Some foods are marketed as ‘healthy’ options but are full of sugar
A woman has shared how cutting certain ‘healthy’ foods from her diet led her to drop four dress sizes in just five months.
Michelle Cooper revealed she gave up three foods typically considered beneficial after struggling to lose weight. TikTok user Michelle, who uses the handle @michellecooper1000, said that after making the switch, she managed to shed the weight, despite eating more than before.
In the TikTok video, Michelle, who is based in Shrewsbury, detailed how she lost 45 pounds and went from a size 20 to a size 12 in 2023, achieving this weight loss postpartum ‘while working and without dieting’, following the birth of her twins. She said: “No calorie counting and no starving myself, but before that I was eating “healthy” food often and they were actually keeping me overweight, so let me explain.”
Breakfast cereals and granola bars
Firstly, Michelle said she would eat Special K cereal often, along with other ‘healthy’ breakfast options such as granola bars and instant porridge often marketed as “slimming” or “healthy”, reports the Mirror.
She remembered: “They told me that it was the healthy choice but here’s what actually happens. I’d eat them at seven in the morning and then by 9.30am I was so hungry. My blood sugar would actually be spiking in the morning and then crash back down again, leaving me craving sugar and every crash made me reach for something else, biscuits or coffee or snacks, and it was up and down like a rollercoaster all day long.”
Instead of reaching for the cereal box, Michelle opted for high-protein meals such as eggs and bacon or Greek yogurt, “or even leftovers from dinner the night before”, which she found helped her manage her cravings better.
She said: “Everything changed, I could go for four, five, six hours without even thinking about food. Before, I was obsessed, I couldn’t stop eating and that meant fewer cravings, less snacking and finally, steady fat loss. Here’s the key, if your breakfast is leaving you hungry an hour later, it’s not working for you.”
Smoothies and juices
Michelle also pointed out that smoothies and juices were hindering her weight loss efforts. She said: “I used to think that being virtuous by starting the day with a smoothie and getting all your five portions of fruits and vegetables in one go was the best thing ever. But most of them are basically just sugar bombs in a bottle.”
She continued: “Sure, yes, they’ve got fruit in and you are allowed to eat fruit, fruit is really good, it’s full of antioxidants and all sorts of good stuff. But these kind of liquid calories, they don’t fill you up, they go straight through you half an hour later – in fact, straight away, you’re still hungry.”
Instead, Michelle advised eating whole fruits. She said: “I ditched smoothies and I started chewing real food. Your hunger will vanish,’ Michelle noted, and advised people to eat whole fruit instead. Eat it with protein beside it. I had an amazing recipe the other night actually, with tuna and apple, I’ll find a way to share that. It’s game-changing. “
‘Low-fat’ foods
Finally, she stopped eating “low-fat” food options. Whilst it’s something many people reach for when trying to lose weight, Michelle claimed they don’t help.
She said: “Anything low-fat. I lived on low-fat yogurts, low-fat spreads, low-fat cheeses. These are the problem. When companies take out fats, they typically add something like sugar or starch in it to make it taste good. Sugar actually drives cravings.”
Michelle continued: “So I eat a “healthy” low-fat yogurt for lunch, it wouldn’t fill me up at all, they kind of taste pretty rank as well, and you spend the rest of the afternoon fighting the urge to raid the cupboards to get something else that is sugary.”
Instead, she suggested switching to full-fat and high-protein foods instead as it makes her feel “full again” and not wanting to snack. Michelle said: “That’s how I lost fat while eating more food. So these are the foods I ditched and some swaps that finally helped me drop four dress sizes.”
The comments were flooded with people asking Michelle for nutrition advice, as one TikToker asked if eating wholemeal toast and fruit would make for a good breakfast, to which she replied: “You’re much better to have meats, eggs, fish and vegetables for breakfast. I know it doesn’t sound like breakfast food (traditionally in the UK) but in ‘slimmer’ European countries it is.”
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