By Fareen Khan – Nutritionist & Guest Contributor:

Before we go any further, let me start off by saying that this is not another controversial article criticizing Muslims or debating hijab.

In fact, I am a hijabi myself, a mother of 3 boys, and have multiple weight loss successes and failures for the better part of the last decade.

When I lost over 5 pounds, I felt like I figured out the code to losing weight. But when I regained it all back, I got even more frustrated.

When this cycle continued multiple times over the years, I used my nutritionist training to look for any external factors that contributed to these fluctuations.

It wasn’t until I noticed some rather subtle, even hidden cultural habits and patterns that I realized how I was actually preventing myself from maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

The Importance Of Athletics During Your Youth

Muslim women, especially those over the age of 35, have not been raised to be athletic. Outside of gym class, most of us were hard pressed to be involved in any sports like soccer or basketball.

As a result, when we hit out 30’s, have a few kids and observe a slower metabolism, we have a knee jerk reaction to diet and exercise.

While we intially join gyms and eating better, the challenges and demands of our day to day lives make us regress back to our old habits. Because we have been programmed to be sedentary when we were young, we have a challenge sticking to an exercise regimen. This is even more difficult when we are balancing work, home and family.

Our Traditional Comfort Foods Make Us  A Little Too  Comfortable

Second, our diet and portions are loaded with carbs. Now I have observed my non-Muslim friends for years, and while they have problems growing up with junk food, their carb to protein ratio is much lower than typical entrees in South Asia and the Middle East, regions that constitute the majority of the Muslim world.

In typical meals from India, Pakistan, & Indonesia, rice is not considered a side item, but rather a prominent part of the plate. A diet high in carbs worked well during previous centuries when you walked a few miles a day to commute or run your errands.

Today, however, eating excessive carbs like white rice, white bread and flour, combined with junk food can be a direct path to obesity & it’s related illness like diabetes and high blood pressure.

Look sisters, my purpose here is not to depress you as you start off 2014. In fact, I actually have some good news that I think will make a major impact in your ability to lose weight and keep it off.

Some Good News?..

It wasn’t until I saw this eye-opening report by world renowned nutritionist Mike Geary that I realized why I kept gaining the weight back.

I learned that there were “5 Specific Foods”  that I thought were healthy but were absolutely destroying my metabolism.

These 5 foods are so unhealthy and dangerous that they cause fat to pile up everywhere, especially on your belly, hips, waist and thighs. In fact, I learned the hard way that all my exercising and dieting would continue to be a complete waste of time until I eliminated these foods that were bringing my metabolism to a crawl.

What are these not-so-healthy foods?

Click the link below to find out right now.

Best of luck to all of you in 2014 Inshalllah..

-Fareen