When it comes to dieting, it is far easier to diet if you never eat out, but eating out is a part of life. People love to eat out on special occasions; they also have to eat out sometimes because they work outside of the home for hours and do not always have time to prepare lunch the night before. Others simply may not know how to cook at all, so they only eat out. On the other hand, there are people who simply love some fast food restaurants because they are convenient, fast, and flavorful.
Personally, I do not have time to cook most days, or I simply will not feel like it, so fast food is an easy, convenient, and inexpensive option for me. When dieting and trying to lose weight though, fast food can be one of the worst things that you do for your body.
Fast food can taste good, but it is sometimes loaded down with chemicals and bad oils that have been used repeatedly, so it can be loaded with free radicals and bad fats. Not all fast food restaurants were created equal though. There are some fast food restaurants that are very diet-friendly and will even help you lose weight. The problem is, with so many fast food restaurants out there, which ones are diet-friendly? I will teach you this today.
Top 5 Best Fast Food Restaurants For Dieters
Taco Bell
I am a huge fan of Taco Bell. Whenever I know I will be out for hours and have to buy food quickly, I start hunting for a nearby Taco Bell on my GPS. Like the better fast food restaurants, Taco Bell has a whole secret diet menu. I say secret because the diet menu is not on their menu at their fast food locations. You have to look it up online and order it when you go to Taco Bell.
Taco Bell’s diet menu has tacos that are as low as 140 and 160 calories each called “fresco tacos”. You can get fresco tacos crunchy or soft. Taco Bell also has a bowl similar to a Chipotle Bowl that is less than 500 calories called a “power bowl”; you can get this bowl with only veggies or with chicken or steak.
“In fact, as stated by Taco Bell itself, 75% of the menu is under 500 calories. Your favorites can also be made healthier by ordering them “fresco style,” which substitutes fresh pico de gallo in place of cheese, sour cream, mayo-based sauces, and guac. Taco Bell even has a menu specifically catered to vegetarians, so if reducing your meat consumption is one of your goals, it’ll be easy at your local T-Bell” (“The 9 Healthiest Dishes at Taco Bell”, Kat Thompson, thrillist.com).
Chipotle
Dieters and non-dieters alike love Chipotle. I am definitely a big fan of it. It is a simple, fresh, quick, healthy good meal. Chipotle, like Taco Bell, is very smart. They have a nutrition calculator on their website that lets you count the calories in a burrito, burrito bowl, taco, salad, or quesadilla. They also have the calories in their kid’s meals, sides, and drinks.
The best thing about Chipotle is that they allow you to create lifestyle bowls. These lifestyle bowls are made to fall in line with different diets and eating lifestyles. The lifestyle bowls that they have are the vegan bowl, vegetarian bowl, and a bowl that follows the paleolithic diet (paleo for short) and the ketogenic diet (keto for short). On the Chipotle website, all you do is click on the lifestyle bowl that you want, and it tells you what is in it, as well as the number of calories, fat, protein, and carbohydrates in it. You can go to any Chipotle location and order a lifestyle bowl.
Using Chipotle’s nutrition calculator, you can customize your meals by selecting your preferences at the top of their website; for preferences, you can select vegetarian, vegan, gluten, sulphites, soy, or dairy. When you click on the meal that you want, it will mark which food items have soy, dairy, gluten, and sulphites in them, as well as which food items are vegan and vegetarian. So, Chipotle accommodates meat-eaters, vegetarians, and vegans, which is unusual for most restaurants, let alone fast food restaurants.
A Chipotle bowl for me, even with rice, is usually only around 625 calories, and one Chipotle bowl usually can be eaten for two meals, especially if I drink water, tea, or coffee with it. So essentially, in one meal, my Chipotle bowl is only around 312 calories.
Popeyes
A lot of you will think I am crazy to add Popeyes to this list, but there is a secret menu that you do not know about. My sister, who is very weight conscientious, never even knew about it. Like Taco Bell, Popeyes has diet-friendly menu items that they do not have on the menu in their fast food restaurant, so you will have to look it up online in order to find out about it.
Popeyes has fried food, which many of you may be avoiding, but they also have secret menu items that taste amazing and are very low-calorie. They have what they call “blackened tenders” that are fried, but they are not breaded, battered, or greasy, and they are cooked with many spices and herbs so that they are very flavorful and delicious. Every Popeyes is a little different with how they make them. Some put too little spices on them, but others put a lot of spices on them and they taste great! You can also order “naked tenders”, which are similar to the blackened tenders, but without any seasoning on them. Naked tenders are not even on Popeye’s online menu, so it is also one of Popeyes’ best-kept secrets.
Popeyes’ blackened tenders are only 170 calories for 3 pieces, and they are fillets, not small chicken tenders, so it is a very low-calorie filling delicious meal! I absolutely love their blackened tenders! Every time I go to Popeyes I order them, so if you are against fast food, try this, I think it will change your mind.
Qdoba
I discovered Qdoba before Chipotle. It was my go-to place when I was a teen. I still like it, but it is far easier to find a Chipotle than a Qdoba. When I tasted Qdoba again recently, I did feel that Chipotle is higher quality than Qdoba, but I tried it during the COVID Pandemic, so of course, food quality has gone down everywhere because many workers have fallen ill. So I definitely intend to try Qdoba again once the Pandemic improves.
What I like at Qdoba are their bowls, which are similar in calories to a Chipotle bowl, though their meats are a few calories higher than Chipotle. A downside to Qdoba is how their calories are not easy to find on their website and they do not have a nutrition calculator to make it easy to calculate the calories in your meals. You have to look at Qdoba’s nutrition pdf and take time calculating everything by hand to figure out how many calories your meal will be, which is of course inconvenient. Other than that though, Qdoba’s bowls are similar to Chipotle so it is still a diet-friendly option.
If you want to calculate the calories in a meal at Qdoba based on your preferences, here is their nutrition menu PDF: Qdoba Mexican Eats Nutrition Facts 2020.
Chick-Fil-A
Chick-Fil-A is very popular in some areas more than others. Where I live, there are many Chick-Fil-As, but I think people here in the DMV area tend to prefer places like Chipotle. Chick-Fil-A is far better than McDonald’s in terms of the health and calories of their sandwiches. McDonald’s has some sandwiches that are obscene in terms of calories, whereas Chick-Fil-A has several low-calorie sandwich options.
At Chick-Fil-A, you can get a meal that is as low as 130 calories. The reason for this is because Chick-Fil-A has grilled chicken options that are 130 calories for nuggets or 320 calories for a grilled sandwich. You can also get low-calorie chicken tenders at Chick-Fil-A like at Popeyes, as well as a low-calorie chicken wrap. The highest calorie sandwich at Chick-Fil-A is only 550 calories, which is a far cry from McDonald’s double quarter pounder with cheese which is 740 calories for one sandwich. So Chick-Fil-A is definitely a better option for those trying to lose weight or diet who love sandwiches.
What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
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