How Bad Are Hamburgers Really for Weight Gain?

Hamburgers are irresistible. While it is true that hamburgers are good sources of protein, Vitamin B12, and iron, they also come with lots of problems. According to nutrition experts, the problems lie in the heavy content of calories, fat, and excess sodium, courtesy of its fatty meat, sweet ketchup, and buns.  Just look at how much the average American loves burgers (hat tip Illuminating Facts):

Burger Consumption in the United States

When it comes to your weight gain, binging on hamburgers can be really disastrous.

A single hamburger is packed with 500 calories, 10 grams of sugar, 1,000 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of saturated fat, and 40 grams of carbohydrates.

After few minutes of devouring a single hamburger, you will experience a huge increase in glucose, triggering the release of insulin in your body. This makes you feel like eating again. If you keep doing this, then the risk of weight gain and diabetes is high. Whether you check a hamburger guide or not, you will find that it is loaded with the same fats, sugar, and sodium.

The CDC maintained that heart disease claims the lives of about 647,000 Americans annually. While the National Institutes of Health said that eating red meat every day can really bring a harmful effect to our body.

Man offering a hamburger

When we consumed a single hamburger, this signals our body to the building up of a chemical called Trimethylamine N-oxide during the digestive process. The building up of this chemical will lead to another increased cholesterol build-up along our artery walls which will contribute to heart disease later in life.

In terms of weight gain, eating hamburgers bring an equally devastating impact to your body.

Burger patties

The saturated fats found in the hamburger can cause white adipose tissue or fat tissue inflammation. This white fat tissue stores energy instead of burning energy like brown fat cells do.

According to a review in the journal Expert Review of Cardiovascular Therapy, your fat cells continue to enlarge because of daily burger consumption. The saturated fat intakes will also continue to increase, leading to the release of “pro-inflammatory agents” that leads to weight gain.

In the American diet, hamburgers are one of the top sources of saturated fat. Eventually, taking excessive saturated fats and calories can bring stress to cells.

Having a meal high in saturated fats naturally brings harm to your health. Not to mention, the high amount of sodium can have a negative impact on the blood vessel.

While others say that eating hamburgers daily seemed to have worked out for them, it doesn’t mean it will be applicable for everyone.

Hamburger

Without knowing the long-term effects of consuming hamburgers every day, this will make you believe hamburgers are nutritious food. But actually, hamburgers are harmful kinds of food.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also reported that processed meat is a carcinogen and red meat found in hamburgers likely causes cancer.

To avoid weight gain, you should be extra conscious of what to eat. Aside from choosing nutritious foods, cutting calories, and getting regular exercise, it is also important to keep your eye on what you have stored in your kitchen.

Pay attention to the foods that are helpful to maintain a good waistline. Think twice about diet-sabotaging junk foods at home. They may look harmless outside but deep inside they become the source of slowing down your metabolism that naturally lead you to difficulty in losing weight.

Some other worst foods that contribute to weight gain

Potato Chips

Woman eating chips

Potato chips are fattening. Potato chips may look like harmless food in your kitchen but they are loaded with dangerous levels of sodium. According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, potato chips are highly associated with weight gain over four years.

French Fries

Fries

French fries bring an extra 3.35 pounds of weight gain. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, added that “the venerable baked potato increases levels of blood sugar and insulin more quickly and to higher levels than an equal amount of calories from pure table sugar.

The highly processed French fries also come with a carcinogenic chemical compound called acrylamide, which is linked to abdominal obesity.

Soda

Soda drinks

Sodas commonly carried high-fructose corn syrup. This syrup can contribute a lot to weight gain compared to ordinary table sugar. In a study with rats, the result yielded that rats who ate other types of sugar got less weight compared to when they consumed high-fructose corn syrup. Thus, it is better to drink water or coffee, tea, and smoothies instead of soda beverages when you feel like hydrating yourself.

White Bread

White bread

White bread is also highly refined. This makes it an enemy if you are working to lower your belly fat. Eating highly refined bread can lead to increase visceral fat deposits in your belly. As a healthy alternative, you can pick whole food with wheat flour or almond flour. 

Refined Pasta

Refined Pasta

Refine pasta, compared to whole grain pasta, is dangerous to your expanding waistline. With refined pasta, fiber and other nutrients were removed in the process. Not to mention, when you eat pasta, it is also accompanied by sauces which are equally loaded with sugar and sodium.

Crackers

Crackers

Crackers are empty of heart-healthy fiber. The refined grain in crackers is also devoid of valuable nutrients.

Pancakes

Pancakes

Pancakes are usually made with low-nutrient-density ingredients. More, when it goes with syrup and more butter, pancakes could wreak havoc to your weight loss diet plan.