Is Chipotle good?

adoucet15
adoucet15 Posts: 25 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So I love chipotle.

Is it good as in delicious, yes!

But I’m wondering...

Is it a good diet food?

The calories are so high, even if you avoid rice and dairy.

Just trying to determine if going paleo at Chipotle is worth it for the calories.


Replies

  • schmanciepants
    schmanciepants Posts: 62 Member
    They have nutrition info on their website...I like their salads..no rice, cheese, sour cream...add double fajita veggies...I can fit it in if I plan ahead.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    Muh... just generic "Mexican" American food...
  • fuzzylop_
    fuzzylop_ Posts: 100 Member
    edited January 2020
    I'm not sure i'd consider the calories particularly high. The bowl I usually get is 555 in the way I usually have it (bowl with brown rice, black beans, sofritas, fresh salsa, fajita veggies, green chili salsa) or 785 if I have guac. That feels like a pretty normal calorie amount for a meal to me, although to be sure you can make the calories higher as well. Chicken is around 30kcal more than sofritas, which certainly wouldn't put it in a high calorie category imo.

    That said, I don't know if i'd want to go there on paleo, though. I can't imagine going to chipotle and not having rice or beans since I believe paleo doesn't allow either.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    edited January 2020
    I don't think the cals are high at all. Depends on what you order. My vegetarian order (fajita bowl with just rice and beans, no other protein) is 415 cals, and my favorite non veg order (same but with the pork, and I skip the rice) is the same (apparently the rice and pork are the same cals). That's on the low side of my usual lunch cals.

    (I only do Chipotle quite rarely since I like to bring my lunch and if I don't there are some options I prefer around my office (we were just talking about this on another thread), but the cals aren't an issue at all, and it's pretty tasty.)

    (Before I watched cals I'd get both the rice and the pork, so it would be 625, which is high for me now, for lunch, but not extremely so.)
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    adoucet15 wrote: »
    So I love chipotle.

    Is it good as in delicious, yes!

    But I’m wondering...

    Is it a good diet food?

    The calories are so high, even if you avoid rice and dairy.

    Just trying to determine if going paleo at Chipotle is worth it for the calories.

    I love being able to build my own meals and see the calories and macros with https://www.chipotle.com/nutrition-calculator

    I divide the calories in half by making two meals out of it. I make this work by not getting lettuce from the store, dividing the bowl in half, and adding a lot of my own lettuce for bulk, which fills me up. A carnitas bowl with everything I like is 820 calories; more if I add guac. For me, it's better to split that into two meals.

    Alternatively, I could have left off rice and cheese, for 500 calories.
  • AlyssaPetsDogs
    AlyssaPetsDogs Posts: 421 Member
    Of course it’s “good” - it’s delicious!

    I enjoy eating an entire bowl and all the fixings (sour cream, cheese, and guacamole) - usually when I’m having a chill night in. That being said, I’m on 1200 calories a day so that’s nearly all of them. So I’ll usually have this on a rare occasion and have a very light “snack” breakfast, get a good workout in, and indulge. I make it fit into my calories if I want the whole bowl with everything I love in it!
  • kimlight2
    kimlight2 Posts: 483 Member
    I eat Chipotle 2 or 3 times a week and get the same thing every time. I get a kids Build Your Own Taco meal with steak, pinto beans and tomato salsa. I add sides of green salsa and sour cream and get it without shells. I bring it home and add it to a big bowl of lettuce for a yummy texmex salad. As a bonus it comes with a tiny bag of chips and a drink. Because of the way it's packaged it is portion controlled so for everything my calories for all of it comes to less than 500.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,966 Member
    I get a bowl and immediately put half of it away for the next day. Half of a bowl with chips is a good meal size for me.
  • Blooperss
    Blooperss Posts: 42 Member
    One thing I've learned during my many attempts to lose weight and the one time I was successful - eat whatever you want as long as you're within your calorie limit. If you really crave something, make room for it to fit into your meal plan - some substitutes and tweaks could reduce a lot of calories.

    My bowls at Chipotle comes out to be about 650 calories. I get chicken, double fajita veggies, double corn, and double lettuce. Here's my issue - I cannot for the life of me imagine a Chipotle meal without drenching it in sour cream. What I do is go buy the low fat version to drizzle all over my bowl. 20 cals per serving vs 120 cals is substantial especially if you like 3 servings worth of sour cream.

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