Fast Food and Calories

Here in the technology and information age, we have more knowledge and advancements than ever before in history. Sixty years ago, who would have ever thought that you could send an instant message over a phone, let alone take a picture with it? Sixty years ago, who would have thought we would be capable of sending a man to the moon, but fail the war on obesity and cancer?

Isn't it oddly shocking that America is so well-advanced in everything except health and fitness? While the fitness industry tells us to count calories and exercise for fat loss, we grow fatter and fatter as a nation.

Running parallel to the fitness industry is the fast food chains, doing their best to keep on the top of "healthy eating" trend. It seems the fast-food industry can tailor to anyone's dieting needs with "fat-free," "low-calorie," and "low-carb" menu items.

Today, fast food is considered a normal eating venture among the average person. People aren't just eating out on special occasions or weekends anymore; they are eating out all the time. But is it the calories in fast food that's so destructive to the body and waistline or does the problem lie deeper?

Fast Food and Obesity

Fast food is simply tasty, ready-cooked meals packed to go. Fast food has been around since the early 1900's, but its popularity sparked and grew in the 1940's with the birth of good ole' Mickey D's; quick food priced cheaply. Within a few years similar fast-food operations popped up everywhere in the blink of an eye.

With the compelling rise in fast-food restaurants since the 1940's, oddly, too, started the rise in obesity and cancer during that same time period. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math and link fast food to the obesity and cancer crisis.

Fast Food and its Nutritional Value

To say fast food has a "nutritional value" is an oxymoron. There is absolutely nothing nutritional about fast food. Fast food simply feeds hunger and/or your immediate craving. Fast food does not feed your body in the form of usable lasting energy or building materials, the essence your body thrives on for life itself.

Fast food is highly processed with a wide array of additives. The concept of fast food is obviously, food ready-to-eat and served quickly. To ensure fast food's low cost to the consumer, the fast food products are made with highly-processed ingredients to give it shelf-life, to hold consistency, and to enhance flavor. Fast food is altered from its original healthy form it was meant to nourish the body with, to a denatured form that lacks any nutritional value whatsoever.

According to Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., "The FDA Total Diet Study found that fast-food hamburgers, across the board, contained 113 different pesticide residues." So my question is why does the FDA want to regulate the sale of vitamins, minerals, and herbs that are actually beneficial for the body when there's a linking fast-food / cancer / obesity crisis on our hands?

Why Fast Food is Fattening and Dangerous

Wake up people. It's not the calories in fast food that's damaging to your health and waistline, it's the chemical additives such as aspartame and MSG (monosodium glutamate). These chemical additives are approved by the FDA and studies show that they lead to weight and disease issues.

Synthetic chemicals added to processed food, including fast food, damage your body's cells. Your body is made up of nutrients found in plants and animals you eat. Man-made food items loaded with pesticides, as well as aspartame, margarine, and other man-made chemicals do not nourish your body. If your body can't use what you put into it you will gain fat and decrease health.

Since we can't visually see what actually happens at the molecular level when we eat processed food, we discount it and rely on the FDA to do our thinking for us. After all, if its FDA approved, it MUST be okay to eat, right? Not at all.

Nutrients from the food we eat allow us to burn fat and be healthy. Your body cannot process synthetic chemicals. If a food item can't be processed, it will end up lodged in areas of your body, primarily fatty areas and tissues, creating an acidic pH.

A simple fast-food chicken breast can contain everything from modified corn starch to hydrolyzed corn gluten. Hello? Chicken comprised of corn? A fast-food chicken nugget is nearly 60% corn, and corn is what farmers use to fatten up cattle.

Fast Food for the Fit Life

Go go go…that is what you do all day long. We live in a fast paced society, everything has to be high speed from our internet connections right down to the foods that we eat! Millions of Americans are consuming fast food meals on a daily basis and it is having a serious effect on our health and our waistlines! If you are a fast food junky listen up. By making smarter and healthier choices at the drive through, fast food actually can be incorporated into a fit and healthy lifestyle!

