Counting Calories in Fast Food

Do you ever eat fast food while you’re on a diet?  Do you ever ask yourself how many calories are in that fast food? Have you ever wondered which fast foods might be good for your diet?

For this hub I am focusing on meals with 250 calories, because I generally aim for five meals of 250 calories each when I am dieting. This is not much of a problem if I have time to prepare my own meals. I can eat a boiled egg with buttered toast and a tomato, or I can eat some rice and beans with lots of vegetables mixed in.

The problem comes when I either don’t have time to prepare a meal or I simply forget to bring the meal with me, so I end up going out for fast food. In the case of fast food, some calorie counts are readily available, such as Subway, which lists calorie counts on their napkins, and Smoothie King which lists them on their menus.  Many times, however, the consumer is left to having to guess how many calories are in each meal, or the restaurant simply doesn’t seem to have any meals for 250 calories. For this reason, I’ve done some research on some of my favorite fast food restaurants and I’m sharing my findings in this hub.

Subway is pretty good about making their calorie counts known.  They print the much of their nutritional information right on their napkins.  In addition, it's fairly simple to guess that bread or salad dressing will be high in calories while vegetables will be low. Following are some examples of 250 calorie meals at Subway.

The breads for a 6 inch sub range from 170 for deli style bread to 250 calories for Italian Herb and Cheese bread. So you could probably squeeze in under 250 calories with a veggie sandwich with mustard and cheese, as long as you don’t get the Italian Herb and Cheese bread.

The Roasted Chicken Breast Salad is 162 calories by itself. If you add two triangles of cheese for 41 calories plus 1.5 tablespoons of Fat Free dressing for 29 calories.  If you two Saltine crackers for 26 calories, and you end up with 258 calories.  But if you can’t stand Fat Free dressing, then only get a small amount of one of the other dressings and skip the cheese.

Chipotle is generally a healthy place to eat, with hormone-free meat and fresh, high quality vegetables.  It’s also located extremely close to my office, so it’s very convenient.  Unfortunately, Chipotle makes it quite easy to consume a full day’s calories in one meal.  One day I ordered the following: salad with black beans, chicken, corn salsa, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, salad dressing, and chips.  I was completely shocked to learn this meal added up to 1590 calories!

So I did a little more research, and I was pleasantly surprised (really quite stunned) to find a very similar meal for only 235 calories: salad with pinto or black beans, green salsa, and cheese.  This low calorie count depends on skipping the salad dressing, but the green salsa keeps the salad moist, even without the dressing.

Wendy’s is one of my favorite fast food restaurants. They have the best-tasting Diet Coke, and a fabulous Value Menu. Unfortunately, I recently discovered that a Jr Bacon Cheeseburger has 310 calories. So if I really want one, I may have to remove one half of the bun, and I’ll definitely have to skip the french fries, since even the value menu fries have 210 calories.

If you must have the fries (and some times I must have fries), split them with a friend and eat them with a side salad, instead of a burger or meal-sized salad. Wendy’s side salads contain 105 calories if you choose Fat Free French Dressing and 125 if you choose Ancho Chipotle Ranch or Light Classic Ranch. Be careful, though, the Thousand Island Dressing brings the calorie count up to 325.

For the meal sized salad it’s a bit harder to keep the calories under control, but if you get the Grilled Chicken Caesar salad with Fat Free French Dressing instead of Caeser Dressing and skip the croutons, you can get the calories down to 250. One of my favorites is the Southwest Taco Salad, but that one has 640 calories - too much for someone watching their weight.

At Wendy's the baked potato with low fat sour cream or cheese sauce equals 315, so it’s not much better than the value fries in this regard. On the other hand, if you really love Wendy’s chili, you can order a small chili for 190 and then add four saltines for 50 calories to end up with 240 calories total.

In contrast to Wendy’s, Jack in the Box serves a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger with 430 calories. I guess I better skip that one all together. Apparently their Asian Chicken Salad only has 140 calories. But the Asian Sesame dressing has 230 calories! And the wonton strips have 110. The other Jack in the Box salads are even higher in calories, so I’d probably meet this challenge by only using some of the dressing and none of the wonton strips.

I love Mr. Gatti’s buffet. There’s a Mr. Gatti’s buffet near my office that always has fresh salads, savory pizzas, and delicious pastas. Unfortunately, you cannot even get a slice of Mr. Gatti’s pizza for under 250 calories. Their pasta is 105 calories per ounce, but how much is that? I guess I’ll only go there for lunch if I happened to skip breakfast.

Speaking of buffets, Souper Salad always seems like a healthy choice, but I tend to overeat at this restaurant and usually feel stuffed by the time I leave. With a little more self control, however, it is completely possible to consume a nice meal for under 250 calories.

Let’s start with some foods I’d count as zero calories: lettuce, spinach, tomato, broccoli, and just about any vegetable that’s not marinated or in a sauce.

Next, here are some foods with under 50 calories: Roasted Mushrooms and Artichokes with Feta Cheese (1/3 cup=40 calories); most fruit (1/2 cup grapes = 30 calories, ½ banana = 50 calories, ½ cup watermelon = 25 calories); black olives (2 tablespoons = 35 calories); or chopped boiled eggs (2 tablespoons = 25 calories).

For salad dressing, I’d count vinegar as zero calories, but a tablespoon of oil is about 60 calories. The best bet for dressing is the fat free Italian dressing (2 tablespoons = 15 calories).

You probably want to avoid the starchy salads, such as corn salad (1/3 cup = 100 calories) and pasta salad (1/3 cup = 100 calories). The potato salad is not too bad (1/3 cup = 60 calories), but half a baked potato with a couple of toppings (below) might be more satisfying.

For a bit more substance, try these: chicken fajita wrap (1/3 cup =100 calories); pepperoni pizza cut into 12 slices (1 slice = 100 calories); chicken tortilla soup (5 oz = 70 calories); half a russet baked potato (50 calories) with 1 tablespoons of light sour cream (20 calories) or 2 tablespoons of chili topping (35 calories); or tuna salad (1/3 cup= 70 calories).

For dessert, you can try the vanilla soft serve (1/2 cup = 100 calories), but avoid the baked goods: gingerbread (180 calories) and cornbread (150 calories).

So there’s your 250 calories: lots of greens and veggies, a couple of low-calorie additions, a bit of substance, and some soft serve ice cream.

Of course there are different combinations for eating out and keeping your calories under 250. The main way to make this happen is to check the food’s nutritional information before you go to the restaurant. To get these and other calorie counts, just do a Google search for the restaurant name and “calorie count”.  Information is available for almost all restaurant chains.  Enjoy!