Fast food offerings to avoid, some may surprise you

*Stuck at a fast food outlet? Try to find one still offering salads like this one at Buona Beef in Chicago.*

Delish.com is out with its list of the highest calorie offerings at a variety of fast-food menus. Some of these may surprise you because they’re just massive orders of French fries, not entire meals, such as at Shack Shake’s Double Down Fries at 1,910 calories or Five Guys large fries at 1,310 calories.

Some are for times of day when you might not expect massive calorie intake, such as McDonald’s Big Breakfast with Hot Cakes at 1,340 calories (keep in mind we are supposed to eat around 2,000 calories a day to maintain weight).

Fast food outlets like McDonald’s have stopped trying to have even one healthy item, a salad, on its menus. So exercise care and look for places that still have a salad, but carry your own oil and vinegar as I do to avoid high calorie, high-salt, high-fat dressings.

March 12, 2025 0

Does eating heart-healthy mean losing weight? Duh!

LoseIt!, which I’ve used and endorsed, is getting into he spirit of February being National Heart Month with a piece about how eating heart-healthy can lead to weight loss.

*Counting the hours until I can have one of these again. And there’s the rub.*

The article, which you can read by clicking here, goes through the usual — the Mediterranean and DASH diets, both of which are big on veggies, olive oil and fiber. But then LoseIt! asks if eating healthy can lead to weight loss. This is an obvious question — the answer is — of course!

If your old diet is full of fried foods, desserts, sugary content, etc., and you stop eating all that, of course you’ll lose weight. It would be impossible to cram enough vegetables into your stomach to equal all those lost calories.

After my first stent in 2012, I changed my eating habits and lost 25 pounds over the next several months. I had simply stopped eating everything I enjoy. Junk food is called junk food for a reason, it’s loaded with calories.

Continue reading →

February 20, 2025 0

Sugar: the battle continues with new WHO guidance

Sugar has been the most difficult of the three food vices — sugar, fat and salt — for me to cut down on since my angioplasty. I find my food life without it hideously boring and old man-ish, so I’ve been eating more fruit to get it, despite warnings about the “bad” sugar in such things as grapes, for example.

Once my favorites, Hostess HoHos are off my diet today, but I will never forget them.

The first nutritionist I saw after my angioplasty in 2012 said to eat no more than 40 grams of sugar a day, either added to foods or in foods naturally (such as in fruit). I’ve found that level impossible. I’ve since read there is no recommended daily sugar allowance, even for healthy people. But a recent article on the World Health Organization talking about sugar does provide some new guidance — guidance which makes me extremely sad, unfortunately. Continue reading “Sugar: the battle continues with new WHO guidance” →

March 12, 2014 4