Taco BellWhen I was watching television yesterday I saw a commercial about the Taco Bell Drive Thru Diet and I was initially shocked. Taco Bell and diet don’t usually go hand in hand. It was kind of an oxymoron to me.

I’m not sure how new this menu is to Taco Bell as I haven’t eaten there in a long time and I don’t watch television enough to be aware of their marketing campaigns, so this may not be new news to you, but I thought it would make for a lively discussion.

As I mentioned, I was initially shocked, but then I thought of the other fast food chains that have been doing this for years. McDonald’s has their healthy menu and Subway has Jared and their healthy menu, so why can’t Taco Bell do the same thing now with Christine and the Fresco Menu?

Here’s a quick video to give you a peak at the Taco Bell Drive Through Menu…

Highlights from the video:

  • Christine’s story – Didn’t want to give up fast food. Made other sensible healthy choices. Maintained a 500 calorie deficit at approximately 1250 calories per day. Took two years to lose 54 pounds.
  • Sodium Content is crazy high for most items, but over calories per item aren’t too bad.
  • One take home point from Christine’s story is that you can eat fast food or junk food and still lose weight as long as you are maintaining a caloric deficit. So calories do matter.

    • OK so let’s get into a discussion here. All thoughts and opinions are welcome.

    Do you think that the trend of fast food joints offering healthy menus is a good thing?

    Are you outraged that fast food joints are misleading the public into thinking their food is healthy?

    Do you find that this is exactly what you need in order to fit some healthy food choices into your busy schedule?

    Scott’s take: I’d rather see you prepare meals at home. If you are short on time I recommend that you prepare very large meals and store the leftovers in containers so you can have them throughout the week. The quickest way for me to prepare a meal is to warm up leftovers from the night before. Most of my meals are leftovers, which makes my life a lot easier.

    With that being said I understand that we are all looking for convenience and we don’t want to completely give up fast food. I don’t want to completely give it up either. We enjoy pizza once per week in our home.

    I do believe that you can achieve a fantastic physique without eliminating junk and fast food from your nutrition plan. I certainly wouldn’t want to see you consuming it everyday even if it is from the healthy menu.

    I’m not at all outraged that fast food joints are offering healthy menus even if they are not the healthiest options that you could choose. The way that I look at it is if you are going to go to a fast food joint anyway it’s nice that you have a healthier option than a heart attack in a box burger. Not to say that one of those heart attack in a box burgers are bad if you have one from time to time ;)

    It is important to be informed about the caloric content of the meal though even if it is healthy. I know that I would not be satisfied with just one chicken burrito, yet that would come very close to my calorie requirements for that meal (even though I don’t count calories).

    I do have a problem with the advertising labeling this as a ‘diet‘ even though they say it’s not a weight loss plan. The word ‘diet’ can be misleading to some people. If they kept it at ‘menu‘ that’s cool. But labeling it as a diet is going a bit too far in my humble opinion.

    As I mentioned in the video I have mixed feelings about fast food joints and healthy menus. For the most part I think that this is a good start and gives us ground to improve upon. It’s good to see the fast food joints making an effort to put out healthier choices. I just hope that their hearts are in the right place and it’s not all a marketing ploy where the only thing that matters is dollars and cents.

    I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let’s get a great discussion going on here. Keep it clean though. If you don’t agree with someone’s opinion that’s ok, but there’s no need to bash them. All opinions are welcome and there is no right or wrong answer here. This is simply a place to express your feelings.

    One of my friends sent me a message on Facebook yesterday about this and his statement was, “Honestly, I think it’s criminal what kind of garbage they’re feeding people – literally and through their new ad campaign.”

    I can certainly respect that perspective and understand where it’s coming from. Like I said, I’d rather see you preparing healthy meals at home, but if progress is going to be made we need to find some common ground. This is a start, but it’s far from the solution.

    So what do you think?

    Here’s the Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet Menu if you want to look at it a little closer.

    Keeping It Real,

    Scott Tousignant

    Scott Tousignant

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