Most people know that fast food is bad for them, but you can't beat its price and convenience. With most everyone these days living a busy lifestyle, it can often be hard to find the time to actually cook healthy, nutritious food at home and so many people find themselves frequenting fast food restaurants more often than they would like. This is most often simply because they are hungry and don't have the time or energy to cook anything. If eating at these places on a regular basis is inevitable for you, it's important to know what the healthy options are so that you can lose weight and not gain it.
Some food options on fast food menus that are advertised as healthy are in actuality not much better than hamburgers and milkshakes. Make sure you check the nutrition facts of any of these places that you enjoy going to. The vast majority of them have nutrition information available online. Take a look at the nutrition data to see which options have the least calories, saturated fat, and sodium. A little advance planning will allow you to make the healthiest dietary choices when you have to get food from a drive-through.
One notorious offender is fast food salad. When you factor in the dressing, which is almost always a creamy dressing made out of soybean oil, there's usually enough saturated fat and sodium in a salad to make it on par with eating burgers or tacos. Worse still, most of these salads are made with crunchy iceberg lettuce, as many people find it more palatable than leafier lettuces like butter-leaf and romaine. Unfortunately, iceberg lettuce has little nutritional value in the way of vitamins and minerals, and it usually makes up most of the salads you can buy. When buying salads, omit the dressing and look for salads with a variety of ingredients such as corn and beans, which help to infuse more flavor and nutrition into the salad.
Fast food has also become synonymous with drinking soda. Try to get unsweetened tea or water to go with your meal to minimize the number of calories you are eating. This is a great way to offset the usually high amount of calories in the food you are eating and make the overall calorie content of your meals lower. Lowering the number of calories you take in on a daily basis will naturally lead to safe and steady weight loss.
With a little preparation, you can cook healthy food at home in advance so you always have something on hand, lessening the need to get something at a drive-through because you don't feel like cooking. When you do feel like cooking, cook large portions of healthy foods and don't eat them all - make sure you save some for later. Keep leftovers in the refrigerator ready to be reheated so that you always have something on hand to eat in the event that you don't feel like cooking and need something quick and easy to prepare. This will help reduce the number of times you find yourself eating fast food just because it's the only option for you, and will help you keep your weight under control.
Mike has been writing articles for a couple of years now. His latest passion is on Depression and Exercise [http://www.completehealthsense.com]. Come check out his site at www.completehealthsense.com [http://www.completehealthsense.com].
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