Can you have fast food on keto?
People get bent out of shape when I say that it’s okay to have fast food on keto. It’s an interesting response. There’s this reaction, sometimes shock and horror. Well, I’ve been working in Durham, North Carolina for 30 years and teaching people how to do low-carb diets for the last 20 years. As highlighted by a friend who moved down to this area, he was shocked at how much fast food was consumed in the lines of people waiting to get through the drive-thru. I have to be careful if I drive by this one chicken place over the lunch hour; there are three lanes to go through the drive-thru at this particular establishment. Any program that’s going to meet people where they are, who live in an area where they consume fast food or go to restaurants, has to come up with a way to think about how to go to these establishments without blowing the diet.
I’ve been learning from my patients. I don’t know when the last time was when I ate at McDonald’s, for example, but I have some patients who only eat at McDonald’s. I’m not saying that you have to do that; you may every now and then find yourself traveling or going with someone else who goes to McDonald’s, Burger King, or Wendy’s. The way you want to think about it is you just want to avoid the carbs, like you’re slapping them away, ditching the buns if you’re going to get a burger. You don’t have to fear getting a cheeseburger or a bacon cheeseburger, and you don’t have to fear the toppings. I’ve had people tell me they scrape off the toppings of the burger. It’s such a small amount, even if there’s sugar in the ketchup, you don’t have to worry about it.
What you do want to be very careful about is to not eat the buns and fries. These are potatoes. Yes, even cottage fries, they’re still potatoes. It doesn’t matter how the potato is cut. Even sweet potato fries – you can’t have the fries. And then don’t have sugar in the drinks. If you go to a burger place, they’ll want to upsell you to the whole package or the meal, including fries – just say no. Just get the sandwich itself. You might even get the double whatever and just don’t have the bun. If you say no bun and they look at you funny or if they give you a bun anyway, you don’t have to eat it. The problem today is the distribution of food. There’s plenty of food, in my view, that’s just not being distributed correctly. You eating that bun is not going to solve the poverty food crisis that we have today in some areas. I know people say, “I don’t want to waste the food.” Well, I don’t know how to help you with that other than to say that sometimes we do things that we don’t want to do, but I’d rather have you not eat the bun and waste the bun than to destroy a 100-pound weight loss when you’re having to lose 200 pounds. So, no bun, no fries, no sugar in the drinks.
A patient who loved fast food
I had a young man lose an enormous amount of weight, I think it was 100 pounds, just eating at McDonald’s. It was so long ago there was still a dollar menu at McDonald’s, and he just had two or three double cheeseburgers, no bun, no fries, no sugar in his drink. He ate once or twice a day because he just wasn’t hungry. Remember, there’s a lot of habit eating. I want to get that mindset changed. If you’re eating nutritious, delicious foods, you’ve come to a program like mine and you’re eating meat, poultry, fish, shellfish and eggs as the base of what you’re eating, it’s okay to not eat three meals a day. It’s okay to only eat when you’re hungry.
At a BBQ place, you can eat the BBQ, no bun. Or ask for it on the tray or on a salad. At a sub place, instead of bread, you put it on lettuce, put it on a salad. You might go to a chicken place – you’ll want to get the grilled chicken if you’re being super strict on a keto diet under 20 total carbs per day, because a chicken breast with carbs as the coating can have 20 carbs in just one chicken breast. So, you want to be very careful to not have the breading on the chicken. If you’re out and about, have the grilled chicken or it might be called char-grilled chicken. You can have rotisserie chicken because there’s no coating on it at all. You can actually eat the skin of the rotisserie chicken; it’s very nutritious as long as it doesn’t have breading on it.
With other fast food places, it’s just variations on a theme. If you get a hot dog, you’ll get two hot dogs at first, just no buns to go along with it. Of course, no fries. You might get green beans or coleslaw, although some places put sugar in the coleslaw and you might not even taste it. You want to be a little careful about the sides. Fast food restaurants all blur together. More and more, we’re getting pizza places that will put the pizza in a tray for you (without the crust) and then bake it that way. Or you just scrape off the toppings and eat the toppings. If you’re out with the family and everyone’s getting pizza, you just have the toppings of your slices and discard the crust. The other restaurants that are very popular in North Carolina are the Mexican restaurants, where you would say no to the chips. Fries aren’t an issue there, but the beans and rice are. You can’t have beans and rice. A very popular dish at a Mexican restaurant is fajitas. You can have that whole platter of meat and vegetables that are basically sizzling when they come out to you. You could have guacamole and salsa on a salad. Sometimes I’ll go to a place and they’ll feel sorry for me that I’m not getting the beans and rice, so they’ll say, “Can we throw in a pico de gallo salad for you?” Or a guacamole salad would be perfect.
You might get a taco salad at a Mexican restaurant and then just not eat the chips or the taco bowl that’s made out of the tortilla. Yes, tortillas, taco shells, all those things, be very careful at a restaurant. Even at the grocery stores, these tortilla wraps tend to be pretty high in carbs unless you can find the ones that are made out of parmesan cheese or egg whites. There are actually some nice ones available now. Always look at the total carbs, not net carbs. If it says “great for a keto diet,” be very suspicious, it’s probably not. There’s a lot of keto junk food out there right now. Another really popular restaurant in our area that people go to is the Chinese restaurant or hibachi grill. You can get the whole platter of steak and shrimp and chicken at a hibachi place. Of course, no rice and just a limited amount of vegetables. Remember, if you’re on a 20-gram per day diet, you want to limit the greens and the vegetables. There’s a limit to the vegetables; it’s unlike a low-fat diet as you may have been taught in the past.
It’s no problem going out to fast food places or restaurants, just be picky, be choosy. If someone gives you a carb, you don’t have to eat it; your body will thank you for it. It’s okay to have diet sodas in these restaurants and fast food places. The artificial or non-sugar sweeteners, including the ones that are real, like stevia, don’t have the same metabolic response in the body that sugar does. It’s okay to use these things; it rounds out the meal at a fast food place or a restaurant. It could actually be the dessert sweetness that you might be looking for because you’ve always had something sweet after dessert.
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