If you’ve ever been on the diet roller coaster for more than one turn, your issue might not be your diet. Your body might have an Achilles heel. Take a minute to think of that one food that you go to more often than any other. Did your candy dish come to mind? White bread? Steak? Whatever the food (or drink), you could be unwittingly sabotaging your diet with that one choice. According to some nutritionists, eliminating just one diet-sabotaging food, you could save yourself hundreds of calories a day.

Candy

Depending on how often you go to the candy dish, cutting candy out altogether could save you at least 300 calories a day, but probably much more. Most candy is straight sugar – it causes your blood sugar to spike and crash quickly and your appetite barely registers being full at all. Since your appetite isn’t satiated, you end up consuming far more calories than you would need to just to feel full. Snacks with some fat or protein are actually better in this department because your body registers the fats and proteins and you begin to feel full.

Alcohol

Two margaritas will cost you 500 calories a day and two cosmos will run you 300. Simply cutting out alcohol can make a huge difference in your overall calorie intake – especially if you routinely drink more than two drinks or you prefer drinks laden with sour mix or other mixers like triple sec. Alcohol intake also results in waking up with very low insulin levels – that’s the reason you always crave a big breakfast the next day. Those post-drinking munchies can last all day and usually drive you toward carb-heavy foods to get your blood sugar levels back up.

White Bread

As far as your body is concerned, white bread is essentially sugar and, depending on your normal eating habits, cutting out this one food alone can save you up to 1000 calories a day – definitely worth thinking about. The simple carbs in white bread, just like the sugar in candy, lead to pike and crash blood sugar levels and the calories are among the slowest to burn – which means most of them go straight to fat.

Cheese

Given the way your body processes it, a block of cheese might as well be a block of decadent milk chocolate. Cheese is one of the highest calorie foods we eat – one ½ inch cube of Humboldt Fog will run you 100 calories all by itself. If you can’t bring yourself to cut out cheese completely, look for healthy alternatives like Asiago – it has fewer calories and lower fat than most cheese and the strong flavor goes further to curb your cravings than a milder variety.

Red Meat

Red meat in and of itself is not so bad, but when you eat it, it is difficult to control your portions appropriately. Most steaks and burgers are decidedly larger than the recommended 4 ounce serving size. Add to that the fact that the saturated fat in red meat actually makes your blood vessels less resilient and increases your risk of a heart attack for 24 hours after consumption. An added bonus to giving up red meat is that you are less likely to find yourself in the path of baked potatoes and French fries quite as often.

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