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Maybe you eat a low-fat lunch but grab a creamy latte for your 2 p.m. pick-me-up. Or maybe you can't resist topping your salads with dollops of blue cheese. You might be surprised how quickly these sneaky things can add up.


1. Diet Drinks. Artificial sweeteners are another sneaky thing that may cause you to overeat by making it harder for your body to naturally "count" calories and disrupting its ability to gauge the relationship between food intake and weight, according to researchers at Purdue University.


2. Salads. A garden salad with vinegar and oil dressing has only 93 calories and 5 grams of fat, but a chicken Caesar salad from Chili's has 1,010 calories and 76 grams of fat—a sneaky food that can make you fat. It has more fat grams than anyone should have in a day.


3. "Natural" snacks. Chips and munchies labeled natural may not be as wholesome as they appear. For example, a single serving of Multigrain Tostitos has more calories than Tostitos restaurant-style chips and "has more sugar (1 gram) than any of its 'Four Wholesome Grains,"" charges the Center for Science in the Public Interest. These so called natural snacks are another sneaky food that will make you fat.


4. Cocktails or beer. What do you drink when you head out for happy hour? If you treat yourself to an apple martini, which is loaded with 235 calories, prepare to jog an extra half an hour to burn off those calories. So watch that next beer, it's sneaky and another thing loaded with fat.


5. Coffee. Your daily coffee break could add up. A 16-ounce grande Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino from Starbucks contains 430 calories, more than most cheeseburgers. This one kills me, I drink a couple of cups of coffee a day, another sneaky fat thing.


6. Hidden sugar. Yogurt and granola are healthy choices, but watch out for added sugar. Some types of granola bars and yogurt cups are loaded with sugar or candy pieces, detracting from their nutritional value.
Now, like you, our choices are narrowing on sneaky things to make you fat.


Drink This, Not That


You might be surprised by how many of your daily calories come in liquid form. Here, a few ways to eliminate some of those, too.

1. Drink water, not soda. In a study conducted by the Children's Hospital and Oakland Research Institute in California, dieters who replaced sugary drinks with water lost an extra five pounds a year. And is it any wonder? A 20-ounce cola contains approximately 250 calories, while a 32-ounce fast-food version packs a whopping 400 calories. Water, by contrast, contains no calories and helps you feel full.


2. Sip a smoothie, not a milkshake. One strawberry shake from Steak ‘N’ Shake contains more than 600 calories, but a Jamba Juice strawberry smoothie has only 200. When ordering smoothies, look for “all fruit” or “100 percent fruit” or you risk drinking many more sugary, corn-syrupy calories.


3. Wake up with tea, not coffee. Brew a mug of hot tea to warm you up on a cold morning. Black and green teas are chock full of antioxidants, but are calorie-free. Milk and sugar may add about 20 calories. By contrast, one cup of coffee from Dunkin Donuts has 120 calories, which is on the low end of the coffee calorie scale. Some Starbucks drinks can run as high as 700 calories.


4. Have fruit juice, not fruit punch. Few fruit punches actually contain fruit, it’s often flavored, sweetened water. Drink real orange juice or apple juice, and it counts as a serving of fruit.

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