Fast Food for the Month
MityMax96
Posts: 5,778 Member
Hello all,
As a fun little experiment I thought I would, for the month of March, get my big meals from eating out.
No cooking or food prep at home.
Always hearing people ask me how to lose weight, or get in shape, etc...would always lead me to respond with,
"Well you need to log and track calories, and food prep will go along ways to helping you achieve your goals."
Which would then be followed up by: "Well I hate eating the same things over and over" or "I don't like/have time to meal prep".
So anyways, I thought "ok, well let me just do all my eating out (except snacks) and see if I can still maintain my weight/physique or drop some weight in the process"
I just started the last week of this experiment, and for this week I was gonna try a "peak" week style with fast food. So for Sat - Tues, I am keeping my carbs pretty low. I would have liked to have been around 50 gr for these days, but I admit hitting that has been hard.
But anyways for any that are curious, my diary is open and all has been logged since March 1st.
Also, you are more than welcome to follow along on IG: MityMax96
As a fun little experiment I thought I would, for the month of March, get my big meals from eating out.
No cooking or food prep at home.
Always hearing people ask me how to lose weight, or get in shape, etc...would always lead me to respond with,
"Well you need to log and track calories, and food prep will go along ways to helping you achieve your goals."
Which would then be followed up by: "Well I hate eating the same things over and over" or "I don't like/have time to meal prep".
So anyways, I thought "ok, well let me just do all my eating out (except snacks) and see if I can still maintain my weight/physique or drop some weight in the process"
I just started the last week of this experiment, and for this week I was gonna try a "peak" week style with fast food. So for Sat - Tues, I am keeping my carbs pretty low. I would have liked to have been around 50 gr for these days, but I admit hitting that has been hard.
But anyways for any that are curious, my diary is open and all has been logged since March 1st.
Also, you are more than welcome to follow along on IG: MityMax96
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Replies
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I finished out my little experiment....went pretty well, I can't complain. Weight went as expected.
Attached are pics I took each Friday morning.
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Wow this is great! Looking awesome @MityMax96
How did you feel and did it impact your gym performance at all ?0 -
Sounds like you tracked macros during this time... were you able to stay mostly where you wanted to be? I eat out a fair bit, and don't usually have a problem with macros eating at sit-down style restaurants, but fast food can be struggle to keep protein up with moderate total calories.0
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Wow this is great! Looking awesome @MityMax96
How did you feel and did it impact your gym performance at all ?
Thanks.
I felt great, and gym performance was what I would have expected while on a cut....if maybe not a bit better than had I been doing my meals at home...
In a way I found it easier to hit my calorie and macro goals by just eating fast food and going by their nutrition information.4 -
Sounds like you tracked macros during this time... were you able to stay mostly where you wanted to be? I eat out a fair bit, and don't usually have a problem with macros eating at sit-down style restaurants, but fast food can be struggle to keep protein up with moderate total calories.
Yes I did track my calorie and macro goals.
Everything is listed in my diary so feel free to look over things for the month of March.
Waking up I usually had an idea of where I wanted to eat, so I would just plan the day accordingly.2 -
I don't understand the reasoning at all, but it seems you are happy with the results of your experiment so that's cool.0
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Need2Exerc1se wrote: »I don't understand the reasoning at all, but it seems you are happy with the results of your experiment so that's cool.
My reasoning was simple.
I get asked a lot, how to lose weight, how to get in shape, etc....
So I always come back and say well tracking your food and calories is the way to go, doing meal prep is great for losing weight, since you have more control over what you cook.
But then in response I get
"I don't like to cook/meal prep"
"I don't like to eat the same things every day"
"I am to busy and don't have time"
So we know people are gonna eat, so I was attempting to show that you can eat in a rush and still achieve your goals....
So in short, you have no excuse.22 -
Amazing! Thank you for sharing!2
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Welcome0
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Good work OP, bookmarking to use as a reference.1
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How long did you work to get that cut op?0
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omakase619 wrote: »How long did you work to get that cut op?
I really started focusing on cutting down (aesthetics) back in Aug. 2013.
The initial process went from Aug '13 - July '14
Since then I have went up to 183 over the winter of '14
Cut for summer '15
Went up to around 180 - 183 for winter '15
Cut for summer '16
Winter '16 (after having issues with my previous bulks) I opted to just try and stay above 175....then began my cut in January '17 due to upcoming events.3 -
How tall are you?
Are you as satisfied eating meals out as you would be prepping meals with the same macros/calories?0 -
How tall are you?
Are you as satisfied eating meals out as you would be prepping meals with the same macros/calories?
I come in at 6'1"
Hmm....I was satisfied that things worked how I expected them too...
Some times the convenience was really nice, for just going in a grabbing food.
But other times when the lines were long, or there were a lot of people, or the few times I went to places and they didn't serve items that were listed on their website, that made me miss being able to just go home and have my food ready to go.....
So like anything there were pro's and con's......
Again what I did was an extreme case though, as I expect most people would prolly only eat out a few times a week....I was just trying to show that no matter how often or how little you eat out....
Your choice in foods will still allow for weight loss to happen, just by maintaining your calorie deficit....as well as the fact that the nutritional info on the websites and here on MFP are pretty accurate.3 -
Wow this is great! Looking awesome @MityMax96
How did you feel and did it impact your gym performance at all ?
Thanks.