Fast food is available virtually everywhere, it is usually lacking in nutritional value and is high in fat and calories. Fast food is quick, convenient and cheap. It is part of our society and part of the lifestyle of millions of Americans. If you are looking to lose weight, increase your energy levels and improve your health but are limited on grocery shopping or food preparation time, I have some tips that will help you make healthier choices even when your chow is coming through a drive through window!

Choose grilled not fried foods. Skip the fried foods and you will cut back on unhealthy trans fats and excess calories, as well as get a jump start on your weight loss goals. Choose chicken. Most fast food joints have some type of grilled chicken sandwich. Picking chicken over beef will significantly decrease the amount of calories and fats you are consuming.

If you aren’t ready to give up your burgers just yet, start by choosing a junior burger and order it without cheese. If you feel like you can’t give up the fries just yet start by ordering a small size and don’t eat the whole thing. When you are committed to your fitness goals and motivated enough to eliminate these items from your diet you will be amazed at how much better your body will feel, how much easier weight loss will be, and how much more energy you will have!

Skip the dips and nix the mayo. Sauces including barbeque and even ketchup are typically loaded with sugar, check out the ingredients on a ketchup package and you may be surprised to see that high fructose corn syrup is at the top of the list! Mayonnaise is very high in fat and calories. Eliminating it is the best choice, but if you do choose to use it, practice moderation! Mustard is a better condiment choice.

Beware when ordering salads! Just because it has something green in it doesn’t automatically make it healthy. Salads laden with items such as bacon, cheese, fried chicken or wontons can contain as many calories as a burger, so be sure you know what you are ordering. Choose salads loaded with veggies and a good protein source such as chicken, fish, turkey, beans, or egg whites. Don’t sabotage your healthy eating efforts by drowning your salad with high fat high calorie dressings! Stay away from any dressing that is cream based, choose a light dressing or vinaigrette and keep it on the side for dipping purposes.

Choose a fresh made sandwich over a burger. Sub shops allow you to load your sandwich with plenty of veggies and usually give you a whole wheat bread option. Skip the fried chips and choose baked or pretzels instead. Order a small sandwich. If you do order a large eat half of it and save the rest for your next small meal in a couple of hours.

When you have to eat on the go, popping into the grocery store for a fresh made salad or sandwich is also a great alternative to burgers and fries, it may take a few seconds longer than the drive through but it will give you the opportunity to grab a piece of fresh fruit to go with your meal!

Remember that a calorie is a calorie even when it comes in liquid form. Sodas, fruit juices and even sweetened iced teas are typically packed with sugar. In a super sized beverage you may be consuming over half of your daily calories! Water is always the best choice, but if you must have a soda make it a diet.

In a perfect world we would all have time to prepare meals that we could eat consistently throughout the day in order to keep our metabolism up and keep our bodies properly fueled. Let’s get real! With hectic lifestyles, busy jobs and families to care for the importance of food preparation is easily pushed to the side in exchange for a fast food alternative. Since quick meals on the go are part of our culture it’s high time that we recognize the fact that you CAN make healthy choices and lead a fit life even if your next meal comes in a paper bag.

Fast Food Problem

Nutritional Needs For Teenagers - The Fast Food Problem

What are the nutritional needs for teenagers and why should they be of concern?

The astronomical rise in teenage obesity worldwide is thrusting teenage eating habits into the headlines. A good place to begin looking for the cause is examining the role fast food plays in this epidemic.

Fast Food Is Bad For You

Fast food is bad for you regardless of how you look at it.

Whether it is the fare served at fast food joints that is high in fats (particularly trans-fats), salt, sugar, and "empty calories" or the cellophane wrapped monstrosity from a convenience store the concept is the same.

The bad nutrients are similar and they are all detrimental to your health.

However, popular culture teaches overweight boys and overweight girls that these are fun foods to eat. The claims that fast food is healthy must be viewed with skepticism.

