Eat Lean, Eat Well

It’s not difficult to eat lean and healthfully at almost any restaurant chain—but you must be proactive. This means ordering from the “lighter fare” or “healthy choices” side of the menu—or, if these aren’t available, requesting a more diet-conscious preparation of the regular dishes, such as less salt and less added fat, and grilling and steaming rather than frying and sautéing. In the past, many of the so-called healthy meals offered by restaurants were pretty bad. I knew when I created this diet that it had to include a wide variety of foods so that boredom never has a chance to set it. Today, it isn’t necessary to trade “delicious” for “healthy.” You simply need to shift the balance in a healthier direction by eating more of the foods that fill you up with fewer calories and less of the foods that pack on the pounds. Sounds easy—and it is!

Just beware. The restaurant chains, with a few exceptions, don’t design their menus with healthy eating in mind. Quite the opposite: they load up most of the expensive dishes with fat, salt, and sugar because that’s what consumers are used to—and are willing to pay more for. You’ll certainly save money by ordering from the low-cal side of the menu in addition to saving yourself 40 to 50 percent of consumed calories. You’ll also get less saturated fat because the restaurants have to trim back on butter or vegetable shortenings to hit those advertised low-calorie limits. And you’ll find more vegetables on your plate, which are naturally low in calories. Don’t worry about leaving hungry. You won’t. Eating lean protein, healthier fats, and low-glycemic carbohydrates, such as beans and vegetables, will fill you up without overloading your system with unnecessary calories. You can even have seconds.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can gradually (and painlessly) eat well and still lose weight at today’s most popular chains. The listings and examples that follow represent only a portion of the healthy possibilities.

Battle of the Salads

The ideal diet for the fastest possible weight loss (and good health generally) features as many vegetables and fruits as you can eat. One of the easiest ways to load up on produce is to eat a salad with (or for) lunch or dinner. Or both. Unfortunately, quite a few of the fast-food outlets dish up salads that are higher in salt than just about anything on the main menu. They aren’t always so great on the fat and calories, either. Take Burger King’s Tender Crisp Salads. Those fried chicken strips served over greens drive the calorie count to more than 500 and the total fat to 22 grams. Eat a few of those “healthy” salads a week, and you’ll gain as much weight as you would if you stuck to the burgers and shakes.

There are some good (and good-tasting) salads to be found, and I highly recommend them. Just don’t ruin a good thing by slathering on the high-fat ranch, blue cheese, Thousand Island, or other creamy dressings. You’ll do better to stick with vinaigrette—or at least use as little of the other dressings as you can. Here’s a look at how the salads compare at the different chains.

Wienerschnitzel

You can now buy low-fat hot dogs in supermarkets, and it’s possible to get a reasonably lean dog in a take-out joint. Not easy, but possible.

I can’t bring myself to totally condemn hot dogs. Just about everyone loves them, and they’re less likely than their burger cousins to come slathered in mayo or other creamy, caloriedrenched dressings. Low-calorie? Nope. Low-fat? Nope. Good for you? Nope. But hey, life is short. What else are you going to eat on the Fourth of July! Here are their three best menu items.

Wendy’s

The fifth-largest restaurant chain, Wendy’s has done a pretty good job of catering to weight-conscious customers. Most of the menu items, as you’d expect from a burger chain, are devoted to the usual high-calorie, fat-drenched standards. The Big Bacon Classic, for example, boasts 580 calories and 29 grams of fat, nearly half of them saturated. Throw in a shake and you can pretty much count on blowing your calorie budget for the day. But Wendy’s, unlike many of the other fast-food chains, offers a good selection of healthier options. Here are five good choices from Wendy’s.

Taco Bell

You probably remember that cute Chihuahua with enormous ears that turned the advertising slogan “Yo quiero Taco Bell” into a cultural catchphrase. The pooch, like the Mexican-style fast-food restaurant itself, seemed to be everywhere. But judging from this corporate canine’s sleek profile, he probably wasn’t eating much from the hand that fed him.

The core Taco Bell menu, heavy on ground meat and cheese and low on vegetables, won’t do your health (or your weight) any good. That said, there are a few menu choices that fall within the good (if not great) zone. Example: Order the tacos “fresco” style—they dress them with salsa instead of cheese and sauce. Here are seven good choices from Taco Bell.

McDonald’s

It’s tougher to find items on the main menu at McDonald’s that promote real weight loss and general health. The Big Mac alone, which isn’t all that big compared to some of the other burger behemoths out there, delivers 560 calories. To its credit, McDonald’s has included quite a few non-burger meals on the menu. Unfortunately, these aren’t the things most people want to order. In the meantime, there are a few items that won’t blow your fat or calorie budget. Here are your best picks at Mickey D’s.

Sonic

While most fast-food chains have transformed themselves over the decades into sit-down restaurants, Sonic has stayed true to its drive-in roots. It’s the nation’s largest drive-in chain, with more than three thousand restaurants coast to coast.

You can easily order a meal at Sonic that packs in enough fat and calories to really sink your diet. (You don’t even have to walk to pick it up, since carhops deliver orders right to your window.) As with the other fast-food outlets, however, Sonic has made an effort to include some healthier choices. Here are your best menu picks at Sonic.

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Just about every weight-loss expert advises substituting chicken for beef. Chicken has less total fat—and much less saturated fat—than regular ground beef. But when you wrap any chicken in breading and submerge it in a deep-fat fryer, it becomes a Frankenbird. Not long ago, the Federal Trade Commission took KFC to task for claiming in advertisements that two Original Recipe chicken breasts had less fat than a Whopper and were therefore healthier. Turns out they were telling us a “whopper.” What the ads didn’t mention is that the chicken breasts have three times the trans fat and cholesterol and more than twice the sodium. Oops.

You can peel the skin off fried chicken and knock down the fat by about half—but who’s likely to do that? Fortunately, there are a few other things—but only a few—on the menu that can keep calories in a reasonable range. Here are your best choices at KFC.

Burger King

It’s the country’s second-largest burger chain, and the first to dish up a vegetarian burger—with reduced-fat mayo, no less. But hold the applause. Even though the Veggie Burger is a winner, with only 429 calories, the thrust of Burger King’s menu is decidedly toward bigger, more, and higher. The Double Whopper with Cheese hovers around 1,000 calories, with a knock-down 27 grams of saturated fat. The Old Fashioned Vanilla Milkshake is almost a meal by itself, with 700 calories and 41 grams of fat (26 of them the artery-clogging saturated kind).

To be fair, Burger King’s fat-and-calorie bombs aren’t any worse than the competitions’. They just seem to have more of them. There isn’t a lot on the BK menu that fits comfortably into any reasonable diet, but you can cherry-pick and find a few things that are more or less reasonable. Load up your sandwiches with onions, tomatoes, and lettuce, and you’ll push your vegetable and fiber intake in a healthier direction without adding substantially to the calories. Here are six good choices from BK.

Chicken Breast Filet at Arby's

It’s quite a bit higher in calories and total fat than the Regular Roast Beef, but it’s lower in saturated fat—good news if you’re trying to lower cholesterol and keep your heart in the safety zone. This sandwich comes with leaf lettuce and tomatoes, pushing your fresh veggie intake a little higher. Given the relatively high calories, you’ll want to eat a little leaner throughout the day. Vital stats: 500 calories, 25 grams total fat, 4 grams saturated fat.