10 Foods/drinks that make you fat

In our everyday routine we often don't pay much attention to the nutrition side of what we eat. Who does? As long as the hunger is gone a smile remains. But being content and ignorant about our daily diet affects us very adversely! Having proper information about the foods that we eat and the drinks that we, well, drink help us greatly in controlling any excess fat and chemicals.

So have a peep at what these foods are that must be " handled with care " :-

1. Chips 

• One ounce of potato chips has 152 calories and 10 grams of fat (three grams saturated). If you eat just three ounces a week, in one year you’ll have consumed 23,400 calories and added about seven pounds to your waistline. That’s from just a couple handfuls – much less than most of us snack on at a time.

Substitute: 

• Rice and popcorn cakes are no longer Styrofoam-like snacks. Now they’re available in many flavors, so you can satisfy a salty craving without hitting the chips. Try Quaker’s Quakes Rice Snacks or Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn Cakes instead – both have less than 100 calories per serving.

• For a more exotic crunch, try dry roasted edamame, which are usually lightly salted and have a satisfying crunch. Thirty grams of the Trader Joe’s brand provides 14 grams of protein and 20% of your daily iron in only 140 calories.

2. Fried Chicken

• A fried chicken breast has nearly 400 calories and 22 grams of fat. The Colonel wouldn’t be happy to hear this, but those platters of fried fowl have to go.

Substitute: 

• Grilled, skinless chicken breasts are finger-lickin’ good. Rub them with a fiery spice rub – try a green chile-lime seasoning – throw them on the barbecue, and you have great flavor for 189 calories per 4-ounce breast.

3. Bread

• Bread-lovers in the study discovered that it was easy to eat too much of that food in a single sitting. If you can't live without sandwiches, then you should have them, but try to splurge on only those couple of slices of bread a day. Bread isn't evil; it just tends to be hard to control for people who love it.

substitute: 

• Grains : Slice your protein or veggies over grains including whole-wheat pasta, wild rice, couscous, or quinoa.

4. French Fries

• One large order (6 ounces) of fast-food fries contains 570 calories, half of which are from fat! (That’s probably why we love them.) If your restaurant order includes a large hamburger (such as Burger King’s Whopper), tack on 670 calories and 39 grams of fat.

Substitute: 

• Order kid-size fries instead, which have only 230 calories and 13 grams of fat. At home, try sautéed tempeh, a fermented rice and soy mixture found in the refrigerated health-food section of your grocery store.

• Just slice, sprinkle with soy sauce, and sauté in a little olive oil until brown. A half cup – about three or four half-inch slices – has 197 calories, is loaded with protein and offers a good source of iron, magnesium, zinc and vitamin B6.

5. Non-Dairy Toppings

• As luscious as they are, Cool Whip and its kin are mostly corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oil ? stuff you don’t want floating in your arteries. One tablespoon is 32 calories, but who stops at just one?

Substitute: 

• Top desserts with low-fat vanilla yogurt. The same amount has half the calories, plus a healthy dose of calcium.

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6. Sugar-Free Cookies and Candy

• Don't fall for the no-sugar scam: When manufacturers remove the sweet stuff, they often add fat. One popular brand offers chocolate-chip cookies that each contain 160 calories and 9 grams of fat, so why not eat the real thing? You might save calories with sugar-free candy, but many contain sorbitol, which can cause bloating and diarrhea.

substitute : 

• Get your cookie fix with graham crackers, which have almost a teaspoon less sugar per serving than many other packaged cookies.

• Or find a 100-calorie snack pack of your favorite (try Keebler Fudge Shoppe Mini Fudge Stripes). Taking a trip to candy land? Grab a 60-calorie Tootsie Pop or a York Peppermint Pattie (140 calories and 2.5 grams of fat).

7. Alcohol

• Like soda pop alcohol is a known diet no-no. While having a glass of red wine here and there isn’t anything to worry about and in fact can be healthy, drinking beer or any other alcoholic beverage frequently and in large quantities will do a number on your figure. 

•  The tell-tale fat midsection is called a beer belly for a reason so try to steer clear of alcoholic beverages especially when dieting.

8. Veggie Burgers

• Sure, skipping beef in lieu of a meat-free patty may save you a little fat and cholesterol. But depending on the brand and what you put on it, you could easily end up housing more than 1,000 calories. 

• The cheese that often binds the veggies together and the huge size of the burgers are anything but diet-friendly. Add a bun and some ketchup and you might as well have had the quarter-pounder.

9. Breakfast cereal 

• The same Weight Watchers study also showed that people who ate cereal right out of the box as a snack tended to munch on way too much of it in a day. Even healthy, high-fiber cereals can up the day's calorie count and halt people's weight loss.

Substitute :  

• Eat cereal only with milk : This combination also decreases the meal's "calorie density" — an ounce of cereal with milk (skim, of course) has fewer calories than an ounce of cereal alone, so you'll take in fewer calories but still feel just as satisfied.

10. Fruit-flavored yogurt

• When Weight Watchers asked 10,000 dieters to eat wholesome foods — like grains, vegetables, dairy, and lean protein — they saw that people often ate four containers of low-fat yogurt a day if the fruit was mixed in. But if the subjects had to stir in the fruit themselves, they stopped at only one cup.

Substitute : 

• Plain, nonfat yogurt — you add fresh fruit : Mixing in fruit yourself is enough to prevent you from mindless overeating.

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