Take the Guesswork out of Fast Food

Appetizer

Eat at McDonald’s® MORE often. Considering that Super Size Me is one of my favorite movies (a documentary of how a steady diet of McDonald’s food completely destroyed a man’s health), I never thought I would say that, but there’s a first time for everything. Participating locations of the Golden Arches are running a promotion – Buy any Premium Salad (Chicken Caesar, Bacon Ranch, Fruit & Walnut, or Asian Salad) and a bottled water, and receive a Yourself®!Fitness DVD with a 15 minute Yoga, Cardio, Core, or Strength workout. Ronald is finally catching on!

In an effort to combat all of the negative press that fast-food joints have received lately due to their contribution to America’s obesity epidemic, many of them are trying to lessen the blow and help us out by providing nutritional information online. While this still doesn’t excuse them from offering and advertising a constant flow of addictive, artery-clogging junk, it’s at least a step in the right direction. Here’s info on a few of the best ones:

McDonald’s (Bag a McMeal)®: Allows you to actually create your own meal by selecting from their entire menu, and then it spits out the nutrition facts for your choices. This is especially helpful in helping you figure out the worst culprits and putting together a sensible choice when fast-food is the only thing you have time to grab.

Arby’s® Nutrition Calculator: Not quite as user-friendly as Mickey D’s, but it’s just as effective. Wow! Some of the information provided on this site really shocked me. I mistakenly thought that Arby’s was one of the healthiest fast-food restaurants, but boy was I wrong. The meal that I picked at Arby’s actually had more calories from fat and saturated fat than the one I picked at McDonald’s. That’s scary!

Taco Bell ® Nutrition Calculator: Hmmmm…very interesting. This is not a place I would have chosen to eat, but I was able to find some things that I wouldn’t be ashamed to eat that taste yummy too. It works much like Arby’s program, and it too allows you to select certain items for your “tray” before it calculates.

Subway ® Nutrition Information: They do provide nutrition info for all menu items, but this was by far the worst site because it’s just a list – not interactive at all. So, in order to see what my nutrition info would be for a 6-inch turkey sub AND chips AND a drink, I would have to write down (or print) the info from the sandwich page and then from the chips page, etc.


Dessert

I have a crazy obsession with Hollywood gossip. I know that it's shallow, stupid, meaningless, blah, blah, blah, but there is absolutely nothing that can beat an evening at home on the couch with some hot tea and a stack of People, Us Weekly, Star, etc. Let's just call it a fat-free, lo-cal, no guilt pleasure! The problem is that after looking at pictures of these ultra skinny gals day in and day out, I’ve started to get a little mentally warped, and I spent today snapping myself back into reality.

Last year, Oprah interviewed Renee Zellweger after she lost all of the weight she put on for Bridget Jones Diary II, and one of them said something like, “Regular people think we’re so lucky because we (famous people) have personal chefs to cook us healthy meals and personal trainers to keep us fit, but we still have to eat the right foods, and we still have to get up and answer the door when the trainer comes over.” All I have to say to that is “WHATEVER, Girlfriend!”


Let me tell you this…If I had a live-in cook to fix yummy, healthy foods that I like for breakfast, lunch & dinner PLUS a top-notch trainer who showed up at my house to work me out in my state-of-the-art home gym every morning, I would be a Diva-in-Training…for real.

But until then, I’ll just stick with my local gym dues, my frozen dinners, and my non-Oscar-worthy physique…and love it!


About Cafe Physique:
The mission of Café Physique is to help clients reach and exceed their personal fitness and nutrition goals. If you’re in need of an a nutritionist in Atlanta or an Atlanta personal trainer – Café Physique is the perfect solution. We offer Atlanta yoga instruction, Atlanta prenatal workouts, and Atlanta personal training. We also have private sessions of pilates that Atlanta residents are raving about. We invite you to let a member of our Atlanta registered dietitian staff or personal training team develop and implement a realistic and healthy lifestyle plan to meet your personal goals.