30 Day No Fast Food Challenge
 

hey guys i want to do this challenge of having no fast food for 30 days. Snice for me my big problem with losing weigh is eatting out, and when i eat out picking fatty pasta or a huge burger, etc.

So i want to kick fast food for 30 days. no wendy's, mcdonalds, no pizza, no donuts if i get coffee.

and if i have to go out during this time (dinner with family or something) try to pick the healthiest thing they got, like a salad or a chicken wrap.

i know this will be tough for me but i want to try it.

if anyone else wants to join me go ahead i could use the support.

Well, I no longer make fast food a habit, but I'll gladly support you!

Let's see, since last May I have had two McDoubles (both nasty) and, IIRC, two Egg McMuffins (both pretty good). No fries, no shakes, no pies, no Big Macs, no 20 piece nuggets, you get the picture. Oh, I have had, probably two cups of chili from Wendy's and perhaps a "single" burger once.

This is a far, far cry from my old daily runs to Mickey D's!

There ARE some choices that while not particulary healthy, aren't THAT bad in moderation but I agree that most FF joints should be avoided whenever possible.

Regards,
Michael

yunalee,
I am totally with you. But like Michael, I haven't had much fast food in over a year. But here's a bit of my experience. Once you get through the withdrawls (and you know how truly addictive the stuff is) and eat mostly real food, you will probably find that you don't really like the taste anymore.

It will take some will power to walk on by for a while. But I know you can do it! And once you get through your 30 days, don't look back! This may be the second best decision in your life (the first was to getting a grip on your diet and fitness in the first place).

Although I still like a good burger now and then, I much rather fix one at home. The last one I had a couple of months ago from Carls Jr just didn't taste very good. And pizza is much the same way. We make a kick-@$$ pizza at home with all real ingredients (no artificial "cheese-food"). So it's not like you are forbidden from those foods for ever and ever. You are just upgrading your tastes to food that really tastes good!

Now go turn your cute little nose up at all that yucky fast food (I want to feel the attitude!)- you know you can do it!

Pam

I am in. I have not been in a fast food place since 1/22/11 but the Big Mac calls. Especially at 2 am after a Saturday night in the bar with my girl friend, Jack Daniels, Live Rock and Roll, and dancing my butt off. Count on it. Let's post when we are tempted and how/what we did to overcome!

i think the hardest thing for me when it comes to fast food is when i'm in my studio around lunch time, and if i haven't eatten yet and i see classmates walk by with fast food is when i crave it the most.

one of my fav fast food meals would be wendy's double baconator with a small fries. i have one last week and i can feel that it's not as tastey anymore and almost feels like too much food.

the other thing thats hard is living alone so most things a make are ment to be for more than one person so i can tend to over eat in those ways too. like i made soup and the left overs would be 7 more bowls of soup left so i frooze most of it. wasn't the best soup i've made could of not used the noodles (that pretty much ruined it)

but i'll probably make soup again this coming week so i'll have enough for awhile.

A good reason to save Wendy's for special occasions only:

Dbl baconator + fries = 1260 calories, 75g fat (2.6 oz or almost 1/5 of a pound).

But you probably already knew that!
Besides, you are smarter than your classmates noshing of all that fat and salt.

Lots of us live alone, either literally or virtually (like those with roommates who don't really interact with the roommates.) It is, indeed, really easy to over eat because the recipes are for 4 or 6 servings, but many can be cut down to single servings so you don't make as much in the first place. An other option is to start relying on foods that don't matter as much if you over eat like big salads with some tuna or chicken for protein, and low calorie dressing. Even if you eat a double serving, you are not likely to blow your calorie budget by too much. Big veggie portions.. who cares if you eat 2 cups of green beans instead of 1.

You get the picture! ;)

I wish I could join you however this month would not be a good idea. I'm off to vegas for a week April 1st and while I plan on keeping active and eating well there will be a lot of meals eaten out.

Stopping the drive through habit was one of my most important changes. I eat lunch at my office 95 percent of the time. I prefer eating in to going out so picking up someting was a habit. I now brown bag it most days and keep emergency food at the office as well. I often take a salad with a left over chicken breast and some low calorie bread. I have found a Rye Bread and a Pumpernikel bread that have 65 calories per slice and taste good and are a real sized slice. Great for sandwiches without too many calories.

I live alone as well and agree too many things are 4 servings. I use pudding cups to avoid having to eat 4 servings in 2 days -- which always happens if I make my own dessert.

Good luck. It is well worth kicking the fast food habit and there are lots of great alternatives. keep us posted. Mary

yeah now i'm going to borrow my parents laptop till mine is fixed so i'll be able to keep posted and maybe even be able to count cals again, i have done it in so long

Free Personalized Meal Plans, Easy Recipes & Local Groceries | SOS Cuisine - check this website for cooking for one and you will also get your nutritional information for the recipe you are making. If you start making some of these recipes, you'll never want fast food again. Good Luck.

