Can I Eat McDonald’s and Still Lose Weight?
Question
I love consuming fast food, especially when it comes from the McDonald’s corporation. But can I gobble down a Big Mac, Small World Famous Fries or their chicken nuggets and become thinner and lighter?
I would really like to enjoy what I eat while I am on a diet as opposed to eating carrots and broccoli all day. Is it possible to lose weight if I just consume McDonald’s? Although I could settle for Wendy’s, too.
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Weight Loss
2 years
2021-02-03T05:45:23+00:00
2021-02-03T05:45:23+00:00 1 Answer
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Beginner 1
Answer ( 1 )
You can eat anything on the McDonald’s menu and slim down provided you stay in a calorie deficit. However, only consuming Mickey D’s or Wendy’s is not a healthy choice. Your body needs essential nutrients including vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates and healthy fats. McDonald’s fast food lacks quality essential nutrients.
So if your body needs 2000 calories per day for weight maintenance, then you’d need to consume 1500 calories per day to lose one pound of weight in a week. Here’s the catch…you might lose more muscle than fat, at least in the beginning of your diet.
McDonald’s fast food severely lacks in quality protein. If you have a decent amount of muscle, which I am betting you don’t, you would lose weight in the form of muscle because of insufficient protein intake. In fact, you’d probably maintain fatness while losing muscle.
If you didn’t have much muscle to begin with, you’d burn fat provided you are in a calorie deficit. As you began to lose excess weight your body would require less calories. Your metabolic rate would also slow down. So you would need to cut back on calories over the course of your McDonald’s diet to continue to lose weight.
Personally speaking, if I were to only eat McDonald’s, I would lose a ton of muscle and gain fat. I have been bodybuilding for 30 years. I would need to consume roughly 175 grams of protein per day to maintain muscle mass.
A McDonald’s chicken sandwich contains 14 g of protein and 400 calories. So I would need to consume about 12 chicken sandwiches to maintain my current muscle mass. A total of 12 McDonald’s chicken sandwiches equals 4,800 calories.
Despite me being lean and muscular, if I consume more than 1600 calories per day I will not lose much fat (I have a slow metabolism and work at a desk). So I would gain several pounds per week if I ate 12 chicken sandwiches from McDonald’s.
The average person would need to consume 3 to 4 McDonald’s chicken sandwiches per day (and nothing else) to lose weight. The amount of weight lost would also depend on how active that person is.
But sure you can eat McDonald’s and still lose weight. Heck you can be on a cake diet and lose weight.