Eight in 10 Americans eat fast food at least once a month and half eat it every week according, to a Gallup Poll. Yet most people who eat fast food know it’s bad for them. So why do they keep eating it?
The answer is simple: the benefits of eating fast food outweigh the
long-term implications for most people. However, once you read these
reasons why all those trips to the drive through may be slowly killing
you, you may just want to stop eating fast food after all.
1. Fast food makes you fat.
A 15-year study
of over 3,000 people found that eating fast food is linked to weight
gain and insulin resistance. In others words, fast food makes you fat
and increases your risk of type 2 diabetes. You probably know this
already. But here’s something you may not know—
2. Fast food is addictive.
The more you eat fast food, the more you crave it. One study
found that fast food is “a potentially addictive substance that is most
likely to create dependence in vulnerable populations.” If you eat fast
food once a week or more, you may be addicted to it.
3. Fast food eggs are definitely not the breakfast of champions.
Breakfast sandwiches at fast food restaurants are a true modern
marvel of chemistry. The “egg” sandwich at Subway, for example, has
ingredients like glycerin, which is found in soap, and dimethylpolysiloxane, a type of silicone found in Silly Putty and many lubricants.
4. Fast food is affecting your kids.
According to the CDC,
childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in
adolescents in the past 30 years. Kids have an amazing ability to recall
ads they’ve seen. Fast food marketers know this, and design ads
accordingly. Research shows strong associations between increases in advertising for non-nutritious foods and rates of childhood obesity.
5. Fast food “burgers” don’t have much burger in them.
One study found
that most fast food burgers are composed of about 50 percent water and
the actual meat content is only 2.1 to 14.8 percent. So what makes up
the rest of it, you ask? Chemical fillers and preservatives, mostly.
That’s why we see read horror stories about burgers that don’t go bad.
6. Fast food “chicken nuggets” are even nastier than “burgers.”
Many chicken nuggets at fast food restaurants contain a chemical
preservative called TBHQ, which can cause nausea, vomiting and even
death. Some also contain dimethylpolysiloxane (the stuff in Silly
Putty). If Silly Putty nuggets don’t deter you from eating them, maybe
this will: many fast food chicken nuggets and patties are still made
from mechanically-separated chicken, which is a slimy mixture that’s created from the processed bones and carcass of leftover chickens.
7. Even “healthy” fast food isn’t that healthy.
Fast food restaurants are catering to consumer demands to produce
healthier options. The problem is, their definition of “healthy” is
quite lax. One of the healthiest dishes at Burger King,
the Garden Fresh Salad Chicken Caesar with TENDERGRILL Chicken and
dressing, still has almost 500 calories and 28 grams of fat, and nearly a
day’s worth of sodium.
8. Fast food is inhumane to animals.
Okay, this one may not be a reason why fast is killing you, but it’s still a compelling reason to stop eating fast food. 9 billion
animals were slaughtered in the U.S. alone in 2012 and much of that
meat is for your fast food burgers and chicken sandwiches. Large factory
farms resemble more of a “business” than a “farm.” Animals suffer in
crowded spaces where they rarely have access to the outdoors or
sunlight. They are pumped full of antibiotics to combat disease, which
runs rampant in these conditions. Livestock is one of the biggest
sources of pollution and environmental negligence, according to the UN.
9. Fast food sodas are loaded with sugar.
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the cheap sweetener most fast food
restaurants use in their sodas, desserts, and many other products.
Princeton University researchers linked HFCS consumption to obesity in an animal study. Rats given HFCS gained more weight and body fat than those given table sugar.
10. Fast food doesn’t really taste that good.
What’s better: a fast food burger or one you cook that’s straight off the grill? For my money, I’d rather eat a delicious grass fed beef burger that I cooked than a crappy fast food pseudo-burger.
Look at how many grams of sugar are in what you’re eating (on the nutritional label). Now divide that number by 4. That’s how many teaspoons of pure sugar you’re consuming. Kinda scary, huh? Sugar makes you fat and fat-free food isn’t really free of fat. This article will provide you with some helpful suggestions to achieve not only weight loss success, but improved body health.
First, let’s make some qualifications. Sugar isn’t inherently evil. Your body uses sugar to survive, and burns sugar to provide you with the energy necessary for life. Many truly healthy foods are actually broken down to sugar in the body – through the conversion of long and complex sugars called polysaccharides into short and simple sugars called monosaccharides, such as glucose. In additions to the breakdown products of fat and protein, glucose is a great energy source for your body.
