I’m going to start a series on healthy junk food. Really! You know I’m a big fan of Men’s Health, they do a ton of research and really put a lot into making fitness and healthy decisions easy to understand and live with. Their Abs Diet program includes books, a website, emails and tons of info on healthy eating and exercise. The “Eat this, not that” series gives you the good, bad, and ugly options of choosing what to eat in almost any situation, from the ballpark to your couch, or at any fast food or sit down restaurant in existence. Here’s a look at the latest info they are sharing about good and bad choices when it comes to burgers:

The burger industry in America is looking more and more like an arms race these days. Every few months, we watch in horror as another bacon-enhanced, cheese-embalmed, ranch-riddled weapon of mass inflation hits menu boards at the country's largest restaurant chains.

Each year Americans eat about 40 billion burgers, which means that each of us downs nearly 150 of them. Choose better burgers, and you can save 10 or 15 pounds over the course of a year.

To get you started on your own burger war, we've compiled a list of the seven greasiest patties ever to be sandwiched between two buns. But because we understand you still need your burger fix, we've thrown in five of our favorites that you can eat with relative impunity.

Here’s the list of good burger choices:

Burger Hall of Fame

With knowledge and discipline, you can eat all of your favorite foods-without ever being on a diet-and still lose weight! Here are five of the best burgers you can order.
DQ Original Burger
350 calories
14 g fat (7 g saturated)
680 mg sodium

Wendy's Quarter-Pound Single
430 calories
20 g fat (7 g saturated)
870 mg sodium

Burger King Whopper Jr. w/o mayo
370 calories
21 g fat (6 g saturated)
570 mg sodium

McDonald's Quarter Pounder
410 calories
19 g fat (7 g saturated)
730 mg sodium

In-N-Out Protein-Style Protein-Style Cheeseburger
330 calories
25 g fat (9 g saturated)
720 mg sodium

Now, for the bad choices that will just down right make you ugly:

Worst Burger: Chili's

Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger with Jalapeno Ranch Dressing
2,040 calories
150 g fat (53 g saturated)
110 g protein
4,900 mg sodium

Worst Burger: Dairy Queen

½ lb. FlameThrower GrillBurger
1,140 calories
82 g fat (27 g saturated, 1.5 g trans)
1,940 mg sodium

To read the entire article, visit their site here. Great info.. and you can sign up for emails or follow “Eat this, not that” on twitter!!!

Read More 0 comments | Written by Dan

I have talked before about how keeping healthy food in your home can make it much easier to make healthy choices when you eat at home. In this post we’ll look at some things that you can do to keep healthy choices close at hand.

The first big choice that you can make is in your beverages. Most of us have a refrigerator full of sodas, beer, and other not-so-good for you beverages. The biggest thing missing from the beverages in our fridge is the most simple: water. I have found that by keeping a gallon of water and a gallon of 2% milk in my fridge (and using a little restraint when I want something to drink) I have all but cut out sugary beverages from my diet. I will have about 2 12oz cans of Sprite a week at work, but that’s it for my soda intake. As for juices, a glass or Simply Orange or Simply apple once a day at most.

Click here for 9 great reasons to drink water, and how to form the water habit!!

Another choice you can make is in your lunchmeats and cheeses. Buying deli meats and cheeses (the kind they slice for you right there) tend to have far less sodium and preservatives than the pre packaged lunchmeats do. Also, when you compare serving size and quality, you aren’t really paying much more for the better meats and cheeses.

This is just a start, we’ll look at some more healthy choices for home soon!

Read More 0 comments | Written by Dan