I hardly ever get fast food, but to tackle that problem of eating out in general...I find it's helpful to have a place in mind or make a suggestion of where to go. If it's a place you're familiar with and know the menu, you can make a plan ahead of time on what you'll order. If it's a new place, look online for a menu and pick out some healthy options. I find it's a lot easier to avoid temptation and spur of the moment unhealthy choices when I plan ahead.

it's so far day 3 with no fast food. but most of the time i can go a week without it, so it's more when i hit the one week mark is when the challenge really starts

I need to do this
 

I have a twelve year old son that loves fast food and needs to have his intake reduced. I have our trips reduced to once a week, but I'm not happy with that either.

The quality of beef at these places is bad. Fat content through the roof. White flour everywhere, salt and sugar beyond manageable amounts.

I guess I'm typing this because if I say it, I'll stay away. I found that what really helps keep my son away from it is to have, believe it or not, sloppy joe at home on hand for him to get his hot, meat sandwich fix. The sloppy joe is made out of lean ground turkey, has carrots, celery and onions in it and I make the sauce without sugar. I cook with Stevia and add it to the tomato sauce. Whole grain buns are snuck in on him.

Eating a spoonful of this beats getting a burger with cheese and mayo.

Every change towards low-fat healthy foods adds up. Each day is hard, but I find that I do enjoy the healthy food over the processed.

Congratulations everyone who is trying to make the change for health.

im new to this site and just started my weight loss goal today. My biggest problem is going out to eat. sometimes twice a day its really bad... im 21 years old and weigh 135lbs and im 5"1. the fast food hasnt caught up with me to much, but im sure its sitting around the corner... I want to lose 30lbs by july 4th of this year. i think i can do it....

I will join you... starting march 16th, 2011. Its going to be a tough road. :)

Planning helped keep me out of the drive through today. Having my bag lunch with me even though I was stuck away from the office let me have a good healthy lunch in the short time I had. Otherwise I'd have been driving through Wendys or Tim Hortons.

i hear you i was in sowntown Toronto today. lots of food choices there. and it was temping. i was hungry snice i didn't have time for lunch. and i have some cash in my pocket (having cash make me more likely to spend it on food). but i didn't cave in now i'm finishing the left over soup from yesterday. i feel proud.

and also swimming later tonight yay

Well done Yunalee. Nice to see a fellow Ontario member. Mary

thanx Mary.

i'm back from swimming and i got quite a work out from it i think i'm going to try and go once a week from now on. snice my school offers free swimming at a near by pool

Looks like we're all doing pretty well avoiding FAsT food so far! I find that once I've been away from it for a good while I just lose the strong desire (not that it ever goes away entirely).

Regards,
Michael

Don't know what got into me today, but I nearly succumbed to a burger fix. For some reason I have been super hungery this week, I mean gut-gnawing hungery. I was innocently strolling by a fast food joint and they were spewing out those lovely cooking smells they purposely do and I nearly fell for it.

Fortunately I remembered yunalee's challenge and I was able to pull myself together.

Whew!!! Thanks all!

Pam

well Mike thats why we had cheat days right? it not be going out but it's still about having a guilty pleasure of sorts.

good job Pam, i was also temped yesterday, but was thinking to myself just get to my car then i'll be fine. and i was

It's been a while since I ate fast food anyway. I've never been really big on it except when the hubby & I sneak out early on a Saturday before the kids are up for a quick BK breakfast. We haven't done that in about two months though.

The one thing that I am craving probably isn't all that bad once in a while.... a strawberry banana smoothie from McD's. I'm sure that I could make a healthier version at home but haven't attempted that yet.

I don't carry cash at all - that is when i get in trouble - i also make my (high protein) lunch and snacks for a couple of days - so i can grab and go - i also log in a bad meal as if i ate it and look at the calories - that usually changes my mind. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with beer for me!

wildbeanerz - get a magic bullet! it is so quick and easy to make a smoothie in it - and it doesn't take up too much room. i had my daughter's 17 year old friends over night friday night before SAT's and I made them all one before they left in the morning!

That's right! Still, I find FAsT food just doesn't call to me that bad--I guess we all have our weaknesses. My cheat day always seems to involve a good quantity of beer :eek:.

Regards,
Michael

well for me when i was younger fast food was a treat and my family would have it maybe once a month. but as i got older and started going to college and having my own money thats when fast food really got to me as being almost at least once a week but sometimes more than once a week as well.

i wish i had kitchen space i like cooking when i actually have room, and also have an oven/stove. my school res don't

i guess i was only able to last a week, yesterday i had movie popcron with extra butter and a diet pop, that i shared with my fiance.

not sure but would you guys consider that fast food?

i'm more fast food to replace meals, like burger joints and fries (those are my bad ones)

I wouldn't call that "fast food", but I also wouldn't call it a great choice. How about next time packing your own popcorn w/o the "butter" (oil)? That oil just turns a fairly wholesome treat into a disaster.

