diet plans equate water with diet soda on the basis that they are calorie free, and although this is true, studies have shown that drinking diet soda leads to eating more sweets afterward. Nutritionists speculate that the artificial sweeteners train your body to crave sugar. In addition, high enough amounts of diet soda and the caffeine that they frequently contain can have a diuretic effect, dehydrating the body and slowing the metabolism. Stick to good old fashioned water instead.

5) Low fat cookies/snacks: How can you go wrong with a low-fat cookie? This diet staple is actually a bad choice. Some products, such as reduced fat oreos, contain practically the same amount of calories as the original, because they have to add sugar to replace flavor lost by taking out some of the fat. These low-fat foods often don't satisfy your chocolate craving, and most nutritionists now agree that you're better off eating a little bit of the real thing. If you are a chocoholic, choose small pieces of individually wrapped candy, such as Hershey's kisses, and eat one or two to satisfy the urge.

Losing weight is indeed a difficult undertaking, and as you can see, the best choice is sometimes counter-intuitive in our diet-crazed culture. Always seek out as much information as possible on those so-called "healthy" foods, and what you learn should help you drop the unwanted weight.