5 Surprising Food Items that Pile on the Weight

In matters of weight loss, the devil is in the calories. They're the smug little creatures that creep into the body through the meals we consume and tip the needle over on the scale when you check your weight. That being said, a meal may seem fattening but if consumed in small quantities, it could be perfectly harmless whereas a seemingly healthy food item could infact be the 'buzz killer' standing between you and your ideal weight goal.

For instance, a large plate of rice and assorted meat if consumed as a whole could pile on some serious calories, however if it's split across 2 or 3 different meal times, there's less calories which in turn makes it less fattening. However, if an entire carton of whole milk, a seemingly harmless food item, is consumed at once, the total number of calories could equal that of the rice and assorted meat.

Moral of the story: If for some reason your diet regimen does not seem to be working then its possible you may have been overdosing on calories in seemingly non-fattening food items. Note that said food items are not entirely fattening, it just means they have a surprisingly high amount of calories for their food class and so should be consumed in moderation.

So what are some of these calorie heavy food items that could be lurking around our kitchens? Here's 5 of such food items.

1. Nuts: Cashew nuts, groundnuts and other such nuts may appear quite harmless but in actual truth, those little guys contain a not-so-little amount of calories.for instance contains approximately 748.8 calories while a cup of groundnutscontains 836.6 calories. Comparatively, one bar of Snickers chocolate contains 273 calories, that's less than half of what 'harmless' cashew nuts contain. So before deciding to binge on nuts, you may want to consider the calorie implications.

2. Dried fruits: Dates and raisins are common examples of dried fruits found in these parts. One cup of raisins contains approximately 435 calories and 489.5 in the case of dates. Raisins are commonly used in making pastries like cake and bread and can also be found in yoghurt, chocolates and cereals which of course means that food items which contain raisins would have even more calories than they normally would. Now you know, ensure you're not erroneously piling on more calories than intended when you decide to have pastry treats.

3. Avocados: Though highly nutritious, avocados are also calorie heavy. A medium sizedfor instance contains about 306 calories while a large one contains about 322 calories. However, they contain plenty of vitamins and minerals like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat which are good for lowering bad cholesterol and good for the heart.

4. Bananas: Saying that bananas are nutritious would be stating the obvious, however just like in the case of avocados, bananas are calorie heavy fruits primarily because they are rich in carbohydrate. while a large one would have about 162 calories.

5. Coconuts: contains about 283.2 calories, that's a little more than can be gotten from a . Need we say more?