Baltimore’s Healthiest FAST Food

Who hasn’t pulled into a drive thru because they haven’t eaten all day; ate their meal while driving because they are running late for their next meeting, and still needs to figure out what they are going to do for dinner? Let’s face it, we can’t eat in every day, every meal, 24/7.  Who would want to anyways? Fast food isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Being able to know what to order is going to be key when trying to keep the waistline thin.

What really bothers me is all the marketing scams these restaurants are doing to mislead what is healthy and what is not.  Dunkin’ Donuts’ menu can be deceiving: a multigrain bagel sounds healthier than a donut, but add cream cheese and you’re looking at more calories than a Big Mac. A glazed donut has much fewer calories than the seemingly “healthy” items and all other donuts on the menu

Eating out can be a make or break when trying to lose weight.  Think about it, if you go to the gym 5 days a week and burn 500 calories every time…that is 2500 calories burned in a week (there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat).  Now, it is Saturday afternoon and you decide to go to Quiznos and order a Tuna Melt.   Eating this sandwich is the caloric equivalent to eating one whole bag of Chewy Chips Ahoy! Cookies, which makes it one of the absolute worst sandwiches in the country. Even if you order it without chips, you’re looking at 1740 calories and 27 grams of saturated fat. No thanks.

These past couple of weeks, I have been giving my clients “homework” I want to know where they eat out more frequently and what they usually order.  After a little research and some exploring of myself I came up with some popular places to eat in the Baltimore area and some “trainer approved” meals. The good news is what they told me they were eating, for the most part, seemed fairly healthy.  Consumers want to be able to go out and eat nutritious food, but what is actually nutritious is eye popping.  These are not okay to eat weekly, but when put in the situation, here are the best options.

Best Breakfast:

    * Starbucks Perfect Oatmeal with Nut Medley and Grande Americano-255 calories, 11.5g fat(1.5g saturated).
    * McDonald’s Egg McMuffin-300 cal, 12g fat (5g saturated)

Best Lunch:

    * Chipotle Grilled Steak Salad with Black Beans, Guac, and Green Salsa-485 calories,20.5 g fat (4 g saturated),41 g protein.
    * Quizno’s Roadhouse Steak Sammie-195 calories,4 g fat (1 g saturated)

Best Dinner

    * Chick-fil-A Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich with Medium Fruit Cup and Unsweetened Iced Tea

    * Baja Fresh Grilled Mahi Mahi Fish Tacos-(2 tacos)460 calories, 18 g fat (3 g saturated)

    * Outback Steakhouse Seared Ahi Tuna-325 calories, 21 g fat (2.5 g saturated)

    * Red Robin Natural Burger-570 calories, 25 g fat

If you would like more examples, check out a great book, Eat This, Not That

I would love to know your favorite places to eat! Where do you go and what do you usually order?  It takes only 1 minute to go online and search the nutrition menu.  I challenge you to do your own homework and find out what you are really eating before you head into the next drive thru.  If you are going for a healthy option, it pays to do your homework!

Posted in Healthiest Fast Food