[Note: From time to time, I post excerpts from my upcoming weight loss book The Weight Loss Habit: The No BS, No Gimmick, (Sort Of) Easy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever. This chapter about fast food and weight loss is slightly modified to account for the COVID-19 crisis.]
Edit:
The book is now available.
You’re Not a Bad Person If You Eat Fast Food
Fast food is the bogeyman of the health industry. From films like Supersize Me and books like Fast Food Nation, it’s often blamed for the obesity epidemic. It’s the shorthand and example of people eating terribly just because it’s convenient.
Obviously, if you’re regularly downing 1,400 calorie monster burgers along with 600 calorie large fries and an extra-large 350 calorie sugary soda, then topping it off with a 1,200 calorie milkshake, that’s not doing your health any favors.
All the people tut-tutting about fast food act like anyone who goes to McDonalds is a complete idiot. But there are excellent reasons to eat fast food. As its name implies, it’s fast. And convenient. If you’re a busy mother rushing to get your kids from school to practice to a recital to home before heading in to work at your second job, you don’t have time to make a home-cooked meal.
Plus, it tastes good.
Especially now, with the COVID crisis. Restaurants are closed, and it’s a dangerous ordeal to go to the grocery store. It’s nice to get a little cheap, convenient, and delicious variety in our food. Maybe fast food isn’t as convenient as usual, since you have to treat all the bags, containers, and wrappers as if they have cooties. But on the other hand, it’s an excuse to get out of the house.
How to East Fast Food and Lose Weight
Fortunately, there are healthy ways to eat fast food. You can enjoy the convenience and flavor without consuming 3,000+ calories a meal.
First of all, get a diet soda instead of a sugary soda. That saves you a bunch of calories for free. (Or during the Coronavirus quarantine, get no drink at all, because it’s probably not worth the hassle.)
Next, skip the milkshakes and french fries. Yes, I know these can be delicious. But you can’t expect to make fast food healthy without a bit of sacrifice.
Instead of fries, get a side-salad, which most fast food burger places will let you substitute into your meal at no extra cost. Be careful with the dressing for the salad. A lot of salad dressing is shockingly high in calories. (The full Weight Loss Habit book has an entire chapter about high-calorie “healthy” foods.) They typically give you the same size dressing packets for the side salad as for the large salads, so try to only use a small portion of the dressing they give you.
Most fast food places have smaller burgers/items, so get one of those. They taste the same as the large marquee items – there’s just less of them. So you get to enjoy the taste and convenience with fewer calories. (And as a bonus, you’ll save money.)
A lot of places also have meal salads with chicken. If you order one of those make sure to get it with grilled chicken rather than crispy chicken. And again, be careful about the dressing.
If you live somewhere that requires fast food places to post their calorie contents on the menu, finding low-calorie options is easy. If not, take a few minutes to go to your favorite chain’s website and look at the nutritional information to pick some out.
Alternatively, buy The Weight Loss Habit, which includes tables of healthy eating options at America’s top fast-food chains.
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