What are the best healthy fast food options?

If your heart is craving for healthy fast food options, you shouldn’t always deny the desire. While fast food is not recommended for daily consumption, but it doesn’t mean you cannot consume it occasionally.

Let’s understand the types of fast food options that can be aligned with a healthy lifestyle.

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Healthy fast food options to consider for cheat meals

Healthy fast food options (Photo via Unsplash/Eiliv Aceron)

If you’re usually following a diet, you have a set group of meals or a set number of daily calories.

However, when it comes to fast food, you can’t quite count the calories, and it won’t be a part of your daily diet too. Keeping that in mind, you want to pick a healthy fast food that doesn’t completely throw you off the wagon.

Here are some healthy fast food options you should consider for your diet:

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Grilled chicken sandwich

It’s better to go with a whole grain bun or bread and avoid high fat condiments.

Burrito bowl

Burrito bowls come with brown rice, grilled chicken, beef, beans, and vegetables. It’s best to skip the tortilla and stick to the bowl for a healthy fast food meal.

Sushi

Sushi is a healthy pick from fast food items, but you should be aware of the sauces, as they’re high in sodium and calories.

Grilled chicken salad

Like grilled chicken sandwiches, the salad comes with chicken and vegetables minus the bun. However, you should try to add fat-free sauces to your salad.

Fruit cup

A fruit cup is a healthy side option, but you must opt for one that doesn’t have any sugar syrup added to it.

Vegetable burger

Vegetable burgers are lower in calories than traditional burgers. However, you can further lower the calories by using a whole grain bun and skipping the high fat sauces like mayonnaise.

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While the above list has low-calorie fast food options, that doesn’t mean you should consume them every day (if they’re not homemade). Regardless of how healthy they may be, fast food is mostly saturated fat, so you should avoid it as much as possible.

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What are the healthy fast food chains?

Subway (Photo via Unsplash/Erik Mclean)

Obviously, when we speak of healthy fast food options, it’s not homemade food. So, instead of going off to a fast food restaurant that serves burgers and wraps with high saturated fat, you should consider alternatives that serve comparatively healthier choices.

• Subway
• Chipotle
• Panera Bread
• Shake shack

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Tips to a healthy lifestyle

Whether you’re searching for healthy fast food options or healthy fast food meals, you can’t be consuming fast food indefinitely, regardless of how healthy it may be.

Here are some of tips you may incorporate to maintain a healthy lifestyle:

• Follow a balanced diet
• Exercise regularly
• Stay hydrated
• Manage your stress
• Limit your calorie intake
• Avoid smoking

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The more tips you follow, the better it will be for your overall health. However, you’re allowed to let yourself be off the wagon for a while and live without any diets shackled to your wrist. Nevertheless, you should control your portion even with healthy fast food options.

For example, a grilled chicken sandwich is a great healthy fast food option, but you shouldn’t be consuming it every day. Additionally, when you’re purchasing fast food, it’s better to avoid condiments. Certain condiments like mayonnaise have high fat content.

You can enquire about healthier or fat-free options, but it’s better to skip them altogether if you can. If you cannot, you should look to make it as healthy as possible.