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Blacklisting food items is not a good idea. That’s how you get started with disordered eating habits. The portion makes the poison so I’d suggest to not forbid yourself anything but focus on eating enough fruit and vegetables and water first. There are some helpful diagrams online on how much of each food group is ideal and then just try it out and see what works for you
Educate yourself & form your own opinions on what you deem to be safe/healthy for you to eat. There’s tons of bro science/social media health “experts” out there that make blanket statements about entire groups of food without any actual scientific backing.
In its simplest form, focus on eating fruits/veg, whole grains, and lean proteins. Portion control. Variety. And don’t completely cut out unhealthy foods - a dessert/chip/Oreo here and there will not ruin you, and will actually help ensure that you’re able to maintain this dietary change long term.
Look at the ingredients list. If your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize an ingredient as food, don’t eat it. Also, read Food Rules and/or In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan to get you started. Both are excellent.
I’m currently following an elimination diet as a tool to improve my health. So essentially I do have a “blacklist” for many foods, while other foods are just off the menu for now and will be reintroduced when possible.
Because of this I do think it’s possible to approach this in a healthy way, although I also know eliminating foods can go very wrong as many other people have pointed out here. It really just depends on the individual person’s mindset.
The distinction for me is that this isn’t a “diet” where the goal is aesthetics or weight loss. Instead, the diet is part of a lifestyle protocol aimed to improve overall health. The protocol addresses that physical health and psychological health are linked. Sleep, stress management, and other health needs are taken into account.
Focusing on including whole foods and limiting or avoiding ultra-processed foods is a good starting point. You could also look at existing dietary frameworks and see which might fit well with your health goals and current lifestyle if you want additional structure. The protocol I’m using is rooted in paleo/primal dietary frameworks, but something like the mediterranean diet could also be a great approach.
Nutritionally speaking, I think it’s more important to maximize varied nutrient-dense foods in your diet than to “blacklist” foods that have less nutritional value. It’s more effective to crowd out the bad with good than to just eliminate foods that you don’t think are healthy and leave a hole in your diet that needs to be filled. With that said, I do “blacklist” some foods, but for ethical rather than nutrition reasons