Losing weight is more than just counting calories and exercise, for the most part, unless you are going to the theatre to watch a movie. One thing about our culture today is that carbohydrates dominate the theatre junk food or snack foods counter. To find healthy drinks at the theatre you need to look beyond the calorie laden drinks and hope for at least plain water. Weight loss or dieting is not something that happens in a vacuum and to truly lose weight you need to learn how to make healthy choices in not only restaurants and fast food resaurants but also in places like the movie theatre. An example of not being able to lose weight in the reality of everyday life can be demonstrated by merely counting calories on a simple night out at the movie theatre. Let us examine weight loss in the real world because that is the only place where one actually can lose weight.

Tonight, in just about an hour my wife and I are going to go see a movie at our local theatre. On our normal trip to the theatre we get some candy and also a large popcorn combo with the two large Pepsi© sodas. That is a normal night out at the show house. Let’s take a moment and look at how much “junk food ” we would put into our bodies and analyze the results. Let’s look at what our night out at the theatre would cost us in calories. We used to do this type of trip at least once every month.

My wife loves whoppers for her chocolate fix and I would choose chocolate twizzlers for my binge. Of course since we love one another we would share the candy evenly. We would pass the snacks in the dark ensuring that we were fair because this is what a happy couple does for one another. The sad part about this is that we were actually helping the other slowly kill themselves under the guise it was alright since we were at the movies.

Let us take a look at what we were actually consuming on our night out at the show.

The calorie content for my the 5 ounce box of whoppers© is 665 calories with 18 grams of saturated fat. The 12 ounce twizzlers© pack stored 1200 calories with 4 grams of saturated fat. The popcorn was the real show stopping eye popping event. In our theatre the consumer is the one who puts on the “butter” at a little station off to either side of the junk food stand. Before we go any further let us analyze the “butter” in theatres.

Ingredients of movie theatre “butter”: soybean oil, artificial butter flavoring, TBHQ and citric acid added to retard oxidation, colored with beta carotene. Tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ) is a white, crystalline solid having a characteristic odor. It is almost insoluble in water but very soluble in alcohol and ether. TBHQ is used to preserve various oils, fats and food items by retarding their oxidative deterioration. It is used in formulating varnish, lacquer, resins and oil field additives. It is used a fixative in perfumery to reduce the evaporation rate.

Now let us look at the definition of what real butter is…

Butter in the U.S. must be at least 80% butter fat, with the remainder made up of water and milk solids. Quality butters start with the best cream.

It is quite obvious that what a theatre calls “buttered” is legally questionable and should be avoided at all costs. Yes, eating butter is better that eating TBHQ and all the other processed gunk that is dumped into your snack of popcorn at the theatre.

Getting back to our night out at the movies, let us look at the rest of our caloric counting consumption. A large popcorn cooked up in coconut oil and splashed with the extra helping of “butter” will give you a caloric intake equivalent to eating 12 glazed ring doughnuts. That would be 2400 calories total and let us not forget the combined total of 36 grams of saturated fat. Also watch the “scientific” method the young lad uses when he literally pours the salt into the vat of prepopped corn.

Looking at the Pepsi which is the standard 64 ounce there is a whopping 800 calories with 216 grams of sugar. From my high school days I remember a gram is about the weight of a paper clip and no matter what you think that is a tremendous amount of sugar. If you think diet soda is your salvation please refer to our article on diet sodas to realize there it is no holy grail of weight loss in diet soda.

Let’s recap the night out…

Two boxes of candy divided by two equals 932 calories for each, my wife and I. The “buttered” popcorn gave each of us 1200 calories. The Pepsi© gave each of us 800 calories to add to our waistline. The sum total of our movie night out would mean we would each intake 2932 calories of junk food in our diet. That is more calories than you should eat in an entire day. Another point is these calories provide almost no nutritional value. They are “empty” calories. The overwhelming thought in all of this is after the movie we would stop and get a burger, fries and a Coke©. We won’t even compound that into this formula.

So, the next time you plan to snack at the movies plan your night well. The snack foods at the junk food stand are only advancing your date with diabetes, obesity or even death. Maybe you need to sneak in some healthy snack recipes on your own since they really do not offer any that are acceptable. Despite the fact the junk food was extremely unhealthy and the carbohydrates were fattening, the movie was great!

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