SUGGESTIONS - Fast Food Lunches

People ask for healthy but often they mean low calorie. Is this the case for you? If so, many places have calories online now. You would probably need to experiment with some options to get your hunger sated for a reasonable amount of calories which would be the real challenge... at least for me.

Taco Bell has a lot of options, especially if you use their online calculator to configure what you want (not everything is on the menu board). I like the veggie power bowl minus rice plus extra black beans, personally, plus maybe some extra pintos'n'cheese. (I'm vegetarian.) Subway will make any sub into a salad, with your choice of their veggies. I usually go for some cheese maybe egg for protein (meat eaters would go for other things), and get guacamole and vinegar as the dressing.

Some exploring of online nutrition calculators for the fast food in your area can really pay off.

Starbucks' Egg White & Roasted Red Pepper Sous Vide Egg Bites

MaltedTea wrote: »

Starbucks' Egg White & Roasted Red Pepper Sous Vide Egg Bites

This sounds amazing!

El Pollo Loco Double Chicken Avocado Salad (they probably have quite a few healthy and/or lower calorie things on the menu, but this one is my favorite).

Chic-fil-a Grilled Chicken Nuggets with sides or salads of your choice.

Wendy's chili and junior frosty. A Wendy's salad.

Chipotle salad with chicken, no rice, a little bit of beans, lots of salsa. You could have rice on it, but I'm not fond of it so I skip it for the calories.

I think most fast food small burgers are pretty reasonable in calories. Check out the nutrition info for the child's meals.

Actually, I almost never eat lunch from a restaurant except for the occasional El Pollo Loco salad. I'm much more likely to make multiple portions of dinner and freeze the extra servings for lunches later.

I love the grilled sandwich meal with a cup of soup instead of fries and a Diet Coke at Chick fil A! Also, there Cobb salad with grilled chicken and balsamic is really good too.

Taco Bell steak cantina bowl (they have a chicken option but I don't care for it) - about 500 calories on the menu, but it includes sour cream, rice, black beans, cheese, guacamole, ranch. So you can modify by leaving out one or more of those to drop the calories if needed. They have a build-your-meal tool on the website that shows calories.

Chick fil A grilled chicken sandwich (320) + small kale salad (60)

Zaxby's has a few salad options. All are customizable depending on what you like, or to modify calories. I like one with blackened chicken breast and blue cheese crumbles. It comes with fried onions but I leave them off. I believe its about 370 calories this way, and I use their lite vinagrette for another 35. It comes with a piece of garlic toast, which of course is optional.

Subway - most 6 inch subs can be made to fit a reasonable calorie range, and I typically would not have the appetite for a 12". I'll normally do tuna on white with pickles. Maybe ham, turkey or bacon with various veggies to suit what I'm in the mood for. Sometimes with cheese, again depends on the scenario. 280-550 or so calories.

I would second the question about whether or not you mean "lower calorie" when you write "healthy."

If yes, my favorite lower calorie options are Subway (you can completely customize your order to leave off higher calorie items and if you get a salad it can be even lower calorie), Taco Bell (you can eat a lot of food for not very many calories if you're thoughtful about what you order), and Chipotle (getting a salad without any rice and leaving off calorie-dense toppings, you can get it pretty low calorie). I've gotten pretty good stuff at Panera too, but I haven't been there for a while.

corinasue1143 wrote: »

Don’t forget Panda Express w/greens.

Yes I love Panda Express! They always have a variety of options. I do think it wise to assume their portions could be big because they freehand it. But that is easy to compensate for by logging it as 1.25 servings just in case.

Wendy's has some great items that can be customized. You can get the grilled chicken sandwich under 300 calories if you have them put it on a regular bun and not the artisan bun and take off the sauce.

I customize the grilled chicken salads a lot - the avocado salad, for instance, if you don't need the fat, you can remove the avocado and the bacon and use a vinaigrette dressing and get it below 200 calories for the half size.

I often get a salad that I've customized and a small chili and can easily get a lunch under 500 calories there.

Arby's turkey club is an excellent source of protein if you take off the mayo and the cheese. The farmhouse turkey salad there can also be brought way down in calories just by removing the cheese and using the low fat Italian dressing.

You can also bring the calories down on sandwiches by eating them open faced and throwing away the bun top. If I need a quick snack, I'll stop at Arby's for a turkey slider no cheese and toss the top part of the bun to the birds - it gets the snack down to 90 calories and over 10g protein.

I used to be able to do pretty well at McDonald's but not now since they've removed all their salads and grilled chicken off their menu. I avoid McDonalds now and will continue to do so until they put those back on their menu. The only way I can do any good at McDonald's is to get a hamburger happy meal with the child fries and apple slices - that's under 400 calories. But ti doesn't hold me long so I don't take this option unless I'm craving a hamburger, and that's rare. Wendy's is a better bet.

As someone else mentioned, Taco Bell is great for allow customizations that can really get the calories down. I use the online or app menus all the time to customize my meals and can have really good success in getting something to satisfy me without killing my calorie budget.