You know fast food is bad for you...

Are you KIDDING me?! You have a Bojangles close to you, and you choose Subway? The closest Bojangles to me is 12 hours away. I've contemplated driving that distance some days.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't break down every once in a while and grab breakfast there (sausage and egg biscuit with grape jelly). But on a daily office-grind basis, if I have to buy lunch, Subway is the closest thing that has healthful choices.

Bojangles also has amazing sweet tea by the half-gallon.

Assuming that we're talking about Bojangles Chicken and Biscuits (which I had to look up since they don't apparently exist in my area) one might be better off jogging the distance :)...

Yes, that's the Bojangles we're discussing. And if you've ever had one of their biscuits, you'd know that the jog would only burn about half of it off...
 
I treat myself to Cane's once per week, but lately at the gym I find myself wondering how much of the day's workout is being expended just to burn off the Cane's before I even get to anything that actually moves me forward...
 
I hear his dog up and died (yup, it died).

To this day he still grieves, but I find it suspicious that he opened his first restaurant immediately thereafter.
 
Yes, that's the Bojangles we're discussing. And if you've ever had one of their biscuits, you'd know that the jog would only burn about half of it off...

Yep, that's true. Don't even get me started on the bo'berry biscuits.

Bojangles is one of 3 restaurants I miss from NC. The other two are Andy's and Smithfield BBQ
 
Wasn't the point of Supersize Me that McDonalds actually advertized that you could eat only their food and still be healthy? He just proved them wrong.

Actually he didn't. He proved that if he ate ONLY the fatting food and supersized his order to eat extra that he would become ill and overweight.

If he ate their salads, and lowfat menu items with fruit instead of fries he could easily eat only their food and be healthy.
He forced himself to eat double quarter pounders and large fries. It's not McDonalds fault.
 
He ate what McDonalds was marketing and actively encouraging customers to buy and consume, as a matter of counter-service crew policy.

So make that He proved that if he ate ONLY the fatting food and supersized his order as McDonald's advertising and sales policy deliberately and consciously encouraged patrons to do that he would become ill and overweight.

Note that McDonalds changed that policy in response to the negative publicity they received as a result of the film's release. Do you think they would have made any policy changes, had he *not* embarrassed them about it?
 
I like how the fries and the bun migrated around the plate :P

I live in NC so believe me, I *know* Bojangles :) We call them 'Hangover Biscuits' for a reason!

Pertaining to food, the problem is three fold, which I call the three Cs :)

Convenience
Cost
Clue

Healthy food needs to be more convenient and varied. Most restaurants either serve some VERY sad vegetables or they are so full of sodium and butter, they are probably WORSE than fries.

Cost, given fast food is SO cheap, the difference is just SO huge. Also, many foods people THINK are healthy can be worse. And pertaining to Sushi, better be careful. Many of the fish have a lot of mercury in them. There is a recommended weekly intake. I love sushi, but I am careful.

Clue refers to people not understanding dieting, and how your body works with food. They sit down and eat a steak dinner at home with a potato and some veggies and they can EASILY surpass a meal at fast food. (Mainly because of quantity that US people eat). Subway 12 inch subs like the spicy italian are SO MUCH worse than a big mac or whopper, yet people don't realize that.

IF your basil metabolic rate is say 2000 calories a day (and you can have this tested), if you eat below 2000 calories, you are NOT going to gain weight. Which is step 1 to getting a clue. It's not fat, or sugar, or what have you on this measurement, it's calories.

Step two to getting a clue is value of material you put in your body. Sure, you can eat little calories, but if you are eating things like trans fat, sodium, etc in high quanities, you are going to screw with your circulatory system. Skinny people get hypertension, heart attacks, strokes, etc. Just because they have a faster metabolism doesn't mean fat cannot build up in their arteries. This is a huge misconception that people don't get. I know plenty of rail thin 40 to 50 years olds that have hypertension BAD due to diet. Talk about a wake up call to them.

And worst is exercise. It's such a HUGE part of the equation and make a huge difference, but people just try to skip that and eat less, which makes them look like a trash bag with a bundle of sticks once they lose weight :)

I still eat McD's every once in awhile, I like it, but I try to eat foods that aren't going to clog my arteries (alhtough those chicken wings for lunch don't fit that plan!) :) I never worry about calories because I know most of the foods I eat and I know how to keep within my range easily (as I got tested for my basal rate).

I cannot wait for the day a fast food healthy alternative comes up that isn't too pricey and everyone loves it. That will be the day!
 
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Wbright colored plastic chairs, screaming kids and justin bieber and radio ga ga or whatever their names are. Also, McDonald's coffee tastes awful.

This was a good laugh.



I can't eat fast food anymore for the same reason I can't eat junk food. I'm too analytical about it that I'm not even hungry after a while. Trying to figure out what's in everything I pick up to eat...it's exhausting, but I can't stand the thought of trading time for something quick and greasy/sugary/salty/fat-soaked without really considering the pros and cons. This necessitated a daily routine of more or less eating the same things at the same times every day. It's easy to do during the school year because I'm out of the house by 8:30am or 7pm (depending on the day).

It became so tedious for me to pick apart every scrap of food for its nutritional ingredients that food is now boring to me. It's just a requirement.

