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The following tips are general ideas for better nutrition. As always, any diet or exercise should be undertaken with the advice of a licensed physician. Your needs and experiences may vary.
The first thing people often think about (and sometimes dread) when it comes to improving their diet is giving up the convenience and flavor they find at their favorite fast food restaurants. But fast food can actually be a good place to start when it comes to improving our health. Sugary soft drinks can lead to diabetes. French fries are drenched in salt. Red meat is linked to high cholesterol and other problems. So whatever your reasons, if you want to improve your diet, either to cut down on these things or lose weight, it stands to reason that removing fast food from the diet equation entirely is the best option—right?
It’s a good idea. But you don’t have to cut your favorite restaurants out cold turkey. Here’s how you can improve your diet and enjoy the occasional #3 combo.
Step 1: Get mindful about what you’re eating. Use a food-logging tool
Before you make any changes to your diet, it’s important to have an understanding of the baseline—to see where you’re coming from and what your current habits are. If you have a smartphone, you can download an application to track your meals. Many are free and often include barcode scanners and databases full of restaurant foods to remove the guesswork from your logging. Our personal favorite is MyFitnessPal because it’s been around for a long time, and the free version is really robust. Many of them often sync pretty effortlessly with fitness trackers too.
For the first few days, don’t worry about adjusting your intake. Just log what you eat, as close to when you eat it as possible. If fast food is a fixture in your life, you’ll probably notice something: calories from these places tend to add up fast. Really fast. That’s why logging everything and being honest is vital.
Once you’ve logged your food for a few days and have an understanding of how much you’re eating, you’ll be ready to make adjustments. Many people use this as a first step to start “CICO,” or “Calories in, Calories Out,” as a way to lose weight. It’s basically making an adjustment to how many calories they eat during a single day versus how many they use compared with the recommended daily guidelines.
Step 2: Learn to like water or diet soda
The first thing to remove from your fast food order is sugary soft drinks. You can do this by simply substituting water or diet soda for your regular soft drink of choice. Most soft drinks add at least 200 calories to your meal—empty calories, with pretty much no nutritional value. There are probably concerns with diet soda—namely the taste, but also artificial sweeteners—but upping your water intake is generally considered a good thing. And when in doubt, there’s always unsweetened tea.
Step 3: Find nutrition tables for your restaurant of choice
Most restaurant chains offer nutritional information on their websites, so it’s easy to look this information up before your visit in order to plan out what you’re going to eat. The nutritional information listed on the drive-thru menu is usually vague at best, so don’t count on being able to review this information when you order. Plus, if you know exactly what you want before you get in line, the people behind you will appreciate the shorter wait.
Step 4: Use the information to make changes to your diet
This is likely the hardest part of the process. A big part of improving your health is starting the habit of ordering different food—and less of it—at the restaurant. Instead of ordering a numbered combo meal, order each item individually. If you want french fries, get a small order instead of a medium. For things like cheeseburgers, opt for a single patty instead of the double. See if the restaurant offers chicken nuggets or strips in smaller portions than what is offered in the regular meal. And when all else fails, order a kid’s meal.
But what about salads, you might ask? The problem is that many fast food salads still come with dressing and cheese that add hundreds of calories to your meal. However, some places do offer salads that taste great with minimal dressing, and these can be just as good as ones you could make at home. Combined with careful, consistent logging and mindful ordering, these changes can shave hundreds of calories from your order.
Build the habit until it’s a lifestyle change
The biggest thing to keep in mind is that it all starts with a small change, one as simple as ordering a different drink at lunch or dinner and holding off on getting cookies at your favorite sandwich place. Once you fall into a rhythm of ordering differently at fast food restaurants, it becomes much easier to sustain. It’s relatively painless log your meals, and doing so daily can help you keep the routine of healthier eating going. You can work up to increased exercise or even cooking more at home later down the road. And keeping that momentum going is one of the biggest pieces of building a healthier, better lifestyle.
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