Calorie Apocalypse Dinner
Can you gainΒ 1 – 2 pounds of fat from eating a single meal? Yes, you can. You just have to make the right, er, wrong choices.
How Many Calories Can You Get?
Let’s go on a journey into a caloric dreamland. Or nightmare, depending on your perspective: how many calories could you potentially consume if you picked the worst (or best, perspective again) US restaurant chains had to offer and combined it all into a single dinner?
Have a look at what we can get if we make an effort:
Starter: Chili’s Honey Chipotle Crispers With Chipotle Sauce – 2,040 kcal
For the starter we head to Chili’s, who offer the delicious Honey Chipotle Crispers with a sauce of the same name. If you are the average woman, whose daily calorie allowance to maintain weight is around 2,000 kcal, you just now had your entire share. But we, quite literally, have just started, so you better don’t think you get out of this before we had the last gulps from our shakes!
Drink: Baskin Robbins Heath Bar Shake – 2,310 kcal
Because after those Crispers you of course will probably develop quite a thirst. Let’s get something at Baskin Robbins to flush it all down with, as they have the Heath Bar Shake, that some might consider a meal on its own. Actually it’s two, no, three meals on its own.
Main Course: Romano Macaroni Grill’s Spaghetti And Meat Balls With Meat Sauce – 2,430 kcal
Ah, the Mediterranean diet! Everyone says it’s healthy, so what can go wrong when we trust ourselves to the people at Romano Macaroni’s? With their meat ball spaghetti (in meat ball sauce) the average male can fulfill his daily caloric requirements (app. 2,400 kcal) in one sitting. But of course you already had the Chipotle Crispers!
Dessert: Dairy Queen’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard – 1,320 kcal
Make room, because you still had no dessert! And here comes Dairy Queen’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard, who I suggest should be renamed to “Thermonuclear Caloric Warfare”. A dream in everything that’s sweet and tasty, even coming with its own fan club.
Grand Total: 8,100 kcal
Let’s recap: If you are an average man of normal weight, you need about 2,400 kcal per day and for the average woman it’s 2,000.
To gain one pound of weight, you need to consume 3,500 kcal on top of what you need to keep your weight steady. Taking that average male and his 2,400 kcal as an example, he would have eaten an extra 5,700 kcal beside what was needed for weight maintenance. This translates into about 1 1/2 lbs of gained body fat from one single meal.
Of course, this “sample” dinner is not meant quite seriously. Who in their right mind would trudge four different fast food places to get the maximum amount of calories together (at least I hope you don’t). But imagine how many extra calories you consume per week if you regularly visit these places, whose other menu choices aren’t exactly lightweight either.
If you know fast food choices with even more calories, let me know. Maybe we can even break the caloric barrier at 10,000 kcal.
Pictures courtesy of “Krista” and Tim Walker.
10 Comments
EC, it amazes me how restaurants can pack in more than a daily caloric allowance into a single item like that Baskin-Robbins shake! Have you heard about the Heart Attack Grille? They have gone out of their way to market their menu as the highest caloric content in the country.
How could I forget them! I’ll head right over and check if we can push things past 10,000 kcal π
yikes! 10k kcal π
Reach for the stars! π
I believe shakes, in general, are nutritional suicide. They are nothing but sugar and fat, and it is rare to find a shake less than 500 calories!
Yep, and fluids pass through the body especially quickly, which means shakes can bring in a ton of calories, but won’t keep you satiated for long.
If I ever lose too much weight, I know where to go!
Haha, yes.
Obesity is NOT a simple condition of eating too much. Body fat is PROTECTED and DEFENDED by INVOLUNTARY compensatory mechanisms and biological safeguards that do not control.
“Our research clearly shows that the body has a mind completely of its own regarding weight.”
Dr. Leibel was very thorough. He has looked at this for many years and ran it back and forth many times. The body does NOT adjust to a chronically weight reduced state. The effect PERSISTS the rest of your life.
Programs such as YOURS ( e.g. commercial weight loss scammers) DOOM people to regain VIA the INVOLUNTARY mechanisms that kick in- including greatly increased chemo-mechanical efficiency on the muscles. Once this happens you’re doomed.
Weight regain is BIOLOGICAL.
This IS bad news. But, from it, there will EVENTUALLY be obesity treatments. YOU are a salesmen scammer who is poorly read about this topic.
Quite interesting, as I sell… nothing π