The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

One of the things that is so prevalent these days are fast food. It’s easy to travel a mile and pass over 10 restaurants in some places. And no one can deny that they are convenient, and sometimes there are no other nearby options. My goal with this article and others is to look at what is available. Taking the information available on their website, I want to provide a general idea of how much of what someone can eat. At the same time I’m going to indicate what I would get if just going by my natural instincts. I’m going to use my general numbers generated by the government to get me down to a healthy weight. That means 2600 calories a day. Subtract 150 calories for daily fruit and 300 calories in breakfast yogurt. Estimating about 1000+ for dinner, and I’ll give myself an even 1000 calories for lunch.

Today I’m going to start with an old favorite - Wendy’s. I admit, I’m a creature of habit and really like Wendy’s Spicy Chicken sandwich combo. Per their nutrition page that provides me

• Sandwich : 480 Calories
• Small Fries : 370 Calories
• Medium Soda : 220 Calories
• Total : 1070 Calories

So it looks like it’s just at what would be a good goal for me. But I want to modify these numbers just a bit for two reasons. First, I typically get at least one refill on soda. That’s 220 more calories, for a total of 1290. At the same time there is a tendency for Fast Food companies to under-report the caloric value of the foods the make. It’s usually considered within statistical error, but often enough that the values should be taken with a grain of salt. I’m going to increase the value by 5% in an attempt to adjust for that. Wow, that places the end value at 1355. That additional 350 calories cost me another 30 minutes on the treadmill. What can I do differently?

• Sandwich : 480 Calories
• Small Fries : 370 Calories
• Medium Soda : 220 Calories

Well, straight away if I remove soda I get a total of just under 900 Calories. That’s even with my 5% adjustment. It’s amazing how much soda can effect your diet. Maybe you don’t like chicken. You could replace it with,say, a Double Jr or a single Classic. The frescata sandwiches have just as many calories or more than my beloved spicy chicken. And even more surprising are the salads, for most of them with provided condiments have as many calories or more than the sandwiches, save only the Caesar.

So, I wonder. Are my instincts strong enough that if I remove soda from most of the combo meals, I would be able to keep me within my goal of 1000 calories? We will have to see.

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