Meals Under 400 Calories
Fast Food Orders Under 400 Calories
By Mary Kearl and Gabrielle Linzer
Yes, you can eat on the go and stay within your calorie budget. Our list of less-than-400-calorie orders will help you choose wisely while on the go and watching your weight. Remember that a healthy weight-loss goal is up to 1 to 2 pounds a week.
One pound of body fat is equivalent to about 3,500 calories, meaning you'll need to reduce your caloric intake by 500 to 1000 calories per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control. For those not on a trying to lose weight, the FDA acceptable daily allowances of calories (2,000), fat (65 g) and sodium content (2,400 mg). Find out how these fast food items measure up.
Note: It may be best to limit your fast food intake to one meal a day, as most of these orders have more than one third of your daily sodium allowance. Sodium can slow your metabolism down and cause you to retain water weight.
Jack in the Box's Chicken Fajita Pita on whole grain
Calories: 307
Fat: 9 g
Sodium: 1177 mg
This low-cal whole grain pita sandwich is a good source of dietary fiber, but if you're looking to cut fat, more than half of the fat comes from the shredded cheese topping. Skip that and you'll shave off about 6 grams of fat.
Jack in the Box Inc.
Panera Bread's Half Tomato & Mozzarella Panini on Ciabatta
Calories: 390
Fat: 15 g
Sodium: 650 mg
This new menu item (out in restaurants this week) is a diet-friendly sandwich that's packed with nutrients -- it's an excellent source of iron and calcium and a good source of dietary fiber and vitamin A and C.
Francine Zaslow for Panera Bread
Dunkin' Donuts Egg White Turkey Sausage Flatbread Sandwich
Calories: 280
Fat: 6 g
Sodium: 820 mg
Get your sausage fix without cheating on your diet. This new flatbread sandwich is by far a healthier option than Dunkin's sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich on a croissant, which contains at least 25 percent more calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar and sodium than this newer, leaner breakfast order.
Dunkin' Donuts
Blimpie's B.L.T.
Calories: 346
Fat: 11 g
Sodium: 872 mg
Bacon is normally perceived as unhealthy, but the six-inch BLT from Blimpie has far less sodium than many of the other sandwiches on the menu, which mostly surpass 1,000 and 2,000 milligrams and sometimes have as much as more than 4,000 milligrams.
Blimpie
Qdoba Mexican Grill's Tortilla Soup Trio: Vegetarian Tortilla Soup, Soft taco and a diet beverage
Calories: 360
Fat: 14 g
Sodium: 1430 mg
Depending on whether you order chicken, steak, shredded beef, ground sirloin or grilled vegetables, your calorie and fat content can vary. To ensure your meal has about this calorie-count and fat content, you'll need to order the soup without sour cream and order your soft taco with light sour cream and cheese. Qdoba allows you to calculate what your meal's nutritional information will total out to online.
Qdoba Mexican Grill
Domino's Medium Thin Crust Cheese Pizza, 2 slices
Calories: 280
Fat: 14 g
Sodium: 480 mg
Not only does this order stand out against many that are on the higher end of the sodium content spectrum, it's also an excellent source of calcium and a good source of Panera Bread's Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Calories: 230
Fat: 16 g
Sodium: 970 mg
Although light on calories, cholesterol and carbs, this soup does contain 45 percent of the daily recommended saturated fat.
Victoria Pearson for Panera Bread
Jack in the Box's Asian Chicken Salad with Grilled Chicken Strips with Asian Sesame Dressing
Calories: 350 calories
Fat: About 15 g
Sodium: 1004 mg
While this order is certainly low in calories, you might consider switching salad dressings. At about 187 calories and 14 fat grams per packet, the Asian sesame dressing has more calories and fat content than the salad itself. Consider the low-fat balsamic dressing with about 34 calories and 2 fat grams, which would amount to a 197-calorie salad with between 3 and 4 grams of fat.
Jack in the Box Inc.
Chick-Fil-A's Chargrilled Club Sandwich
Calories: 380
Fat: 11g
Sodium: 1560 mg
This chargrilled sandwich won't break your calorie budget, but don't even look at the sandwich sauces available. The buttermilk ranch and Chick-Fil-A sauce have 110 and 140 calories respectively and will up the fat content in your meal to about 34 grams.
Chick-Fil-A
Recent Comments
FHugo1369 12:25:56 PM Oct 24 2008
The easiest way to stay skinny ? Avoid food fads, fad diets, and people who make you feel guilty for eating sweets or fast foods. They are all uneducated ! Eat what you want ( in moderation ) and burn off your intake calories by excercising ! For the majority of us, it's that simple. Unfortunately, too many obese people want an easy fix. Exercising isn't easy, but once you realize you can enjoy eating your fav foods and NOT pack on the pounds, you'll want to work out EVERY DAY
CTPOET 12:27:40 PM Oct 16 2008
DANGER!!!!While these may be somewhat low calorie compared to other food on those menus, the sodium is extremely high and dangerous for many people,
Bigsky1952 11:27:35 AM Oct 16 2008
Since when does 15g of fat constitute a "diet" meal? It's time that restaurants start offering healthy food.
Petegnzls 08:36:59 AM Oct 16 2008
forget dunkin try Krispy Kreme doughnuts 0 trans fat!
Petegnzls 08:35:28 AM Oct 16 2008
forget dunkin -try Krispy Kreme doughnuts 0 trans fat
Getwau 04:22:24 PM Oct 11 2008
WOW! This is one of the most useful stories I have seen here on AOL. This is great information for those of us who have lost weight and still want to enjoy a tasty meal when we go out to eat. I know what it's like to try and lose weight. I lost 47 pounds in 6 weeks using the Rapidthin diet at www.rapidthin.com. Good luck to all. Use what works for you.
Gribbs100 01:18:16 PM Sep 18 2008
to be honest, I was so worried about counting calories and trying to figure out how to determine my intake of just about everything. it isnt practical for most people to keep track every time you eat. I did find a solution. A friend of mine told me to go to heavymotivation.com these people are incredible, for 30 bucks you get a lifetime membership and access to a custom meal generator amongst a TON of other stuff. I lost 6 pounds in 11 days. The thing plans out all of your meals plus.. it tells me how much of what vitamin, etc is going into my body. for a smaller company, it have to say it probably will solve this whole discussion.
JOGDOG 06:07:34 PM Sep 05 2008
The only thing I hate about fast food related (unhealthy eating) dealths is that it is slow and costs the nation money. I wish it were faster so we could rid ourselves of these fools and increase the nations average IQ.
harvickfanallday 10:43:35 AM Aug 28 2008
MMMMM, now i'm hungry. I'm going to Wendys' for the Baconator. Who cares if it's 1300 calories and has a months worth of fat and salt. It's so good.
Annoythedonkey 06:57:58 PM Aug 25 2008
Here is a great idea about fast food watch the movie "Super Size Me" and maybe you will think twice about eating it I watched the movie 2 years ago and I have not gone to fast food ever since.
