You may have heard of the documentary where a guy ate nothing but McDonald's for 30 straight days. His weight ballooned. His cholesterol and blood pressure went through the roof. Bottom line, it was a very bad health experience for him.

What are we to draw from this exercise in what some would say is stupidity? The obvious conclusion is that fast food is bad for us. We could also rationalize and say that we don't eat there every day, or every meal, so therefore I'm not going to develop the symptoms this person did.

Both of those assumptions are somewhat correct, but I'd like to throw out another hypothesis - eating fast food can actually be good for us. Not possible you say? What I'll propose to you is that it is not the fast food restaurant that is providing a bad product (they are providing what we want after all), but it is our choices that make fast food a bad proposition.

Looking at the menus for the top fast food restaurants, numerous healthy choices pop out. McDonald's offers 14 different salad varieties. Burger King offers a veggy burger and apple sauce. Wendy's has mandarin oranges and strawberry yogurt on their menu. The restaurants have done what they always do, and taken consumer demand into account by offering healthier options.

One item that nearly all fast food restaurants offer that I'd like to discuss a little is the salad. Salads can come in the super low cal, low fat variety, or they can be the complete opposite. The devil is in the details as they say. Many offer chicken in the salad. Opting to go without chicken would be the obvious low calorie choice, but let's say we want a little protein. Choose the grilled chicken over the fried and you can cut your calorie intake from 430 to 320, and your fat grams drop from 20 down to 9. The grilled chicken pumps up your protein intake from a measly six grams without any chicken to a whopping 30 grams with. Elect the grilled chicken and you're making an extremely wise choice.

The dressing is another area of obvious concern. McDonalds offers Newman's Own® Creamy Caesar Dressing with 190 calories and 18 grams of fat. Select Newman's Own® Low Fat Balsamic Vinaigrette and cut your calories down to 40 with only 4 grams of fat. Clearly our choices matter.

If you're like me you just can't eat salad at every meal, and you love a good cheeseburger. Burger King's most calorie laden offering, the Triple Whopper® Sandwich with Cheese, delivers 1230 calories of fat laden (82 grams of fat) goodness. This sandwich alone would count for 50% of my daily calorie intake. Add King Size fries at 600 calories, and a King size soda of 390 calories, and the total meal comes to 2,220 calories. WOW! Anyone can see how eating only fast food would definitely supper size you if you're not careful.

But let's be smart consumers; consumers of food that is. How about instead of the Triple Whopper we go with the regular Whopper, and have them hold the mayo. Now we're talking about only 510 calories, and we drop our fat grams down to a mere 9. Still want a side? How about onion rings? A small contains only 140 calories and 7 grams of fat. For our beverage we could opt for water or diet soda and completely eliminate any calories. Total for this meal is 650 calories and 16 grams of fat.

While I'm not suggesting you increase the frequency of your fast food dining, and there are other health considerations such as excess salt, my purpose it to show you that fast food does not have to mean certain apocalypse for either your weight loss or your health. Smart choices make a difference.

To learn more about getting in shape and losing weight check out http://www.capstonehealthandfitness.com
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Scott Pettigrew

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