Health

The Fast Food Diet

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Cardiologist Stephen Sinatra is singing a new tune when it comes to diet. Today, the doctor is taking his patient Stuart out for a healthy lunch. Their first stop, Burger King.

That's just one of the items you'll find in Sinatra's book "The Fast Food Diet." Sure, he'd rather have people eating healthy organic meals at home, "But it doesn't happen, I mean 80 million people a day eat fast food," said Dr. Sinatra.

So the book acts as a guide. "Eating in a fast food restaurant is like weaving through a mind field, you have to choose smart and if you choose smart you're going to lose weight," said Dr. Sinatra.

The diet offers choices from every major fast food outlet. At times you can have tasty items like an Egg McMuffin or a Whopper Junior. But you won't be getting fries with that and sugary sodas are out.

Here are some of the meals: for breakfast Burger King French toast sticks. A mid-morning snack is a McDonalds fruit and yogurt parfait. Lunch is a KFC tender roast chicken sandwich with sauce. The afternoon snack is walnuts from a convenience store. And for dinner a Boston Market Angus meat loaf with two healthy sides. That's 1,635 calories for the day.

But the diet is more than just drive thrus, you have to do some walking too. "The secret to the fast food diet is this, if you can shave 250 calories a day and walk a mile a day that's another 250 calories, that's 500 calories a day. You do that seven days a week, that's a pound a week," said Dr. Sinatra.

And if you do it every week for year that's 52 pounds.

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