How to eat smart at Fast Food Restaurants?

Fast food restaurants are probably the most accessible approach whenever you hear your stomach growling. However, we are all aware of the fact that regular eating of fast foods like pizzas, burgers or even soft drinks, can effortlessly hurt our weight regimes and goals. Here are the ways with which you can fulfil your gastronomic desires and yet stay happy without letting your inches suffer:

Start with a salad

Fibre rich salads full of veggies, not only frees you from your ever craving gastronomic fetishes, but also allows you to meet your daily dietary requirements, including essential vitamins and minerals. If you are a non-vegetarian, then salad recipes with chicken as the main ingredient (that must be either grilled or boiled) have enough protein content which helps you to lean down in no time. Additionally, such tingling salads excites your taste buds much alike a fatty burger – but without that guilt feeling of getting fat!

Checking on sauces and dips

Did you know that engulfing a single portion of a French fry bathed in a regular cheesy dip, would cost you about 30 calories! And when you eat the whole combo, you would be probably eating a whole meal diet, that too full of fats and carbs! Tomato sauce or mint chutney has significantly lesser calories than a mayonnaise or a cheesy dip. Though it tastes better, it’s best to avoid sauces and dips as they not only add on to unnecessary extra calories, but are also stale enough to be consumed.

Would you like some ‘Extra Cheese’? – Say No!

Getting that extra cheese slice for your burger or ordering for cheese burst pizzas is obviously enthralling, but the pain of shedding them off, can make you weep. So, it’s best to avoid such instances of momentarily pleasures.

Check the contents

Your fast food recipe mustn’t be highly processed and loaded with excessive fats, carbs, added sugar and salt.

• Beverage intake causes a spike in your blood sugar level which can alter the normal insulin response of your body and thus contribute to type 2 or insulin resistance diabetes. They also add up to extra calories (about 300 calories in a medium portion of Strawberry Shake) and hence extra weight.
• Always pick fast foods made of whole wheat/rice and never the ones that are made up of refined flour.
• Too much sodium (from salt) results in retaining of water, which gives you a puffy appearance and lets your BP go high. It also increases the risk of kidney and heart diseases. A recent study by Public Health Nutrition showed that habitual fast food eaters are much likely to get depression and a retarded memory.