Shocking Ways Fast Food Makes You Gain Weight
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Nobody expects fast food to be healthy. However, thanks to our busy schedules, it’s not always easy to ditch fast food altogether.
And that’s unfortunate because fast food can make you gain some serious weight. In fact, there are several different ways those fast food combos are helping you pack on some unwanted pounds.
Want to learn more about why these not-so-happy meals are tipping your scales? Keep reading to discover the shocking ways fast food makes you gain weight!
Insulin resistance risk
The last thing you want is for your body to develop insulin resistance. Over time, this can lead to conditions such as prediabetes and diabetes. Unfortunately, fast food makes you likelier to develop this resistance!
In a typical fast food meal, you’ll eat many refined carbs that make your body release insulin. Eventually, this leads to insulin converting your glucose into fat. Not only does this put you at an enhanced risk of diabetes, but it encourages your body to hold onto unwanted fat. Ultimately, this is why so many fad diets encourage you to cut carbs: cutting them out of your diet can help you quickly lose weight because carbs from things like fast food are literally weighing you down.
RELATED: Tips For Healthy Eating On The Go
A jump in blood sugar
Ever hear people refer to fast food as “empty calories?” This is usually code for the fact that these meals offer little in the way of what your body really needs. Furthermore, those empty calories cause major spikes in both your blood sugar and, as we have detailed, your insulin levels.
This is why regularly consuming fast food is such a vicious cycle. Eating it is causing your body to regularly spike your blood sugar and insulin levels. This increases your risk of insulin resistance, all while giving your body empty calories that expand your body and leave you with pounds that are almost impossible to shed.
All that sodium
How much salt do you think is in your favorite fast-food dishes? Spoilers: any given dish contains much more sodium than you imagine it does. And all that sodium has negative effects, especially when it comes to gaining weight.
As you may know, consuming sodium leads to your body retaining water. This means you’ll hang onto weight longer and probably feel bloated the entire time. If that’s not bad enough, sodium also spikes your blood pressure, and too much sodium can put your cardiovascular system at risk.
RELATED: How Many Calories Should You Really Eat Per Day To Lose Weight?
Digestive issues
There is a major relationship between having a healthy weight and having a healthy digestive system. For example, you need to consume enough fiber to support the healthy bacteria in your body that help you to digest what you eat.
Fast food doesn’t have much fiber, though, so it’s harder for your body to break down. This alone can contribute to weight gain, and your body breaking down food with very little fiber also spikes your blood sugar, intensifying your risk of developing diabetes.
Transfat leads to fat bellies
You may have heard transfat described in negative terms. There are many reasons for this. For example, this fat increases the bad cholesterol in your body, and it puts you at increased risk of heart disease and diabetes. To make things even worse, too much transfat keeps weight on your belly!
How does that work? Basically, transfat causes fat from other parts of your body to migrate to the belly. This is particularly bad if you are trying to shed pounds because it moves so much of the fat in your body to such a visible place.
RELATED: 8 Dangerous Fad Diets That You Should Never Try
Weight and your reproductive system
If you have a reproductive system, then you need to be particularly concerned about fast food. And that’s because this food can negatively affect your fertility, causing chaotic hormonal imbalances inside of you.
By itself, this can harm your chances of having a healthy baby, and that’s scary enough for would-be mothers. However, these hormonal imbalances also lead to your body gaining weight. Long story short? As tasty as that burger and fries is, eating too much fast food puts your future children at risk of birth defects and you at risk of no longer fitting into your jeans.
Rising risk of inflammation
Part of what makes fast food so bad for us is the way it’s prepared. For example, fast food is often prepared using unhealthy seed oil. And consuming this oil along with the other unhealthy ingredients inside fast food puts your body at enhanced risk of inflammation.
And your body treats inflammation (and especially chronic inflammation) as if you have a bacterial infection that needs to be fought off. This inflammation increases your insulin resistance, and this can cause you to gain weight. When you combine this with the fact that you are likelier to develop heart disease and diabetes, it becomes much easier to close the food delivery app and make some more meals at home.