Diets For Overweight Teens

Teenagers don't have to wait until they begin suffering high blood sugar symptoms or other health problems before changing their eating habits. With minor changes to their diets teens can lose weight naturally.

You see, teenagers have a major advantage over adults when it comes to losing body fat or maintaining a reasonable weight. The advantage is that diets for overweight teens do not have to be drastic.

Since teenagers are growing at a rapid rate and burning up huge amounts of energy they can eat a healthy diet plan and excess weight will begin coming off.

It's only natural.

Adults on the other hand have to more severely restrict their food intake and increase their physical activity to lose any weight. Eating a raw food diet and weight control measures alone are not enough for adults to achieve a slim waistline.

Teenagers just have to continue growing while they adopt a healthy diet plan.

As adults well know- life just isn't fair at times!

National Health Care

You Matter - Take Care of Yourself

Sixty percent of Americans today are overweight and out of shape. I can relate to how busy, stressed out and pressured people are, and I don't have kids. Money spent due to obesity related diseases in the USA today is $183,060,245 US$ and counting. This insightful information is provided by Worldometers: world statistics updated in real time.

The problematic challenge for national health care in the United States, is that we need to do a better job taking care of ourselves, added to the fact, that over 45 million individuals do not have health insurance. We can continue to abandon our personal accountability when it comes to taking control of our health. However, the issue is not going to go away, no matter the outcome of a national healthcare plan. Our personal health and how we take care of ourselves, begins and ends with us. Beginning at our toes and completing at the top of our heads, hair included.

It's time to have a hard, open and honest discussion about health in the public arena, from both our elected officials and the media. Make transparent the real issues of health care, by extricating what is hidden beneath the appearance of a paralyzed surface. For now, we are only dealing with one side of the square of health care. For now, take charge and put your health into action.

My question to all of us is, where did we get this notion to treat our bodies and ourselves as if we don't care? I want you to care. YOU matter! Your health is everything you have. It is in every choice you make and through every action you take.

Your health and what you mobilize on a mental, physical, spiritual and social level will normally manifest the benefits of wellness and prevention. Before, you even need to get to the doctor, nurse, chiropractor, alternative practitioner or other healing modality that you seek out.

Begin now with a renewed sense of taking ownership for your health. Start somewhere, quit blaming yourself and stop thinking about all the things you think you should have done. Don't blame your health on your parents, that past life stuff or your fast food restaurant.

Did you know McDonald's has five ways for you to see the nutritional content for their food? Have you asked to look at it? Fast food chains aren't making you sign a contract to eat there. The accountability lies with you, when you eat anywhere, and what you choose to eat is up to you.

Your health begins with your mouth and your mind. What you put into both of them has the power to determine the outcome of how you live, feel and thrive. We see people everyday that are challenged with mental disabilities, blindness and missing limbs. People in wheelchairs, people going to work with a chronic condition, or terminal disease, living their lives and making a difference in the world by showing up.

A few weeks ago I was at the Los Angeles Airport to pick someone up from an overseas flight. As I was waiting, another group of passengers arrived. I turned and noticed a young man coming up the ramp, somewhere in his 20's, in a powered wheelchair.

He had a magnificent smile on his face and he was greeted by family and friends. He had no arms, legs, or thighs. He had a torso and a head. He was one happiest people I have seen in a long time. Tears welled up in my eyes as my life was put in quick perspective.

Go to the mirror, look in and tell yourself that your are going to do something today for you. You have inner strength that you never knew existed. Use it to make this a great life where you are at right now. Don't wait, things will never be exactly the way you want them.

It's about starting simple things. You don't have to metamorph into a power ranger or action hero. Think of basic tips such as drinking water, eat an apple everyday, eat the burger...say no to the fries, eat a healthy breakfast, send someone an encouraging email first thing in the morning, take the stairs, tell people you love them.

I saw a sign on a church marquis a few years ago while driving by, and it has stuck with me ever since: "Quit telling God how big your problem is and start telling your problem how big your God is!" You're worth it. I know your worth it. Your life's greatest gift!