Weight Loss Blog: What Makes America Fat?, Part 1

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5 foods and drinks that add weight … and nothing else

The new government food guidelines are a major improvement, but they still don’t make it easy for overweight Americans to shed the pounds. They still are too complicated for most comfort eaters. So, here we propose the simplest weight-loss program ever! You don’t need to count calories, you don’t need to understand the difference between carbs and proteins, and you don’t need to exercise. Instead, just remember these five really bad, high-calorie foods and empty-calorie drinks … and stay away from them. 

These foods and drinks add 32.2 lbs in calories each year, to each American

If we as a nation are able to never touch these five foods and drinks again, the average American will skip the consumption of 155,000 calories per year. That calorie intake equals 32.2 lbs of body fat. If abstinence is too radical, then consume them only on special occasions. Enjoy them as an occasional treat.

These five things add only empty calories, and they contain very little – or no – nutritional value. These are empty calorie foods and drinks, and also are heavily addictive, so it won’t be easy to kick them. Some good news: cheese is not one of them, simply because cheese is an ingredient and is in everything. Focusing on omnipresent cheese, or sugar, or corn oil is too complicated. It would make this program too hard to follow.

The five foods and drinks presented here are progressively worse for the average American’s weight management. The fifth one will surprise you, and will be six times worse (for the average American) than the first one! It adds on average 48,000 calories per year (or an equivalent 10 pounds body fat) to each American! Read it to believe it!

Fat-making food number five: Donuts

So, stop eating donuts. These fat-sugar-starch rings add 1.7 pounds weight to each American, year after year.

Donuts are the ultimate bad food, and a few people eat them a lot. Police officers are the stereotypical donut eater. Donuts, also called doughnuts, combine sugar, fat and carbs. The average doughnut, based on the Glazed Dunkin’ Donut nutritional fact information, has 260 calories. The Dunkin Donut chain sells dressed up versions that are double that in calories. But forget that. Let’s stick to the simple, plain and average.  We could have picked the Krispy Kreme Doughnut for the nutritional facts instead and it would not have made a difference.

32 Doughnuts on average per American

Americans consume on average 32 donuts per year, from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Dunkin’ Donuts, or from the local donut bakery or supermarket.  That’s 32 for each man, women and child. It adds up to more than 10 billion donuts per year, according to Sally Levitt Steinberg, author of The Donut Book. Some people eat no donuts, so there must be donut addicts who eat one every day! Keep in mind that this is an average. At WellWise, we never ever eat a donut, so someone else must be munching my 32.

Thirty-two donuts at 260 calories each add up to 8,347 calories per year. These are all surplus calories, and they convert to 1.7 pounds of body fat per year. On average. The conversion takes into account that 1 gram of fat equals nine calories, and that the metabolic conversion loss is, on average, 15%. See Wikipedia “Food Energy” for the science behind this calculation.

The idea that exercise can somewhat offset the calories gained from the donuts is silly. It takes 125 miles of walking (67 calories per mile) to burn 8,347 calories – 4 miles per donut.

In our countdown, the fourth-worst weight-gain food is twice as bad as donuts. Find out which food that is in the next weight-loss blog!

References:

http://www.dunkindonuts.com/content/dunkindonuts/en/menu/nutrition/nutritionguide.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_energy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/national-donut-day-2011_n_870719.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population