Bread is the enemy for weight loss

I know people don't like to hear it because bread and bread products are awesome. For me, it is my favorite stuff just like anyone else but unfortunately we have been lied to our entire lives about what it is that we are supposed to be eating for health and even moreso, to achieve fitness or weight-loss.

Remember that thing? If you went to public school this was almost certainly a part of your health class and it might still be. However, if you talk to most dietitians or trainers these days, particularly if they are fans of Keto (which I know almost nothing about) or Adkins Diet (I know quite a bit), they will tell you that you can pretty much flip this thing upside down and follow that if you want to achieve weight loss and weight management.

Why were we conditioned to eat a bunch of bread and pasta in the past? I don't know if there was a conspiracy or if we were just dead wrong because nutrition science is still science, and no one is ever going to have a "one size fits all" method that is true for all.

I think you would be very hard pressed to find anyone in the diet and fitness world that would encourage you to eat a bunch of bread and stay away from meat these days. Fruits and vegetable are great but it turns out that many of the fruits and especially fruit juices are actually bad for you as well. But that is another story.

Today I want to focus on bread and how if you want to achieve lasting weight loss, you are going to have to find a way to get a lot of it out of your diet.

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_{I would totally eat all of that right now}

Bread is loaded with carbohydrates, we all know this. It was only recently pointed out that carbs are what make us get fat, and keep us there and the sad reality is that our delicious friend bread is the main culprit. Over the years there have been many alternatives to "bread" that were released to an ignorant public that were marketed under the auspices of being a diet alternative to bread, but it was all BS and it still is.

Tortillas, wraps, an pitas are nearly as bad, or in some instances (depending on what it is made of) worse from a carb standpoint than bread is. You can't trust anyone these days so you are going to have to look at the labels and check for yourself. For example - a large whole-wheat "wrap" in my local store is meant to be used as a substitute for two pieces of bread for a sandwich. The wrap has 210 calories and 40 grams of carbs while the two pieces of bread have 240 calories and 46 grams of carbs. Not much a savings there now is it? It is a waste of time. Pita bread is marketed to Americans as being more healthy and a lot of times this is based solely on the fact that it is European or Middle Eastern.... let me tell you something folks, they have fat people over there too.

Keep in mind that if you are trying to lose weight you need to keep your carb intake below 50 grams a day during the introductory period

After that you can increase to around 100g, but you can see that a wrap isn't really going to fit into either diet.

The fact of the matter is that you are going to have to stop looking for an alternative that tastes like bread and just get it out of there. I have found that if I serve deconstructed sandwiches such as BLT's or ham and cheese and then just put a bunch of lettuce out that i can make mini wraps that satisfy my "sandwich" cravings without introducing ANY carbs. It might sound silly but i highly suggest that people try this because you might be surprised how delicious this actually is. After all, what makes a BLT taste great? Is it the bread or what is contained inside?

Other alternatives include Nori Sheets (made of seaweed and I don't like them) or rice paper - which taste like nothing but get the job done as far as containment is concerned. I will discuss them in greater detail at a later time.

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Basically, the tl;dr here is that you gotta get the bread out of your diet if you want to lose weight and that means you are going to have to get a little creative with your sandwiches - which for Americans at least, is a massive part of our diet. You can do it if you try!