Nutrition & Health OnLine Magazine

What to do when Fast Food is the Only Choice

Shawn Sales

With many people on the run in today's society eating out is becoming more of the norm than the exception. Unfortunately many of the available food choices are less than perfect if you are trying to eat healthy. So what can you do to minimize the damage when your only choice is a fast food restaurant? Here are a few recommendations that can make a big difference when you have no other choice.

When eating at Burger King a bad choice for lunch would be a Double Whopper with Cheese and King Size French Fries. From this food choice you would have 1,190 calories and 97 grams of fat. If you were doing any type of aerobic activity such as walking on a treadmill at a normal pace and you weighed 150 pounds, you would have to walk 4 hours and 7 minutes to use the calories from this bad food choice. A better choice would be if you ordered a BK Broiler Chicken Sandwich without Mayonnaise, which would have only 370 calories and 9 grams of fat.

When eating at Arby's, if you ordered a Chicken Cordon Blue with a Chocolate Shake and Curly Fries you would have 1374 calories and 57 grams of fat. If you were doing aerobic activity like walking on a tread mill at a normal pace and you weighed 150 pounds, you would have to walk for 4 hours and 24 minutes to use the calories from this bad food choice. A better choice would be to order a Roast Chicken Deluxe Sandwich and a Garden Salad. From this choice you would have only 337 calories and 6.5 grams of fat.

When eating at McDonalds for breakfast, if you ordered a Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit with Hash Browns you would consume 670 calories and 40 grams of fat. If you were doing aerobic activity like walking on a treadmill at a normal pace and you weighed 150 pounds, you would have to walk for 2 hours and 4 minutes to expend the calories from this food choice. However, if you ordered 3 plain Hotcakes with an English Muffin for breakfast you would then get only 477 calories and 10 grams of fat.

A bad choice for lunch from McDonalds would be a Big Mac, Large Fries and a Chocolate Shake. From making this selection you would have 1,470 calories and 67 grams of fat. To use up this amount of calories from aerobic activity on a treadmill and you weighed 150 pounds you would have to walk for 4 hours and 53 minutes to use the calories from this food choice. However, if you ordered a Grilled Chicken Deluxe Plain without Mayonnaise and a Garden Salad with Fat Free Herb Vinegar you would have only 385 calories and 5 grams of fat.

A good rule of thumb before going to a restaurant is to eat Grapes or an Apple with a large glass of water. This will help to reduce your appetite when you get to the restaurant. And remember that foods that you order that say fat free can be deceiving. Any product may be fat free but may also be full of calories. Weather the food is fat free or not, the extra calories may eventually lead to weight gain. A helpful hint is that when eating out with a friend split the meal to help reduce your portion size and decrease the serving size of the food that you are eating. Also, remember when ordering a salad that some of the goodies that you may add to the salad can also greatly increase the amount of calories you are getting in the meal. If you add Croutons, Cheese and different types of dressing you could add several hundred calories to your Salad. This is also true with other dishes that you may order. If you ordered Pasta and added Meat Sauce and Cheese with Buttered Bread Sticks you may add hundreds of calories to your meal. Instead, order Tomato Sauce instead of Meat Sauce on your pasta and order Dry Bread Sticks instead of Wet Bread Sticks to keep your calorie total down.

Finally, don't be afraid of the old fashioned habit of packing your lunch. While many people in today's society are always in a rush and do not have time to pack their lunch the night before work, take time out on the weekends to prepare meals. Allocate time on the weekend to prepare meals such as Chicken Breast and Steamed Vegetables. You can cook, prepare and store these meals in Tupper Ware dishes for the week. Advanced meal planning can help reduce your caloric intake during the week.

If you can add some of these simple changes to your meal planning during the week, you may be able to reduce your calorie intake by at least 200 calories from each meal. While this may not seem like a lot, this would be a reduction of 600 calories a day and 4200 calories in a week. This would be a weight loss of 1.2 pounds per week. Over the course of 3 month's this would be a 14.4-pound weight loss.

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