1. Avoid sugar and sugar-sweetened drinks
Foods with added sugars are bad for your health. Eating a lot of these types of food can cause weight gain.
Studies show that added sugar has uniquely harmful effects on metabolic health (3Trusted Source).
Numerous studies have indicated that excess sugar, mostly due to the large amounts of fructose, can lead to fat building up around your abdomen and liver (6).
Sugar is half glucose and half fructose. When you eat a lot of added sugar, the liver gets overloaded with fructose and is forced to turn it into fat (4Trusted Source, 5).
Some believe that this is the main process behind sugar's harmful effects on health. It increases abdominal fat and liver fat, which leads to insulin resistance and various metabolic problems (7Trusted Source).
Liquid sugar is worse in this regard. The brain doesn’t seem to register liquid calories in the same way as solid calories, so when you drink sugar-sweetened beverages, you end up eating more total calories (8Trusted Source, 9Trusted Source).
A study observed that children were 60% more likely to develop obesity with each additional daily serving of sugar-sweetened beverages (10).
Try minimizing the amount of sugar in your diet and consider completely eliminating sugary drinks. This includes sugar-sweetened beverages, sugary sodas, fruit juices, and various high sugar sports drinks.
Read the labels to make sure products do not contain refined sugars. Even foods marketed as health foods can contain significant amounts of sugar.
Keep in mind that none of this applies to whole fruit, which are extremely healthy and have plenty of fiber that mitigates the negative effects of fructose.
2. Eat more protein
Protein may be the most important macronutrient for weight loss.
Research shows it can reduce cravings by 60%, boost metabolism by 80–100 calories per day, and help you eat up to 441 fewer calories per day (11Trusted Source, 12Trusted Source, 13Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source).
If weight loss is your goal, adding protein may be the single most effective change you can make to your diet.
Not only can protein help you to lose weight, but it may also help you to avoid regaining weight (15Trusted Source).
Protein may be particularly effective in reducing abdominal fat. One study showed that people who ate more and better protein had much less abdominal fat (16).
Another study indicated that protein was linked to a significantly reduced chance of abdominal fat gain over 5 years in women (17Trusted Source).
This study also linked refined carbs and oils to more abdominal fat and linked fruit and vegetables to reduced fat.
Many of the studies observing that protein helps with weight loss had people getting 25–30% of their calories from protein. Therefore, this may be a good range to try.
Try increasing your intake of high protein foods such as whole eggs, fish, legumes, nuts, meat, and dairy products. These are the best protein sources for your diet.
When following a vegetarian or vegan diet, check out this article on how to increase your protein intake.
If you struggle with getting enough protein in your diet, a quality protein supplement – like whey protein — is a healthy and convenient way to boost your total intake. You can find plenty of protein powder options online.
3. Eat fewer carbohydrates
Eating fewer carbs is a very effective way to lose fat.
This is supported by numerous studies. When people cut carbs, their appetite goes down and they lose weight (18).
More than 20 randomized controlled studies have now shown that low carb diets sometimes lead to 2–3 times more weight loss than low fat diets (19, 20, 21).
This is true even when those in the low carb groups are allowed to eat as much as they want, while those in the low fat groups are calorie restricted.
Low carb diets also lead to quick reductions in water weight, which gives people fast results. People often see a difference on the scale within 1–2 days.
Studies comparing low carb and low fat diets indicate that low carb eating specifically reduces fat in the abdomen and around the organs and liver (22Trusted Source, 23Trusted Source).
This means that some of the fat lost on a low carb diet is harmful abdominal fat.
Just avoiding the refined carbs — like sugar, candy, and white bread — should be sufficient, especially if you keep your protein intake high.
If the goal is to lose weight fast, some people reduce their carb intake to 50 grams per day. This puts your body into ketosis, a state in which your body starts burning fats as its main fuel and appetite is reduced.
Low carb diets have many other health benefits besides just weight loss. For example, they can significantly improve health in people with type 2 diabetics