However, there are two ways that sugar can sabotage your body and cause fat storage. Excess glucose is the first problem, and it involves a very simple concept. Anytime you have filled your body with more fuel than it actually needs (and this is very easy to do when eating foods with high sugar content), your liver’s sugar storage capacity is exceeded.
When the liver is maximally full, the excess sugar is converted by the liver into fatty acids (that’s right – fat!) and returned to the bloodstream, where is taken throughout your body and stored (that’s right - as fat!) wherever you tend to store adipose fat cells, including, but not limited to, the popular regions of the stomach, hips, butt, and breasts.
As an unfortunate bonus, once these regions are full of adipose tissue, the fatty acids begin to spill over into your organs, like the heart, liver, and kidneys. This reduces organ ability, raises blood pressure, decreases metabolism, and weakens the immune system.
Not good!
Excess insulin is the second problem. Insulin is a major hormone in the body, and is released in high levels anytime you ingest what would be considered a “simple” carbohydrate, which would include, but not be limited to:
- Fruit juice
- White bread
- Most “wheat” bread (basically white bread with a little extra fiber)
- White rice
- Baked white potato
- Bagels
- Croissants
- Pretzels
- Graham crackers
- Vanilla wafers
- Waffles
- Corn chips
- Cornflakes
- Cake
- Jelly beans
- Sugary drinks
- Gatorade
- Beer
and anything that has high fructose corn syrup on the nutritional label. Two actions occur when the insulin levels are spiked. First, the body’s fat burning process is shut down so that the sugar that has just been ingested can be immediately used for energy. Then, insulin takes all that sugar and puts it into your muscles. Well, not quite! Actually, most of us, except those random Iron man triathletes and 8000- calories-per-day exercisers, walk around with fairly full energy stores in the muscles. As soon as the muscles energy stores are full, the excess sugars are converted to fat and, just like the fatty acids released from the liver, stored as adipose tissue on our waistline.
But that’s not all. After the blood sugar has been reduced by going into the muscles or being converted to fat in the liver, the feedback mechanism that tells the body to stop producing insulin is slightly delayed, so blood sugar levels fall even lower, below normal measurements.
This causes...
- an immediate increase in appetite, which is usually remedied by eating more food;
- the production of a stress hormone called cortisol. Cortisol triggers the release of stored sugar from the liver to bring blood sugar levels back up, which, combined with the meal you eat from your appetite increase, begins the entire “fat storage, metabolic decrease” process over again.
This process of destabilizing blood sugar levels and sending your body on a roller coaster ride can occur throughout an entire day, week, or month. The excessive cortisol that accumulates in the body eventually distresses your hormonal system and results in other problems, including a further decrease in metabolism, obesity, depression, allergies, immune weakness, chronic fatigue syndrome and other serious side effects.
So what kind of carbohydrates can you eat to avoid de-stabilizing blood sugar levels, constantly sabotaging your weight loss, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care as you get older?
Here is a list of carbohydrates that do not trigger such a strong insulin response and instead provide long-term, stabilized energy:
- Apples
- Oranges
- Pears
- Plums
- Grapes
- Bananas (not overly ripened)
- Grapefruit
- Oatmeal
- Brown rice
- Whole wheat spaghetti and egg fettuccine
- Whole-wheat pasta
- Bran cereal, barley
- Bulgur, basmati
- Kashi and other whole grains
- Beans
- Peas (especially chick and black-eyed)
- Lentils
- Whole corn
- Sweet potatoes
- Yams
- Milk
- Yogurt (preferably low-fat or fat-free)
- Soy
Stay away from processed and packaged foods as much as possible, because they are highly likely to include artificial sweeteners (which basically have a similar effect as sugar), as well as simple and refined sugars.
Keep your eye out for ingredients that include..
- Sucrose
- Maltose
- Dextrose
- Fructose
- Galactose
- Glucose
- Arabinose
- Ribose
- Xylose
- Deoxyribose
- Lactose
and other fake names for sugars. Even “healthy” juice and many health food products will need to be avoided if they contain high levels of sugar.
