A huge misconception within the fitness world is that you cannot ever enjoy yourself on your fitness journey.
If you never allow yourself a treat, to go out with friends, or to enjoy a dinner at a nice restaurant, then you will most likely not be able to stick to your diet plan. The chances of failure are much higher.
As we all know, consistency within your diet and exercise plan is key to seeing results. However, you can 100% treat yourself from time to time. In fact, you may even be able to fit fast food into your diet plan! Of course, you probably just can’t eat a lot of it.
For those of you who have been following my other articles, I have shown you how to set up a proper diet and nutritional plan. If you use your best common sense and do your research you can eat fast food on a diet.
Anyways, are you here because you want to know how to eat fast food on a diet? Do you think it’s possible? Let’s find out.
Before You Eat Fast Food
There are a few important things you’ll want to do before you go to a restaurant.
1. Research Online
Before you go out to your favorite restaurant, be sure to do your research.
More times than not, you can find the nutritional information for a restaurant online. If so, you can easily plan what you are going to eat as to fit it within the amount of calories you want to eat this day. It may not exactly fit into your macros, but if your goal is to lose weight, the most important thing is that you stay under your calorie limit.
For example, I know that when I go to a steakhouse in my town, I will have a 8oz steak, steak fries, mashed potatoes, and a roll.
If I do this research beforehand, I can add up the calories to discover how many calories I will eat during this meal. This will make sure that I won’t over eat or go over my calorie limit for the day.
Planning your food out for the day ahead of time will ensure your success within your diet.
2. Eat Fewer Calories or Cut Out Snacks
If you complete your research and discover how many calories you will eat at said restaurant, then you can plan accordingly when you eat your other meals and snacks for the day.
If you notice that the restaurant you’re going to for dinner will involve 1500 calories and you only eat 2000 calories in a day, then you should only eat around a 500 calorie lunch and avoid other snacking!
If you eat less for other meals or cut out snacking entirely, you can be sure to fit in the fast food restaurant you’d like to go to.
Don’t skip out on a nice dinner with the family or friends just because you’re afraid of eating too much.
I have said over and over, it is an absolute must that you enjoy yourself while on your fitness journey. You do not want to burn yourself out!
3. Cardio
If you feel absolutely horrible about going out to eat and enjoying yourself you could make yourself feel better by doing a little cardio.
If my favorite meal at my favorite restaurant has around 300 calories worth of fries, then it would be simple enough to do 30 minutes of cardio on an elliptical or by taking a brisk walk.
I highly recommend you don’t do over do it and try to do a 60-minute intense cardio workout to supplement your meals, but if you want to do something light just to make yourself feel better, then by all means do so.
Again, do not over do this. It isn’t a positive mindset to get in by thinking you have to punish yourself with cardio just to enjoy a meal. Negative mindsets like this will not have a positive influence on your mind or body.
4. Find A Healthy Meal in the Menu
Another strategy to help focus on how to eat fast food on a diet is to find something healthy.
Many menus will put a special mark next to a low calorie or healthy meal. This is extremely useful and can even help you hit your macro goals for the day. Nobody ever said all fast food has to be terrible for you!
Personally, when I go to a restaurant, I make sure to look at all the options with grilled chicken or types of grilled fish. These options are usually diet friendly and can help you stay within your goals.
If you order something healthy like a grilled chicken breast and it comes with a mountain of fries, just use your knowledge of nutrition so far and eat what you think a normal serving of fries might be. You surely don’t have to finish every single fry on your plate!
Use your nutrition knowledge to your advantage and you will be just fine, I promise!
5. Just Forget About It!
All in all, eating one horrible meal is not going to make or break your physique. You surely won’t gain 30 pounds by eating one unhealthy dish.
By just forgetting about it and moving on, you avoid any type of self-hate and LOOK; you just had a darn tasty meal.
After missing your calorie goals, the best thing you can do is to simply do better next time. Make sure that your next meal is a healthy meal. Some folks even plan a cheat meal into their weekly or bi-weekly schedules. The decision is completely yours on when or if you find this necessary.
Just remember, you want to make your diet as pain free as possible and if that means enjoying a juicy burger from time to time, then so be it.
There is no deadline on your fitness, just keep on keeping on!
Russell
Founder of myshakercup.com
You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be actually something that I think I would never understand. It seems too complex and very broad for me. I am looking forward for your next post, I will try to get the hang of it!