Nutrition Health Center

Fast Food Calorie Counter: Finding the Best

By Terry Dunkle*

You can eat healthfully in fast food restaurants, but you have to be careful what you choose. The calorie content of fast foods is notoriously variable. This means that if you're a busy dieter on a budget,

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a fast food calorie counter is essential.

Although a customer-friendly restaurant may publish such a counter on its website or in the restaurant itself, the average restaurant does not. In a study of the top 100 chains in the United States, my company found that only 32 made their nutrition facts easy to locate. That's one reason we added fast foods to DietPower®, our weight loss and nutrition software, more than ten years ago.

Since then, dozens of software companies and websites have incorporated a fast foods into their calorie counters. Some have done it well, others poorly. Here's what I recommend looking for:

Fast Food Calorie Counter Precision

Ask when the calorie counter's food database was last updated. Fast food restaurants regularly introduce new menu items or adopt new suppliers.

If your calorie counter calculates a calorie budget for you, check it against the budget provided by the tool below. The results should match within 100 calories. If they don't, your counter may be one of the many who aren't careful about their math.

Based on 20 years of research by DietPower, Inc., this calculator is accurate to 5 percent for most users. (It's not for people who are pregnant or have metabolic disorders. Always see a doctor before starting a diet.)

Birth Date

Sex

Tobacco user?

Height

Weight

Goal Weight

Target Date

Email Address

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Close Goal Weight
Your Goal Weight is the weight you want to achieve. (If it's a lot different from your current weight, you might want to set a goal that represents only the first step. Even a 10-percent weight loss will significantly improve your health.)
Close Target Date
Plan on losing no more than a pound or two per week.  Otherwise, you may eat too little for good nutrition and your weight loss may be temporary.
Close Lactating?
If you are breastfeeding, check this box and the calculator will add calories for producing milk.
Close Tobacco User?
Nicotine speeds your metabolism, making you burn calories faster. (That's why people who quit smoking gain weight.) Check this box if you average more than one cigarette, one-half pipeful, one-quarter of a cigar, or one dip of snuff or chewing tobacco per day.
Close Email Address
Once a month, DietPower will send you the most important nutrition news of the past 30 days, selected by national award-winning editors covering hundreds of medical journals. You can cancel this free, no-obligation service anytime with a single click. We produce it only to promote our weight-loss software. It won't put you on other mailing lists—We're Not That Kind of Company™.

Fast Food Calorie Counter Speed

Most people eat at least 20 different foods each day. Logging them can become time-consuming if your calorie counter's search function doesn't minimize scrolling, and clicking. Choose one that doesn't ask you to specify a category for each food search (are hashed browns a vegetable or a side dish?). See if it can find a food in less than one second, even if you misspell its name.

A really good calorie counter will also remember your favorites and put them at the top of the list when you do a keyword search.

Fast Food Calorie Counter Depth

Most fast food restaurants publish data for only a few nutrients. Nevertheless, some calorie counters include additional nutrients, so that you can track not only your calories, fat, sodium, and carbohydrates, but also cholesterol, calcium, folic acid, potassium, zinc, selenium, and several dozen other key nutrients.

In addition, some counters track calories that you burn in exercise, adding them back into your daily budget so you can eat more and still reach your goal weight on schedule.

Fast Food Calorie Counter Intelligence

In a few cases, calorie counters actively recommend foods that are best for your nutrition. DietPower is one of these. Based on your nutrient balance, for example, it can show you which fast food is best to have seconds in.

DietPower also monitors your metabolism and automatically tweaks your calorie budget to keep you tracking precisely toward your goal. It even adjusts the budget for water loss from high-temperature exercise, as well as water retention from high sodium intake (a common problem for fast food eaters).

Fast Food Calorie Counter Guarantees

Choose a calorie counter that a) lets you test-drive it for at least a week or two, and b) provides a money-back guarantee. Many don't; the best do.

Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of DietPower, Inc.