Can weight loss and fast food coexist?

Can we lose weight while still enjoying fast food? Is there an ideal world that is just buried under years worth of fitness industry BS? I know the answer so keep reading while I explain it to you.

The reason I'm writing this is because I'm sick and tired of PT's (or other fitness professionals), using their platforms to brag about the fact they've had the same meal everyday for years. Cool story bro, tell me what other parts of your life are just groundhog day that "do not spark joy" (Kondo, 2019). This is to the people who are honest about their cravings and the foods they love. I've never been the type of person to pretend that Maccas didn't taste nice or that I didn't love loaded fries. So if you're like me, and you've been on the hamster wheel of trying to lose weight, chances are you've asked yourself if it can actually be done without cutting out every ounce of joy in your life :')

The answer is yes. I thought I'd throw that quick one in there in case you were just praying for this to end. If you want the reasoning, continue reading. The answer is yes because of a concept known as 'Calories In Versus Calories Out' (CICO). To make a long story short, if you're eating more than you're burning you will gain weight. If you're burning more than you're eating, you'll lose weight. Pretty simple right? Think of it like a bank balance. If you earn $800 per week, and spend $1000 a week, your bank account is going to diminish just like our bodies when we literally deprive it. Jeez, I didn't sell you on the simplicity of a calorie deficit with that one.

CICO is a great way to simply explain the balance of energy expenditure versus energy intake, but it often isn't enough to convince people. It's extremely hard to convince someone that it's not actually the foods they're eating, but the amount. Being told you eat too much, or explaining that someone's diet is too calorie dense can often come across pretty harsh. You see, it's way easier to blame an actual food like a burger or honey chicken, than admit that the amount you consumed was enough to feed a village (at least for me anyway). If you're skeptical, that's okay, because even if you're not willing to accept that portion control is not in your vocabulary, I'm going to give you a solution anyway.

Before I give you that solution, I want you to fully understand why fast food can be apart of your diet without leading to weight gain. I'm going to use some simple examples because as someone who didn't do Math in year 11 & 12, I often struggle with the bigger numbers (I'm kidding). Let's think about someone whose maintenance calories sit at about 2000. If we looked at a full day of eating that included; a Cali burrito from GYG, quarter pounder, McFlurry, soft drinks, and assorted snacks, it's easy to imagine how this 2000 calorie budget would be pretty easily blown. However, when we look at fast food as an extra and not the main character, it's also easy to understand how fast food can fit in our budget. Even with the delicious Cali burrito that comes in at around 1100 calories, old mate would still have 900 calories to inhale over the course of the day (likely across two meals). This goes for any food choice - if it fits, you will be fine. Now, for a lot of people this seems suspicious - "how could I possibly have an 1100 calorie burrito and not gain weight?''. Well the answer to that is simple, CICO. If you're gaining weight, it's not a direct link to the burrito, but it is linked to not fitting the food into your allocated calories.

So now we understand how weight loss works, and its simplicity, how can we apply this to fast food? How can we ensure the peaceful coexistence of delicious greasy food and weight loss? WELL MY FRIENDS I HAVE THE SECRETS TO SUCCESS!

Understand the foods you're eating

See, for me, I'm a big fan of Maccas. I'm an even bigger fan because on a day where I need to stick to my calories, I can easily just google the nutritional information sheet and figure out exactly how much I'm eating. 400 calories left in the day? 10 pack of chicken nugs it is. Thank you, next. This approach is very practical and extremely helpful in me managing both my cravings and control. There is no point in eating a triple quarter pounder on top of your full day of eating, and then pretending you don't know why the scale hasn't changed. If you want a triple quarter pounder, you do you, who am I to judge? But if it's you and the burger alone and you're pretending it's 200 calories, you're quite literally only lying to yourself. If you have a few go-to foods that are in your basket every week, just have a google or scan them into My Fitness Pal. You wouldn't let a strange man in your kitchen every week without getting to know him would you? Treat your food the same, find out more about them.

Give in to the craving

I know, worst advice from a PT ever. Hear me out though, because I have clients tell me every single day that their cravings are out of control. You know why? Because the more you try to avoid something, the more you want it. Kind of like how I tried to avoid watching MAFS but now my nightly routine revolves around its start time. The best thing I've learnt, and helped other people understand is that the most sustainable habit you can get into is letting yourself satisfy your cravings, but learning to satisfy them in moderation. Lets put this into context. Imagine you wanted KFC tenders and you held out for weeks and weeks until your restrictive diet was over. Raise your hand if you'd eat 20 - thank you for your honesty, hands down. Now lets go back to that first craving... if you just let yourself enjoy them to start with, you'd probably have one or two and because you don't feel like you've been shackled to a wall for 6 weeks, you'd still be able to exercise a degree of control. So, if your craving is a family bucket of KFC chicken, gather the troops and share the chicken with some others and make it work with your calorie balance. Fast food and weight loss can coexist if you don't deprive yourself, but they can't coexist when you hold off for so long that it throws off your trajectory and puts you right back at square one.

SO YES, fast food and fat loss can coexist. You can have both at the same time. You know how to tell that I'm being truthful? I'm not trying to sell you anything, and telling you this doesn't benefit me in anyway. You can lose weight without restricting to the degree that a lot of trainers require. You can lose weight without the help of trainers who preach ketogenic diets and no fast food for 90 days. You should do what works for YOUR lifestyle, not the steroid injecting meat head down the road, because at the end of the day when you're all alone, all you have (hopefully with some changes) is your health.

That's all from me this evening. I want you to really understand that fast food can be apart of your life, even when you're in a weight loss phase. If fast food is a big part of your life, cutting it out completely in the name of fat loss is only going to keep you hitting reset every couple of weeks. So instead of cutting it out completely, learn about the foods you're eating and let them stay in your life. Remember, it's all about the small changes that have a compounding effect.

Stop listening to the people who preach that weight loss has to be bland and boring for it to work *yawn*.

Your coach & friend,

Maddy