Cooking is kind of fun to me, though, and I cook more during the summer, but now even my summers are too busy to allow for it.

I would kill to only have to eat once for 5 minutes a day to be good for the rest of it! I would do the same with sleep, too - 2 hours/day is all that's needed. Think of how much you could get done with that extra time! :D



This thread is pretty derailed.
 
This was a good laugh.



I can't eat fast food anymore for the same reason I can't eat junk food. I'm too analytical about it that I'm not even hungry after a while. Trying to figure out what's in everything I pick up to eat...it's exhausting, but I can't stand the thought of trading time for something quick and greasy/sugary/salty/fat-soaked without really considering the pros and cons. This necessitated a daily routine of more or less eating the same things at the same times every day. It's easy to do during the school year because I'm out of the house by 8:30am or 7pm (depending on the day).

It became so tedious for me to pick apart every scrap of food for its nutritional ingredients that food is now boring to me. It's just a requirement.

Cooking is kind of fun to me, though, and I cook more during the summer, but now even my summers are too busy to allow for it.

I would kill to only have to eat once for 5 minutes a day to be good for the rest of it! I would do the same with sleep, too - 2 hours/day is all that's needed. Think of how much you could get done with that extra time! :D



This thread is pretty derailed.
Dude.

You're a Major Overthinker. Better learn to stop that or you'll get sucked into deep depression.

Don't think, man. Just do. Sometimes it's healthier to be able to just say **** it.
 
So McDonalds encourages people to eat 5000 calories a day? Huhm, thats funny. I don't get that message when I see their commercials.

C'mon, don't be a jackass. McDonalds employees were directed to push the super-size meals at the counter (in fact I explicitly mentioned this in the post you reference; maybe junk food is bad for reading-comprehension skills, too...) and of course advertising - while pimping the supposed 'economy' of buying the up-sized portions - wasn't going to be designed to remind consumers how calorie-laden the meals were.

Phelps' caloric intake - or that of any active professional-grade athlete - is a ridiculous thing to point to when we're talking about average consumers who have neither the physical conditioning nor the activity level to healthfully make use of the calories. And the source of the calories (fats vs simple vs complex carbohydrates) is important too; for nutritional purposes not all calories are created equal. Which I suspect is something you actually know.

Or maybe not.
 
Poor dietary habits are contributory to depression too, you know.
Oh absolutely. What you put in you has an immediate influence on your mood.

But the effects of that type of depression are more short term and easier to control than the kind of depression you get from over thinking.
Changing your diet vs changing your thought pattern...
 
C'mon, don't be a jackass. McDonalds employees were directed to push the super-size meals at the counter (in fact I explicitly mentioned this in the post you reference; maybe junk food is bad for reading-comprehension skills, too...) and of course advertising - while pimping the supposed 'economy' of buying the up-sized portions - wasn't going to be designed to remind consumers how calorie-laden the meals were.

Phelps' caloric intake - or that of any active professional-grade athlete - is a ridiculous thing to point to when we're talking about average consumers who have neither the physical conditioning nor the activity level to healthfully make use of the calories. And the source of the calories (fats vs simple vs complex carbohydrates) is important too; for nutritional purposes not all calories are created equal. Which I suspect is something you actually know.

Or maybe not.
Not only that, but I've seen signs at the counter saying If the employee forgets to offer you a plus-size (I don't know what they call a larger fries and drink in the US, here it's called plus-size. We have small, medium, large) - you'll get one for free.
In other words, they're encouraging the personel to sell you larger drinks and fries and they're encouraging the customers to remind the personel to sell them larger drinks and fries.
 
I think definition of "healthy" can be a fuzzy one (I'd argue that Subway isn't all that healthy either with all the sandwich meat and refined bread). The issue is the economics of food and how high in calories meals our are.

It's not just fast food restaurants... Cheesecake Factory has 900 calorie (lunch sized) salads, add a soda and slice of cheesecake and you'll have a single meal at over 2000 calories. Nearly every combo meal is over 1000 calories as well. (most people aren't sure how many calories they should eat anyhow)

I don't think eating McDonalds once in a while is that bad, there are plenty of bad foods people buy at the grocery store as well... I don't know if we could even pinpoint anyone who's died from eating at McDonald's too often... but it's easy to point the finger at too many calories. Supersize Me was more an exercise in seeing what 5000 calories per day might do to someone... surprise! They gain lots of weight. The problem isn't really the big mac, or the cheeseburger by itself. It's the burger + the fries + the soda == too many calories.

This would have happened on Subway as well. I'd argue that Subway is actually more misleading in its advertising, because it's slogan "eat fresh" as well as it's spokesperson suggest that their food will help you lose weight. I actually think that their weight loss marketing is what has kept them around for so long. They focus on fat grams when comparing their sandwiches to McDonalds, and conveniently don't mention the fact that a foot long sub often has more calories than a Big Mac. Jared's so-called Subway diet was primarily 6 inch subs with no condiments (maybe mustard)... no cheese. Why would I get a 6-inch when they are telling me about their 5 dollar foot longs??

The bottom line is that there are too many cheap sources of calories, and too little exercise in the American lifestyle...
 
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