Week 5 Challenges - We're officially over 1/3 in!

Curious as to everyone's thoughts on other kinds of "fast food." I have my own opinions, and like Dave, I never eat traditional fast food (McDonalds, BK, etc.). What about Subway, Qdoba, etc.? Personally, I think there are better or sometimes even good choices to be made at some of these establishments, but some are just as bad as the "big 3," disguised as healthy fast food. Thoughts?

Love that Brandon!!

And I knew someone would bring that up you two. Regarding "fast food" versus...."well...is it fast food?":

I would recommend you do your own research - starting with your favorite places - and make the conclusion yourself.

My personal opinion/take is this: if you ONLY have a choice of eating traditional fast food or one of the "grey area" locations, go with your grey area choice. There are varying degrees of health. I am a firm believer in food as a healer and preventer of most of what ails our country. To use food in this way, you must go with organic choices.  Non-GMO choices.  Local is better.  In-season is better.  And of course we always want foods that don't contain extra chemicals & preservatives (antibiotics, nitrates, hormones, color enhancers, etc.). So in a perfect world - we'd all eat this way and we'd all be healthy little badasses.

However, life happens, bad days occur, availability is sometimes limited and NO one (including your trainer!) is perfect. So for example, if you find yourself with the ONLY choice being McDonalds or Subway - go to Subway. At least you have a little more control and can pick and choose what you're consuming. Here's a nice little blog post "Food Babe" did on the place. www.100daysofrealfood.com/2012/06/12/food-babe-investigates-is-subway-real-food/  (Worth the quick read.) 

I also heard recently that Chipotle has higher standards than Qdoba when it comes to their food sourcing but I am open to be corrected on this as I've not looked into it very much.  In the quick moment of research I did this morning, I found this little excerpt:

 

(From here: www.businessbee.com/resources/news/operations-buzz/buzzbattle-chipotle-vs-qdoba-which-burrito-shop-has-your-loyalty/)

So yeah - I'd agree that there's often just a "lesser of two evils" choice and you should take it IF you have to.  And Dave and I do the same.  Sometimes, we've worked all day, just got finished training clients, just put our OWN workout in and driving home we just look at each other and go..."carry out".  But I don't like doing that.  And I know it's not the best choice.  So we limit our laziness and optimize our preparedness as much as we can.


Overall, it's all up to you - what your goals are, how quickly you want to achieve a weightloss milestone or how healthy/strict you're looking to be regarding diet.  If this reply post isn't riddled with enough cliches yet, I'll throw this one in too: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".  Right?  Because sometimes the cure sucks.  Or maybe eventually there won't be a cure to something we've given ourselves due to consuming so many chemicals on a regular basis.  


So I'd rather do my best now to take care of this meat shell so that I can use it to it's fullest potential til the day I keel over.  IMHO. 

Biggest way I've been successful with staying away from fast food falls in line with the 'prevention is key' ideology. Having an idea in the morning about what I'm going to eat for the day helps so that I'm not always trying to wing it. Crock pot meals already cooking when I get home or foods that are prepared the night before help to keep me on track. I'm also always looking for healthier ways to modify the foods that I love. Tacos are one of my favorite foods, but I replace the beef with grilled chicken breast and use romaine lettuce leaves instead of tortilla shells so that I'm not taking in unnecessary simple carbs. Skip the cheese and sour cream, and instead use fresh peppers and onions and some freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice. 

I generally try to think about the bad foods in terms of how much I would have to do to burn off what I'm thinking of eating. This site has a solid breakdown of just how many burpees it would take to burn off some of the more popular junk food:

blog.spartanrace.com/burpee-equivalents-understanding-junk-food/

A burger and large fry works out to be 850 burpees for a dude who is 180 lbs. I'll stick with my lettuce wrap tacos from home instead of having to knock out 850 burpees because, well, buck furpees! 

I kicked the fast food habit 1 yr ago. Prepping my food for the week has been a learning curb for sure, but this whole journey to improve your life is a big learning curb. I carry a small cooler with me almost every where I go if I'm going to be gone more than 4 hours. Never be afraid to try new recipes or ways of cooking. For example, I usually use my slow cooker to prep my meat in. Last Sunday I took a large boneless turkey breast and put it on the grill.

I also have my "pantry" at work. I always have bags of almonds or pistachios, a spicy seed blend, or other easy and shelf-stable options at work, so there's never a time when I have an excuse to "need a snickers."

Dang Lauren! Thank you!! You know how long I've spent wandering around the "canned meat" aisle looking for an easy, healthy, transportable protein?? Lol. I'll have to check them out for sure. Love that it's earth and health friendly. THANKS for that post. (And I totally had a "pantry" at my old work too!)