What Nutrition Pros Eat At Fast Food Restaurants

Most people consider fast food restaurants nothing but unhealthy, yet they keep going anyway. The truth is some meals on the fast food menu are healthier than others but it can be extremely hard to figure out which meals are the healthiest. Choosing the right foods to eat at a fast food restaurant can be hard whether you’re on a diet or not. When on the quest for a lean physique, you’re more or less limited to ordering from the slender healthy pickings, such as your classic boring grilled chicken salads, or even getting a burger, holding the condiments and getting rid of the bun entirely.

Now imagine you’re a nutrition pro, and suddenly this predicament gets a whole lot worse.

Everyone’s eyes are on you as you step up to the counter to place your order, and they wait with baited breath as you make your decision on what food to order.

Advising your clients on what to eat day in and day out might seem like a really simple task – but in reality it’s putting the advice into practice that’s the tough part, and everyone wants to know if nutrition pros do really practice what they preach. What can you learn from the nutrition pros? What do they order at fast food restaurants? Keep reading to find out exactly what approach nutritrition pros take.

Following the Rules

Nutrition pros often experiment with different methods of dieting, or try out different plans and nutrition approaches before using them on clients, so often you’ll find that nutritionists and coaches are following a rules-based diet.

This could be a low-carb plan, carb backloading (where you eat virtually zero carbohydrates in the morning and afternoon, then load up on carbs in the evening after training,) a ketogenic diet, the paleo or caveman diet, or a different macronutrient split.

When testing out certain diets with the intention of later implementing them with clients, nutrition pros will stick to the rules one hundred percent. It’s no good testing out a diet if you’re going to break the rules. Therefore, they’ll choose whatever items on the menu fit with their plan.

This could mean just going for a double burger with no bun or ketchup on a low-carb plan, finding a meal to fit in with a certain amount of protein, carbs and fat, finding something very high in carbs but low in fat when carb-loading, or getting as close as possible to a caveman style meal – basically meat or fish plus salad. If the nutritionist is trying a very strict diet, this may even man skipping the food altogether, getting a water and eating at home later on.

Breaking the Rules

Most nutritionists realize that their clients aren’t going to adhere to plans 100 percent of the time. They also know that life is for living, not just dieting, so will doubtless encourage flexibility and ask that clients stick to a diet 80 to 90 percent of the time and have a little leeway for circumstances like being stuck at a fast food joint.

Nutrition pros aren’t saints, so from time to time they may indulge in an unhealthy meal. They’ll enjoy it too, especially if it tastes good and they don’t go into full-on binge mode. Being in the health and nutrition game, they may even precede the fast food meal with a tough workout to offset some of the damage.

Sample Fast Food Meals for Nutrition Pros

Get a bunch of nutrition pros together and you’ll probably witness them consuming all-manner of different fast food meals. Let’s take your typical fast food restaurant, serving burgers, chicken, pizzas and other not-so-healthy meals, as well as the odd semi diet-friendly one, and examine what different nutrition professionals might go for.

The Macro-Counting Nutrition Pro

Macros are proteins, carbohydrates and fats. If you’re a macro counter, it means that your diet is based around hitting a certain amount of each macro every day. You’re not limited by your food choices, rather your food choices are dictated by the numbers you have to hit.

The macro-counting nutritionist can pick literally anything from the menu, but it needs to fit with their daily totals, so they’ll either choose to go to a fast food restaurant that provides nutrition breakdowns on the menu, or choose a simple dish they can estimate the values of.

The Clean-Eating Nutrition Pro

Clean eaters believe in only choosing whole or natural foods. This goes hand in hand with the paleo diet, meaning no bread, grains or processed meats.

These folks will almost certainly go for a salad, with lean meat or fish and very little dressing. If the fast food joint offers fruit bags, as some now do, they may get one of those too, along with water or coffee.

The Performance Nutrition Pro

Plenty of powerlifters, strength athletes and competitors are also nutrition coaches. These guys are purely concerned with eating to optimize performance, which often means eating a lot to fuel recovery and growth and replenish muscle glycogen and protein stores following training.

You might be surprised with this, but expect to see these fellas letting their hair down and indulging in pizza, fried chicken, burgers and maybe even fries. You can bet your last buck they’ll be even more likely to do this if they’re eating post-training or have just competed.

The High-Carb Nutrition Pro

While most nutritionists now recognize the importance of proteins and healthy fats, some still advocate a high-carb, and possibly even vegetarian diets.

Vegetarian pizzas with low-fat cheese and extra veggies are on the menu, as are fish or veggie burgers, holding the mayo. Salads are a must, and they’ll probably have some fruit and maybe a juice or smoothie too.

The Low-Carb Nutrition Pro

If a nutrition pro is a fan of Atkins, or a ketogenic diet, their meal plans will be high in protein and fat, but very low in carbs.

While this does rule out a lot of menu options, there’s still plenty of variety. Fast food burgers are generally pretty fatty, which sits well with low-carb folk. They’ll get a couple of these and throw away the bun. Fried chicken is a good bet too, but you’ll probably find them removing the coating, which is higher in carbs and just eating the meat. They’ll skip the fries, but probably get a salad with some mayo or an olive oil-based dressing to boost their fat intake and get some extra vitamins and minerals without overdoing the carbs.

As you can see, nutrition pros aren’t perfect, but they do know how to balance following a healthy diet and reaching their goals, with setting a good example to clients and having a life outside of nutrition.

The odd fast food meal won’t do any harm in the long run, provided you’re sensible and pick choices that more or less match your goals.