I felt great, and gym performance was what I would have expected while on a cut....if maybe not a bit better than had I been doing my meals at home...
In a way I found it easier to hit my calorie and macro goals by just eating fast food and going by their nutrition information.
This is great. May I quote you, and this thread, next time someone says the opposite? Not that I'd outright recommend fast food to genpop as the large part of their "normal" diet, but just as another anecdote that fast food may not actively hurt their goals?4 -
Wow this is great! Looking awesome @MityMax96
How did you feel and did it impact your gym performance at all ?
Thanks.
I felt great, and gym performance was what I would have expected while on a cut....if maybe not a bit better than had I been doing my meals at home...
In a way I found it easier to hit my calorie and macro goals by just eating fast food and going by their nutrition information.
This is great. May I quote you, and this thread, next time someone says the opposite? Not that I'd outright recommend fast food to genpop as the large part of their "normal" diet, but just as another anecdote that fast food may not actively hurt their goals?
Feel free too.
as a side note, the last week of the experiment, I tried doing a "peak" week style so for the first 4 days of the week I limited my carbs, then had 2 carb up days.
Thus the last pic above had me in at 164 lbs
I will say it may be a bit tougher to do a peak week on fast food, it will require some thought on it.
My goal was to be around 50 gr of carbs for the 4 days, but the first 2 I think I was around 80
Then the next two, came in around 60 gr.....
But still by Friday morning, the results weren't bad.2 -
I eat fast food daily and have a nice set of abs; good work!1
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HOT DAMN!!!!3
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Sorry, you were saying?1 -
Nice work, OP. Can you post a few examples of the fast food restaurants and the meals you used during the cut? I'd love to see this as a balance to all the "fast food is gonna kill you" posts.3
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Nice work, OP. Can you post a few examples of the fast food restaurants and the meals you used during the cut? I'd love to see this as a balance to all the "fast food is gonna kill you" posts.
Feel free to look over my diary.
But if I did subway, I would do a foot long rotisserie chicken, double meat on Italian (white) sub.
I would then throw on spinach, tomatoes, onions, green peppers and then vinegar.
If I did chipotle and it was a carb day I would do a burrito bowl with:
Double Chicken
Rice
Fajita peppers
Black beans
corn
mild salsa
cheese
If it was a lower carb day for me, then I would do the same thing, just not add on rice or corn.
For McDonald's I would do something like one of their salads or do an egg white delight, no cheese
egg white delight with cheese is 250 calories
Without it is 200 calories.
Wendy's I would either do a their grilled chicken sandwich, usually 2 of those.
Or their Power Mediterranean salad, full size and an extra chicken breast.
But again, it's all listed in my diary for the month of March.3 -
Interesting experiment. How long do you spend exercising in the gym each day? And do you take photos of yourself every day? Because if you do...I can understand why. Your body looks amazing, you must have worked so hard to achieve that definition. Well done.1
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Also OP after stalking your food diary, I see that you are a fan of Quest bars. Do you ever heat them in the microwave? I do.1
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domeofstars wrote: »Interesting experiment. How long do you spend exercising in the gym each day? And do you take photos of yourself every day? Because if you do...I can understand why. Your body looks amazing, you must have worked so hard to achieve that definition. Well done.
Also OP after stalking your food diary, I see that you are a fan of Quest bars. Do you ever heat them in the microwave? I do.
On the weekends, are my longer gym sessions. So Saturday is heavy upper body, that can be about 2 hours.
Sunday is leg day, that can be about 1.5 hours, depending on how my legs are feeling. I have issues with my joints and being flat footed, so that tends to hamper my leg days.
During the week, I do weights on Tues/Wed/Thurs right now, those are about 1 hour sessions, unless I go back after work to hit some area like shoulders.
Mon and Fri will be abs and cardio (LISS)
I don't take pics every day, honestly seeing my body on a daily basis, I tend to notice the trouble areas more than than the overall package, so at times I am rather disgusted with myself, and have no desire to see my body.
If you look above to my previous post about my time line since 2013, I took pretty much one year to really focus on a more aesthetic appearance. Other than that I have been lifting for over 22 years now, but for a period of time from like 24 - 36 yrs old, I was half-assing it in the gym and with my diet....and that was really due to a lack of knowledge with nutrition and lifting, life issues, and just going through the motions. But I feel now I have kinda found a sweet spot with all those things, so I make it work.
Yes I do heat my quest bars, thats the only way to eat them...makes them taste like dessert.
About 10 - 12 sec. depending on microwave.1 -
Bump for info0
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Well this is MUCH easier to do if youre a guy and cutting calories are like 2200. Sigh....unfortunately for me i'm lucky to cut on 1600 to 1700 cals so this experiment wouldnt work for me unless i don't snack.1
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Definitely wouldn't work for me cutting on 1200 calories. I do include fast food sometimes as long as I keep my fats and carbs low while eating lean protein. I still notice weight loss0
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Kimblesnbits13 wrote: »Well this is MUCH easier to do if youre a guy and cutting calories are like 2200. Sigh....unfortunately for me i'm lucky to cut on 1600 to 1700 cals so this experiment wouldnt work for me unless i don't snack.
Have to disagree with you on that one.
It's just as hard for me to cut down on calories and stay around 2400 - 2600 calories, when I am used to eating around 3000 - 3200 calories.
So I have to deal with binges, same as the next person......
It's all relative.0
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