How To Eat Healthy In Places That Aren't

Let's face it, we all have busy lives. When we're constantly on the go it's not always practical or easy to choose the healthiest places to eat. So you're stuck at McDonald's or the movie theater and it feels like your stomach is about to eat itself...you're forced to make a quick choice. What would you pick to settle your upset stomach? Chicken McNuggets, fries, and a coke? Large popcorn and a rainbow slushie? Wronggggggg! Here are some ways to eat healthy (or healthier) and stay slim in situations that can quickly jeopardize your health and engorge your gut. 

Breakfast on the go.

• Skip: Everything Bagel with Cream Cheese - Devoid of nutrients, this New York favorite packs 540 calories, 23g fat,  550mg sodium, 13g saturated fat, 5g protein, and 70g carbs. Minimal protein, white flour, high saturated fat? Nothing attractive about this besides the taste.
• Better: Two Eggs and Cheese on a Whole Wheat Bagel - Love bagels? Opt for the whole grain type. 500 calories, 20g protein, 10g of fat. Swapping in a whole wheat bagel provides whole grains and fiber, which will slow digestion and keep you fuller longer. Two eggs pack in 14 grams of protein and tons of healthy nutrients. Swapping out the cream cheese for a slice of American cheese saves 150 calories, adds 3g protein, and cuts out 15g of fat (9g saturated), while still satisfying any cheese craving.
• Best: Two Eggs on Wheat Toast - Only 360 calories. Choosing wheat bread over a bagel will save you 100 calories and offer more fiber. This meal will satisfy your hunger and offer all the nutritional benefits that come with eggs and whole grains. Cutting out the American cheese will save you 2.5g saturated fat and 50 calories (it's also not good to eat processed cheese often). Great balance of carbs, healthy fats from the eggs, and protein. Quick, delicious, and nutrient packed.
• Always opt for wheat bread over a bagel and avoid cream cheese!
• Never eat croissants, donuts, or other pastries. They're PACKED with deadly trans fats.
• Skip processed meats like bacon and ham.

The Fast Food Fat Fest. How to make the terrible less terrible.

•  McDonald's (you don't wanna end up like him!)

• Every single burger has trans fat. If you need a burger, opt for a cheese burger. It only has 300 calories, but 12g fat/6g saturated/.5g trans. It has 15g protein which is a nice benefit. Compare that to the Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese which has 740 calories, 42g fat/19g sat fat/2.5g trans fat, and 48g protein -- the proteins great, the rest isn't. A Big Mac has 540 calories, 29g fat/10g sat fat/1.5g trans fat, and 25g protein.
• Choose a salad with chicken, but no dressing! The Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken only has 320 calories, 9g fat/3g sat fat, and a whopping 30g of protein. If you were to add a packet of Creamy Southwest Dressing you'd add an extra 100 calories and 6g fat. Want Caesar? That'll add 190 calories, 18g fat/3.5g sat fat.
• Skip the soda. A large coke has 310 calories, and 86 g of sugar! Soda is empty calories and sugar that'll kill your body in about every way possible.
• The Premium Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich is probably your best option. It has 420 calories, 10g fat/2g sat fat, and 32g protein. The one big negative is the 1190mg of sodium. A solid protein-packed sandwich. 0g trans fat is a nice benefit considering almost every other sandwich has .5-3g. If you want a McDonald's sandwich go grilled chicken.
• Love fried chicken? Choose the Chicken McNuggets over the strips. A large 10-piece Chicken McNuggets has 460 calories, 29g fat/5g sat fat, 1000mg sodium, 24g protein. The 5-piece Chicken Selects Premium Breast Strips have 660 calories, 40g fat/6g sat fat, 1680mg sodium, and 38g protein. Opting for the McNuggets limits the calories, sodium, and fat by a ton.
• Choose Ketchup over other sauces. 1 container of BBQ, Honey Mustard, or Sweet & Sour sauce has about 50-60 calories, all of which is sugar (10-11g). Stick with the old favorite, ketchup. 1 packet only has 15 calories, and 2g sugar.

