What Happened When I Ate Nothing But "Healthy" Fast Food For A Week
3,510,392
Published 2018-05-05
Tech Insider tells you all you need to know about tech: gadgets, how-to's, gaming, science, digital culture, and more.
Subscribe to our channel and visit us at: www.businessinsider.com/sai
TI on Facebook: www.facebook.com/techinsider
TI on Instagram: www.instagram.com/tech_insider/
TI on Twitter: twitter.com/techinsider
--------------------------------------------------
Following is the transcript of the video:
Kevin Reilly: Fast food is cheap and convenient. But hidden in between the burgers and tacos are some "healthy" options: salads, grilled chicken, yogurts, oatmeal, power burritos. Doesn't sound too bad, right? I spent a week eating nothing but these "healthy" fast foods and I lost six-and-a-half pounds. But even though I lost about a pound a day, it didn't really go well.
I live in New York City, a place with every possible food you could want. Eating healthy here, it's a breeze. But across America, there are more than 200,000 fast food joints, and they're bringing in more than $200 billion a year in sales. And no matter where you go, you're never far from a place like McDonald's or Taco Bell. But in recent years, consumers want better, healthier choices, and the traditional fast food places have been losing customers to those fast casual healthy options.
The rules were pretty simple: Eat every major meal at a national fast food chain and stick to the healthy options. McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts, Subway, and Chick-fil-A; nothing but them for a week. Yeah, I lost almost seven pounds, but let's take a close look at the numbers.
On a normal day, I'm eating around 2,500 calories. An adult man should be having about 2,400 to 2,600 calories a day. But on this fast food plan, my calories plummeted. Most of these meals came in under 400 calories, and that was one of my first problems. I'd eat and just a couple hours later, I was starving. And I had days when I didn't eat more than 1,000 calories.
Now, some of these meals were really good. My favorite was this grilled chicken market salad from Chick-fil-A. It had blueberries, strawberries, apples; it was delicious and it was actually healthy. However, a lot of the other salads from Burger King, McDonald's, and Wendy's were loaded with salt, often more than 50% of what I needed for the entire day, from a salad. In fact, excess salt was a problem the entire week. I thought I had hit the jackpot with Taco Bell's al Fresco menu. They take off all the cheese and mayo-based sauces and replace it with lettuce and pico de gallo. One night I got tacos, another night I got a power cantina burrito, and these were meals with more protein than usual. So, I felt like I was getting enough food. They were good, too good. It was all salt. In fact, just one burrito had almost as much salt as I needed in just one day. The American Heart Association says we should limit our sodium to about 2,300 milligrams a day, but the ideal is closer to 1,500 milligrams a day, especially for a person like me with high blood pressure. But if you look at my sodium intake, it was high every day, yet I was barely getting the calories I needed. If I wanted to keep the sodium down, I was starving. If I wanted to feel full, salt through the roof. You see, that's an issue in the fast food industry. Wendy's even acknowledges on their website that there's going to be a trade-off between salt and flavor.
It was weird. I didn't feel healthy at all throughout the week, even though I was eating healthy foods and losing weight. And on the last day, I had this massive headache that was just infuriating. These places, they're supposed to be tasty, cheap, and convenient. But it wasn't cheap. Every healthy option was expensive, but left me hungry. For eight grilled nuggets and this tiny kale salad at Chick-fil-A, $12. For the power Mediterranean salad at Wendy's, it was almost $8, yet I could get a cheeseburger, nuggets, fries, and a soda for only $4. That brings me to another problem. Walk into McDonald's and you get hit with that sweet, sweet french fry smell, and I had to get a salad.
Would I recommend this to anyone? Nope, unless you're stuck on the road with no other options. Though there was a bright spot: breakfast at Subway. They have these egg-white-and-cheese sandwiches, which I got covered in spinach and peppers. And let me tell you, it was good. But after all this, I just want a cheeseburger.
All Comments (21)
-
People in the U.S. really use the word “starving” loosely.
-
Food has lettuce in it. It’s “Healthy”
-
The problem is not just the "food", it's also the "fast" part. Fast / delicious / healthy. You can only pick two.
-
Who the hell puts strawberries in grilled chicken
-
For anyone curious, the chick-fil-a salads are actually made fresh in the morning with fresh ingredients and put into the refrigerator to keep fresh for a little while before someone orders one (used to work there). There's a reason they taste good.
-
‘Tech Insider’
-
Is this really a well thought out video though? The guy was unhealthy to start with... and then he keeps saying he didn't feel healthy during the week because he was suddenly so aware.
-
“An average male needs 2400 to 2600 calories a day” Matt stonie,”hold my beer”
-
"on an average day im having about 2500 calories a day" why are you lying
-
Drinking more water will help with the excess salt and being hungry all the time.
-
I seem he has less knowledge about food and nutrition.
-
The first sentence of this video.. NO! Fast food is not that cheap. Do the math! Cooking at home saves your health and $$$
-
This guy doesn't know much about food and nutrition
-
You do realize if you exercise daily for 3-5 days at moderate to high intensity for 30-50 min you'll sweat most of the salt out. You have heart health issues because you simply aren't exercising enough. Those issues become no longer when you actually take care of yourself. If you think salt is bad, you'd be amazed at your controversial stance against it with other countries who consume far more sodium like the people around the Mediterranean sea and Japan. They're predicted to live longer. Enjoy your salt.
-
You don't eat around 2500 calories daily. We might be stupid but we're not blind
-
Tip: Just dont eat food at all duh
-
They're still unhealthy foods. Do you know preservatives are bad for you. That food is most likely frozen but reheated.
-
Just goes to show eating food you make yourself is the best way. If that wasn't already obvious, of course... And it's REALLY not as hard as people make it out to be.
-
You and me both know you don’t eat 2500 calories regularly. Just by looking at you, you’re easily breaking 3k daily on a low eating day. The reason you’re so hungry is because you’re going from 3.5k-4K calories (which is realistic let’s be real here) to a normal diet of around 2k.
-
I love this video, we have a similar problem in the UK. There are all types of fast food around, and sometimes it's easier to choose this option. I work 50+ hours a week in central London, I used to live of fast food daily, and honestly I felt like crap. I started re-organising my time and spared a couple of hours to meal prep. Honestly, I've never felt so healthy and good in my life. Of course I treat myself now and then with the occasional fast food, but not as much nowadays
