What you eat or drink constitutes a great part of who you are. This is because our diets affect our bodies, especially in terms of longevity. Our dieting habits or just our daily eating habits make a huge difference for our overall health for the long term. This is why it’s important to understand the types of bad dieting habits that can affect your life in a negative way.
Here are some bad dieting habits you should avoid;
Drinking too much alcohol.
For all its worth, a glass of wine every now and then isn’t such a bad thing. In fact, moderate consumption of wine is encouraged, because wine actually has a ton of health benefits for the body, especially the heart. However, if you’re drinking alcohol on a regular basis, you’re likely going to experience a few ugly side effects of drinking alcohol every day, which, unfortunately, does include liver problems and an increased risk of cancer.
If you find yourself guilty of any or all of these habits, you need not freak out, however, you do need to make some conscious efforts to change for the better and make healthier dietary choices, as this will generally improve your quality of life.
Drinking lots of sugary beverages.
Again, similarly to how much sugar you are consuming in your food, there’s also sugar in a lot of your favorite soft drinks and bottled beverages—which includes those bottled “healthy” smoothies! There are a lot of negative side effects of drinking too much soda, which include heart failure, stroke, high cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease.
Not eating carbohydrates.
As difficult as it might be to believe this, it doesn’t make it any less true; foods rich in carbohydrates are essential if we desire a longer life. This does not mean binging on French fries and pizzas all day long. It however refers to natural, whole foods that have carbohydrate contents still intact and haven’t been stripped of their nutrients including fiber, which is an important nutrient to have for weight loss.
When portioned correctly, having a diet that is rich in complex carbohydrates, lean protein, and healthy fats while cutting out higher-caloric foods has been scientifically proven to lead to a longer life.
Excessive protein intake
Many times we’ve heard that protein consumption is good for our body, and this is true anyways, however, there is such a thing as having “too much of a good thing”. According to health and nutrition experts, eating higher protein diets can cause a higher risk of kidneys stones, as well as heart disease and colon cancer due to the high amount of saturated fat found in red meat.
A higher protein diet focused on plant-based proteins or lean proteins may be good, but bear this in mind: diets higher in protein can still lead to weight gain and add belly fat if you’re consuming a higher amount of calories due to too much protein
Unintentional high sugar consumption
Most food manufacturers subtly mislead consumers with labels like healthy, organic, reduced or free of sugars and “natural flavors,” etc, but the sad news is that these products most times are hiding more sugar than you realize, thereby having people intake more sugar that they normally should.
The downside to this is that an increased amount of sugar on your diet can cause a higher risk of dying from a cardiovascular disease. So, to avoid these situations, it’s advisable you get more fresh foods than processed and canned foods.