Day 279- Read the Label

It's so funny because it doesn't seem quite right that I'm not buying my daily candy bar and that I choose to eat a banana in place of something sweet. However, I am not completely satisfied with my diet yet. I am far from perfect and I seem to find ways around the rules I have given myself.

I have little cheats where I'm not breaking the rules, but I am pushing it a bit. For instance, even though I am not allowed to eat chocolate, I have found a way around that rule by eating Reese's Pieces. There is no chocolate in Reese's Pieces so I'm not breaking the rules. This is just one example of how I break the rules, but there are others too.

I have decided I need to start reading the labels of my food. I have found a list of certain additives that should be avoided. There are more, but I think these are the most popular ones to avoid. I think the key is if something contains a lot of ingredients on the label then that is probably not a good thing. Also if you see a list of ingredients that sound like you're reading a foreign language than I think that's something that most likely should be avoided. I think I read somewhere that the first five ingredients on a label should be natural ingredients, but you know what I think that was referring to cat food, so scratch that. But maybe that's the key to people food too.

The ingredients on label to avoid:

• Artificial Colors
• Artificial Flavorings
• Artificial Sweeteners
• Benzoate Preservatives
• Brominated Vegetable Oils
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• MSG
• Olestra
• Shortening, Hydrogenated and Partially Hydrogenated Oils