The key to successful long-term weight loss is not to totally avoid things, like whole food groups espoused by diets like Atkins, Paleo, similar fad diets, or even fast food. The key is to find ways to incorporate all kinds of foods that you enjoy into your everyday diet. In other words, find the right balance.
To help you incorporate fast food into a healthier eating lifestyle, here are our top 5 tips.
Tip 1: Downsize
Portion control is one of the most important things to get right in our diet, particularly if we want to lose weight and maintain healthy new body weight.
In the context of fast food, that means ordering smaller serves of things like French fries, Coke, and even hamburgers.
Never be tempted by the upgrade to a larger size for only $0.50 offers. Once you start eating larger serves, it’s hard to go back.
Tip 2: Be Mindful Of High-Calorie Extras
Extras come in many forms, like cheese, bacon, and even mayo. Just go into any Subway Sandwich franchise and watch people take a relatively healthy meat and salad sandwich and turn it into the equivalent of a large pizza by adding cheeses and bacon and high-fat condiments.
Many fast-food restaurants, like McDonald's, now offer salads. Don’t kid yourself that you’re supporting your weight loss ambitions if you order a salad and then pile high-calorie extras on top of it.
Tip 3: Be Very Careful With Pizza
Pizza is one of the trickiest fast foods to incorporate into a healthy diet.
This is because there are huge variations in different pizzas and because it’s so hard to stop at one or two slices.
The calories in pizza vary greatly depending upon the diameter of the pizza, the thickness of its base, and of course, the toppings on it. Even vegetarian pizzas can be loaded with calories, and you might not know it.
If you really enjoy pizza and want to incorporate it into your diet, but you also want to shed some pounds, try:
Eating pizza less frequently, once or twice a month instead of once a week.
Choose thin bases over think-based.
Avoid ‘Stuffed Crusts’ with things like cheese and sausage baked into the crust.
Ask for ½ the amount of normal cheese or ask for low-fat cheeses
Prioritize vegetable toppings over meat toppings
Have only one or two slices instead of 5 or 6
Don’t wash down the pizza with a large Coke
Don’t have garlic bread or chicken wings as an entrée
Tip 4: Don’t Assume That Chicken or Fish Are Lower In Calories
There’s no doubt that lean chicken and fish cooked the right way can be better choices than many other fast food options when you’re trying to lose weight, but not always.
If fish has been coated in batter and chicken covered in a breadcrumb mix, with ham and cheese on top, and both deep-fried, chances are they’re not a better choice.
If they’re both served naked and grilled, steamed, or roasted (without added oils), both fish and lean chicken breast are great healthy food and weight loss diet options.
Tip 5: Be Wary of Liquid Calories
It’s amazing how many people don’t factor in the calories consumed in drinks with their meals.
Largely serves sodas can add lots of calories to a meal that’s already relatively high in calories if you’re not careful.
As with some of the other tips, the key to minimizing this is ordering smaller serves, having diet versions of drinks, like diet coke, or drinking something else, like water. Some people find water boring, but it has zero calories.
Be careful of taking away smoothies and juices too. You may think you're doing the right thing ordering these instead of soda or other drinks, but these can have loads of calories and loads of sugar. Again, ordering the right serving size (small) is the key to choosing well.
Conclusion
Avoiding fast food in today’s world is almost impossible. And if you’re smart, you don’t have to avoid fast food totally, and you can still lose weight. Just follow these great tips.
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