In any case, I think you're still good for the challenge!

Regards,
Michael

yeah most of the time if i have popcorn for a snack it would be a smart pop mini bag which i think is 2 cups or so and about 100cals. even the full size bag isn't much more than 250 compared to movie popcorn

I'm a fast food junkie. I eat out maybe 3-5 times a week. I don't know if I'll be able to go cold turkey with Fast-food, but I'll give it a try. :)

yeah i failed the challenge and had fast food yesterday, had a burger from this local resturant. at least the burger was freshly made and not pre packaged like most fast food joints.

i'll have to start over

Well, it's your challenge--if you feel you've failed, then so be it. I think, though, that there is a pretty big difference between a well-prepared, fresh burger than a Double Whopper w/Cheese (or two, like I used to eat), fries, shake, pie and extra large Coke.

As long as you log it into your food journal, I think the occasional restaurant meal is fine. I do try to pre-plan such outings and work them into my daily calorie limits.

In past weight loss journies I took a zero tolerance stance on all of this and it worked well until, well, it didn't. This time I acknowlege that "life happens" and that it's not neccessary to be "perfect" in one's eating.

Just MHO, FWIW, YMMV, LOL!

Regards,
Michael

yeah it's hard to cut it out cold turkey. but i'm going to try again and next time if i'm going to eat out be more well prepared for it.

and if i have fast food only once a week.

but i'm stil going to try again.

if failing and not trying again thats is what a real failure would be.

Yunalee, my friend, I don't think you're "starting all over," as you say. I think that mishaps, missteps, and mistakes are all part of the process, and because you are so committed, you will learn from each and every one of them - that is definitely not starting over! Give yourself credit for the progress you've made - one doesn't have to be "perfect" in order to reach her goals. I'm also with Michael - a freshly prepared burger does not a Whopper or Big Mac make. ;)

I used to eat a lot of fast food and I'll have it every once in awhile now. But, believe it or not, there are ways to satisfy that craving without it being or feeling like a total disaster. A regular Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich is something like 500 calories (it may even be less); same thing with a cheeseburger from Steak'n'Shake, or a jr. cheeseburger from Wendy's, etc. etc. Point being that you can still have fast food - but, as in everything, all things in moderation. A side salad (if you can do without the fries - they've never been my fave), a water/diet soda/ unsweetened ice tea, and a regular-sized sandwich may be all you need to satisfy that fast food craving guilt-free.

My apologies if this point has previously been made; I didn't read through all the posts.

You've made a lot of progress and all those small changes that I know you've made will continue to add up. Keep it up!

thanx change.

for me replaceing the fries is hard, snice i love fries. might be a dutch thing lol

swiss chalet is a good place, if i replace fries with even mashed potateos i'd really cut down on the cals. and have white meat chicken instead of dark meat.

next time i crave i'll go there. it's mostly my fiance was the reason i caved darn that boy lol

I went my first seven days without eating out, hardest thing ever, but I took out the belt from closet, that I haven't worn in 6 months, so that is a positive change that I see.

One of the nice things about Swiss Chalet, as well as most of the other Restaurant Chains is that they make all of their nutrition information available online. I have only gone out to a restaurant once since I started this journey, but before I went I studied the nutrition information online and decided what I was going to order ahead of time, that way I knew exactly what I was getting into.

yeah going out isn't bad if you plan ahead, and take into account how many cals your meal out would be before you go, if it's a tonne of cals it may even change your mind!

i was thinking of maybe going out to it tonight.

Ace good job nice to hear that not eating out is helping you out

so i had fast food again. this time i knew what i was putting into my mouth and didn't go over board, only had 625 cals. New york fries, reg combo with 0 cal soda and a smal gravey.

and sitll under 1000 cals so far for the day.

it's easy for me to limit it to only once a week, but to get passed that 1 week mark is hard for me

I really need to do this too! My "problem" is that I drive around all day and it's just so easy to pick something up from McDonald's. I don't have anywhere I can heat up a dinner, so I end up grabbing fast food.

How is everyone holding up with the no fast food?

Yesterday I had a really bad day. I weighed in at 62 kilos (136 pounds) and realized that I had gained 7 pounds and it totally just broke me down. Instead of heading to the gym like I usually do and giving it my all I said, "no." Then I went on a drinking (which I'm disappointed with myself about. I can't even give up drinking for more then two days. I think I have a problem.) and eating horribly rampage. I ate cheap Thai plus drank cheap alcohol, feel awful.

I was so close to the half way point! I went 12 days without eating out. *sigh* I'm not going to do that to myself again. I'm striving for a healthier diet and I want that without hating myself. So here I am starting over, although I might start that tomorrow and grab vietnamese for lunch, it depends on how strong I am.

I hope everyone is doing better than I am.