Why fast food makes you fat

I've been thinking quite a bit about how simple this diet and losing weight thing really is. We're all here on MFP for many reasons but using the app comes down to simply counting calories. Is it really this simple? We just figure out how many calories we need a day and then we subtract that from the calories we eat. If the number is a negative we should lose weight.

Then I was thinking about the calories I eat. Why do I eat these? For energy of course. I need this food for energy that I used during the day. Calories are simply energy. So what does energy have to do with my weight? Do you remember Einstein's Theory of General Relativity?



E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light. I'm not the best with math but it's really obvious that if we subtract energy from one side then we'll have to lose mass on the other side. It's just that simple. Less energy = less mass on my body.

There was however one small thing that kept bugging me about this. Do I need to worry about the speed of light part of this equation. Initially I thought it didn't matter because we're not catching food at the speed of light. If we did it would result in a huge increase of mass when we stopped it.

That's when it all clicked in my head. Fast food!



Whenever we run out and grab fast food the extra energy from the speed of the fast food is transferred to us and results in us having more mass. Remember, energy = mass. Since the food isn't moving at the speed of light it doesn't make an instant difference but the little bit of extra speed we get from fast food will result in you obtaining more calories than you thought.

I haven't worked out an actual formula yet but I plan on testing this out. I'll eat fast food for a couple of weeks and see how many extra pounds I gain if I keep the calories the same. That should give me an idea of what % of calories I need to add to fast food items to get the real amount of energy that it gives us. This could be slightly offset if we grab the fast food in a car through the drive thru. I'll have to split this up and see if that makes a difference and I might test this out with delivery pizza since the drivers often speed to bring it to you.

Back when people used to take horses or walk to a store to get food we were all slimmer and more healthy. A slower lifestyle seems to have a very real effect on the amount of energy you intake. Perhaps this should be considered with microwaveable meals too? The atoms in the food are excited by the microwave and that means extra energy for your body when you eat it. I'm pretty sure that the fast food industry knows about this effect and they're trying to hide the fact that you obtain more energy than the listed calories when you eat fast food.