Men and women who are doing their best to stick to a diet and lose weight often look for what has come to be known as healthy food, food labelled as "low fat", "fat free" or "diet". Since people don't always read the labels and since the producers do their best to conceal the effect of such foods, it's no wonder that some people fail to lose as much weight as possible on a particular diet. Trying really hard to stay away from sweets and sodas is useless when the supposedly healthy food makes it harder to lose pounds.

The biggest problem is the fact that a lot of healthy foods contain ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oil and plain sugar. This is the trick that producers use to sell food labelled healthy, despite it not being so. The words "fat free" is printed in attractive letters on the label, but nowhere does it say that the lack of fat is more than compensated for by the sugar content. While producers have to meet a certain standard in order to be able to call their foods "low fat" or "fat free", there are no regulations for the word "diet".

Be careful when buying yogurt and all sorts of yogurt-based desserts because the dairy companies really like to brag about their support of healthier lifestyles. Since people who like yogurt worry about the quantity of fat found in such products, the dairy companies have rushed to launch low fat and fat free versions of their best selling brands. What they are not very eager to tell the world is that desserts need sugar and that "low fat" doesn't mean "no sugar". In fact, customers may be very surprised to find that the low fat yogurt may be the equivalent of a candy bar, in terms of sugar.

Energy bars are another problem. People like them because the drastic cut in calories, which is one of the basic features of every diet, puts energy reserves under severe strain. It's hard to get through the day and does all the things one's used to do during the first couple of weeks of dieting, when the body is still adjusting to the lower intake of food. Energy bars sound like a great way of getting through the day without eating, but it's not that simple. The main source of energy for the body contained in energy bars is, of course, sugar.

And let's not forget fruit juices. A lot of people like to drink their daily helping of fruits instead of eating it, but fresh fruits and fruit juices are not the same thing. Producers need to add various substances to juices in order to keep them from spoiling. They also add sugar to juices, because some fruits are not naturally sweet enough to suit the tastes of customers. It is useless to say that all that extra sugar is not good for people trying to lose weight. The best thing to do is to skip juices and eat fresh fruits.