• Chipotle (and other similar Mexican fast food)

• Chipotle is actually one of the healthiest fast food places in terms of ingredients. The problem with Chipotle is the calories, not the nutritional content. Beef/chicken, guacamole, beans are all very healthy ingredients by themselves, but it starts becoming a problem when you add cheese, rice, and tortillas and combine everything into one huge monstrosity...the calories build up really quickly. Learn how many calories are in each Chipotlean component and you'll be a master Chipotler in no time
• 1 serving of any type of meat has 190 calories, 7g fat/2g sat fat, 370mg sodium and 32g protein.
• Guacamole has 150 calories, 13g of healthy fat, and 6g fiber.
• Want cheese? It'll add 100 calories, 9g fat/5g sat fat, 8g protein.
• Sour cream? All fat. 120 calories, 10g fat/7g sat fat.
• Skip the chips. They have a whopping 570 calories, 27g fat/4g sat fat, 73g carbs.
• Rice adds 130 calories of empty calories
• Beans add 120 calories, no fat, 11g of fiber, and 7g of protein. Fajita veggies only add 20 calories. Tomatoes add 20. Corn adds 80.
• Choose the hard tacos or bowl. The 13" tortilla has 290 calories, 3 6" tortillas have 270 calories, and 3 hard tacos have 180 calories.Your best choice is to get your ingredients in a bowl, but toss the bowl in the trash. It'll save you 180-290 calories.
• So now you want to build your meal. Really hungry? So you choose a 13" tortilla, rice, chicken, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, and a side of chips. You just consumed 1555 calories, 77g fat/23g sat fat, 2010mg sodium, 151g carbs, and 61g protein.
• What about the healthier version? Opt for 3 hard tacos, black beans, chicken, guacamole, and lettuce. Still a substantial meal, but you're only consuming 665 calories, 27g fat/6g sat fat (half of the fat is healthy fat from the guacamole), 1010mg sodium, 20g of fiber, and 44g of protein. For fast food you're getting healthy fats, a ton of protein, and 78% of your daily requirement of fiber! Not too shabby. 
• If you want to do even better choose a bowl and only eat the ingredients inside it. With all of the same ingredients from the last example your meal is down to 485 healthy calories!

• Panera (yeah...it counts as fast food)

• The tuna salad sandwich on honey wheat sounds like a healthy option right? Think again. Thanks to all of that mayo it has 750 calories, 47g of fat/9g sat fat, 1130mg sodium, and only 20g of protein for a tuna dish. Tuna's healthy, salad's healthy, but for some reason when the two combine they're suddenly not so healthy anymore. Anything with "salad" attached to the end of it is just another way of saying we added a lot of artery-clogging mayo. Macaroni salad, potato salad, egg salad, tuna salad...you get the point.
• Most of Panera's full sandwiches top 700 calories, the only ones under 700 are the Napa Almond Chicken Salad, Mediterranean Veggie, and Smoked Turkey Breast on Country. I just made my point about "salad", so stay away from the Napa Almond Chicken version. Your best options are the Mediterranean Veggie (610 calories, 13g fat/3.5 sat fat, 1450 mg sodium, 22g protein)  if that's your thing, or go with the Smoked Turkey Breast (560 calories, 17g fat/2.5g sat fat, 1960mg sodium, and 32g protein). Even with the lower calories in these sandwiches their sodium content is through the roof. Our recommended daily intake for sodium is 2400mg, almost every full sandwich on the menu contains 50-75% of that number. 
• Opt for half a sandwich and a salad without dressing...you'll keep your calories, sodium, and fat down.

Sushi time!

