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A Sure Way to Gain Weight is Eating in the Drive-Thrus
Taste, variety, convenience, and price are among the many reasons people find drive-thru fast food restaurants so appealing. To the millions who go their every day, the drive- thru fast food restaurant is even more pleasurable than eating inside the same restaurant. There is nothing more pleasing for many individuals than eating a French fry or two out of the bag on the front seat as they are driving home. conveient.
The fact that almost everyone samples the food bought in a drive-thru as they are driving precludes most people from buying the lower calorie alternatives such as salads or snack wraps, since they are much more difficult to eat in a car. Here are some of the reasons people seek drive- thru eating and what can be done about it.
Drive-thrus and fast food restaurants have variety:
Mom wants a chicken salad, dad a big Mac®, one kid wants chicken nuggets and the other just onion rings. They all want fries and a soda. What is the family to do? How can you please everyone? The answer is often the variety available at these restaurants. McDonald’s leads the way with over 252 selections of the menu. Wendy’s is next with 162 choices and Burger Kings® is last with only 152 selections. Everyone can truly have it his or her way!
Maximum convenience:
Why defrost and cook a chicken, boil some potatoes and open a can of vegetables when you can get a value meal without even getting our of your care? On every urban corner, there is one, two or even three drive in choices. They are quick and easy at the same time as being extremely pleasing.
Face It, Fast Foods Are Cheap:
The typical person going to McDonald's does not pull up in a Mercedes Benz or a BMW. He is the working guy with 20 dollars in his pocket. His wife might also be working full time and driving the kids to soccer or dance classes. The family has neither the time nor the money to eat at home or in a sit-down restaurants.
We Like the Taste of Fast Foods:
Our bodies are programmed to like high calorie, sweet, fatty, or starch foods. These desires originated as a way for our ancestors to differentiate poisonous foods from safe foods. Poisonous plants taste bitter, while “safe” plants taste either salty or sweet. Our bodies have also learned to identify “fatty” foods and “salty” and ‘sweet” foods with energy and therefore with survival. Thus, the pervasive sweetness and saltiness of fast foods. McDonald's French fries are the poster child of the fast foods—inexpensive, easy to eat, crispy, a flavorful taste and salty. One of the most pleasing of all foods.
You Can’t Even Eat The Few Low Calorie Fast Foods in Your Car:
Of the 252 foods on the McDonald’s menu there are only 15 that are really low calorie, 12 of these are salads, two are breakfast foods-- the plain biscuit and the muffin and the last one is the snack wrap(not very big and borderline in calories). One of the greatest of the appeals of buying foods in a drive is the ability to sample them as you are driving. The problem is that few individuals will open the plastic box containing the salad and pick up a piece of lettuce or chicken as they are driving. This forces the customer at the drive in window to order the higher calorie foods that lend themselves more to snacking.
Faceless eating at the drive lessens the guilt of eating high caloire fast foods:
Let’s face it, when standing in front of a pretty 18 yr old counter girl at McDonald's most people trying to lose weight are careful about what and how much they order. Facing a “live” person most individuals feel uncomfortable, first about ordering, and then sitting alone at a table and eating two or three Big Macs and bags of fries, one after another. How do they get over their guilt and shame of eating these foods? They either order it “To Go”, or even better seek the drive-thru.
You don't even have to get out of your car:
What can be easier and use less exercise, you don’t even have to get out of your car. Its easy to order two Big Mac’s, two double fries and an apple pie from the faceless person at the drive-thru, after all they could be for children in the back seat, taken home for the whole family or more often than not eaten by the driver.
Know knows what your eating:
You don’t even have to be hungry to make that impulsive move to the drive thru. How many big Mac’s or bag of French fries did the person eat? Who knows, who cares. When you are eating as you are driving you have no idea of how much you eat, your mind is distracted by the driving(or at least it should be) and it's one fry or chicken nugget after another. When you are all done, you are sure to throw the bag away to destroy the evidence. After all it’s your secret. More often than not, this almost secretive behavior instills more pleasure in the eating experience, leading to more and more eating. It also happens to be the tool with which the overweight person builds his myth …”that I don’t each much more than everybody else”… They are fooling everybody else and subsequently over time will also fool themselves by losing all perspectives about how much they really eat.
Comparison of Typical Drive -Thru Lunch vs. Lower Calorie Fast Food:
The convenience, price and taste of fast foods makes attempting to stop them impractical for many individuals, especially over the long term. The secret, like eating at home or in sit down restaurants, is to make better choices from all of the available fast food restaurants. There are many lower calorie alternatives to the burger drive-in. Switching to the alternatives foods ONLY ONCE A WEEK can save you more than 700 calories a week, which translates into a 10 lb. weight loss over a year. Remember, this change is only one meal out of the whole week. Although they may not be as convenient, look at the calories savings:
Comparison of Drive-In Foods Vs. Lower Calorie Fast Foods-Lunch Food Choices
McDonalds: Big Mac & fries: 1010
Subway: Turkey sub and baked chips: 410
Quiznos: Honey Bourbon Chicken & baked chips: 440
Arby’s: Roast Beef sandwich & Santa Fe Chicken salad: 570
Chick-Fil-A: Grilled Chicken sandwich with side salad: 330
Thinking Big at Fast Food Restaurants
Hardee's has come out with a 1,400-calorie Monster Thickburger, Wendy's has ushered in a 1,000-calorie triple cheeseburger, Burger King has created the 730-calorie Enormous Omelet to compete with McDonald's 1,190-calorie Deluxe Breakfast, Pizza Hut has come up with the 2,240-calorie Full House XL pizza. Ruby Tuesday's has issued an Ultimate Colossal Burger worth 1,780 calories.
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