You may have heard that you’ll burn fat if you consume fewer calories (calories in) than the amount you burn as fuel (calories out). Anyone telling you this is either completely ignorant or has little understanding of how the human body works.
Probably the most common thing I see people doing wrong in their pursuit
of fat loss is that they cut calories way too low. Everyone is in the
pursuit of instant results and many believe that drastically reducing
their calorie intake is the fastest way to shed those unwanted pounds.
Little do they know that by reducing their calorie intake to such low
levels makes it even harder to lose fat and get in great shape.
DESTROYS OUR METABOLISM
Our
metabolism is the most important factor for successful fat loss. We
should train and eat in order to stimulate it. The simplest way to have a
fast metabolism is to have muscle. This is because muscle is
metabolically active...by that I mean that it burns calories. Every
extra pound of muscle we have burns an extra 50-100 calories a day. This
is why it is imperative to add or at try to maintain as much muscle as
possible when trying to lose fat.
Compare our metabolism to that
of a car engine. The larger the engine the more fuel it burns, even
when its sitting at the lights. That's how we want our metabolism to
run. A faster metabolism helps us burn more calories in every activity
we do, including sleeping. Now obviously, we don't want a metabolism
than burns fuel as slow as a scooter!
Now the problem with low
calorie dieting is that it burns a lot of muscle, which slows down our
metabolism. This happens because the body realises that there is less
food coming in, so it slows down how many calories it burns so that it
can survive on the newer lower calorie intake. It becomes a bit more
careful of using up energy, and becomes more selective. This is
obviously bad!
The reason this happens, is because our excess
body fat, is our last ditch survival plan. It is stored to prepare for
times of food shortage. You see, if we cut calories too far, our body
will realize that food is scarce and it will go into a state of panic.
It will do its best then to hang onto its fat stores because it doesn't
know how long this food shortage is going to last. Since there is not
enough food coming in, and our body wants to hang onto our fat, it
alternatively breaks down muscle tissue to use as energy. This loss of
muscle means a slower metabolism.
You may have experienced this
first hand, getting good initial results on a low calorie diet for a few
weeks. However after a few weeks your results have come to a
standstill. This is because your metabolism has slowed right down to
adjust to the calorie intake and is burning next to no fat, because it
doesn't want to!
TOO HARD TO STICK TO
Let's face it, its no
fun eating a low calorie diet. Constantly feeling hungry and tired, who
wants that? Restricted calorie diets are just way too hard to stick too.
They deprive us of not only eating enough food, but also of eating
foods that we enjoy. This double whammy causes our cravings to intensify
to the point that it becomes unbearable, resulting in us giving up.
LACK CONSISTENCY
To
achieve dramatic and long term fat loss, you have to be consistent for a
considerable amount of time. However, low calorie diets are just too
extreme and unrealistic to stick to for any considerable period of time.
They more often then not, result in 'yo-yo dieting'.
WEIGHT GAIN
Obviously
gaining weight makes it hard to actually lose weight. Problem is that's
exactly what restricted calorie diets cause. The combination of losing
muscle from low calorie dieting and the undeniable cravings they create,
cause us to put on even more weight. The lost muscle now results in a
slower metabolism, so if you go back to your normal pattern of eating,
you now might experience some weight gain. Problem is, after a low
calorie diet, we don't usually return to our normal eating patterns. The
cravings created through dieting cause us to binge eat and pig out for a
while to satisfy our urges (well that's what I did anyway!).
Well
then what should you do? The answer is simple. Eat enough food to
ensure your body that it is safe to use its body fat stores as an energy
source. If the body realises that there is a plentiful supply of food
coming in, it will think that keeping fat on the body is useless and it
will start using it more readily.
So how much is enough? I would
recommend eating approximately your bodyweight in pounds multiplied by
13. For example a 200lb man would eat approximately 2600 calories a day.
You should never reduce your calories 500 below this number. So eat
around this number, exercise more, be consistent and the fat will melt
off you in no time.
One last thing, forget the scales. Men store
fat around the waist and women the hips and thighs. So if your pants are
getting looser, you know its working.
Remember try to get in
fantastic shape in 5-6 months instead of 1-2. If you try to do it in
only 1-2 months you will get stuck in the yo-yo dieting cycle. You may
look exactly the same 5 years from now! Taking it
slower will actually get you there faster in the long run and is much
more enjoyable, and pain free.
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