• Sushi is one of the healthiest foods you can eat. It's loaded with protein and heart-strengthening omega-3 fatty acids. This type of diet has helped Asian society stay slim and increase longevity. However there are a few things to watch out for.
• Avoid tempura. Tempura just means fried, it's extra calories, extra fat, and most likely extra trans fat.
• Use less soy sauce or low-sodium soy sauce. 1 tablespoon of soy sauce has 1,000 mg of sodium, that's about have your recommended daily intake.
• Be cautious of "spicy" rolls. 1. "Spicy" in the language of sushi means mayo. 2. Sushi joints typically use lower-quality, older fish in "spicy" rolls because the spiciness masks the less-desirable taste.This could potentially make you really sick so be really careful.
• Sweet miso and ponzu sauces are typically sugar-laden, and filled with nasty HFCS.
• Go for brown rice over white rice. White rice is simply empty calories that'll spike your blood sugar. Sometimes white rice in your rolls is unavoidable, but please don't order a side of white rice to go with it!
• Go for sashimi (raw fish sans rice), naruto (cucumber wrap), or brown rice rolls.
• Boston and Philadelphia rolls are made with cream cheese. I personally don't know how or why cream cheese fits into the sushi world, but avoid it.
• Try to avoid tofu even if you're vegetarian. Soy is not healthy! Order a veggie dish and a side of brown rice.

Yo Amo la Pizza! (I love pizza)

• The best way to stay smart at a pizza joint is to watch your portions. If you want pizza, limit yourself to one or 2 slices. Every pizza place differs, but one cheese slice typically has about 250-350 calories. This quickly adds up. 
• Order thin crust. It'll cut down the amount of calories and carbs in your pizza. CPK's thin crust is 439 calories per pizza, the regular is 614
• Don't order deep dish. They just stuff more cheese and bread into it. More calories, more fat.
• Add some veggies on top, they'll fill you up and add a lot of healthy vitamins and nutrients to a typically unhealthy food.
• Remove some of the cheese. Often pizza is loaded with an abundance of cheese, you can afford to take some of it off. You're saving 80 calories for every ounce of mozzarella you part with.
• Choose whole grain crust if possible. 
• Add some chicken as a topping. Adding chicken adds all the benefits of protein which can help fill you up and avoid that next slice.
• If it's extra greasy blot it with a napkin to remove some of the oil. Doing this can get rid of some of the fat and save over 50 calories (oil has about 120 calories per tablespoon).

The Movie Theater. Maybe the worst caloric catastrophe of them all..

• Movie theaters are pretty funny. They start by offering medium, buttered popcorn, which has about 1200 calories, 60g of saturated fat (that's about 3 days worth!), and about 1,500 mg of sodium. Yeah that's pretty terrible, but then what do they do...they offer us money-saving combos! The salty popcorn makes the consumer thirsty, so they offer combos with a soda. A medium combo at Regal (medium popcorn & medium soda) has 1610 calories! Not to mention all of that sugar in the soda. What does all that salt do? It makes us crave sweets! If that already wasn't bad enough some combos come with candy, and if not, candy is conveniently located right outside the theater. Add in an 8-ounce bag of Reese's Pieces and you just added another 1,160 calories and 35g of saturated fat. So if you're that person that eats the triple threat: popcorn, soda, and Reese's Pieces, congratulations--you've just consumed 2770 calories, 95g saturated fat, and 1,500mg sodium. This is more common than you probably think, I see it all the time and it's really, really, really sad. And we wonder why America's fat...
• If you need popcorn choose the small, unsalted, unbuttered version and quench your thirst with a large Dasani (I know it costs $4.50 but it's an investment in your health and body). 
• Share your popcorn!
• If you need candy stay away from anything chocolate coated like Reese's Pieces, M & M's, chocolate covered pretzels, goobers, etc. They're loaded with saturated fat and calories. A small bag of gummy bears, gummy worms, or sour patch kids are probably your best bet. Yeah they have a lot of sugar, but they don't have any saturated fat and are lower in calories. A 5 oz bag of Sour Patch Kids has 140 calories, 0g fat, and 33g of sugar. A small bag of plain M & M's (49.3g) has 250 calories, 13g of fat/5g sat fat, and 25g of sugar.
• Get out of the mindset that you have to eat candy, popcorn, and soda at the movies. It's very American, but it's not healthy.
• Plan ahead. My best tip is to eat dinner or a meal before you go (whatever time your movie is). If you eat something healthy at home beforehand you won't need to to eat any popcorn or sweets. If you have to eat at the movies buy something healthier outside the theater and sneak it in.