Are Tacos Healthy? (7 Tips For Weight Loss)

If you love Mexican cuisine - especially Tacos - but you also want to stay in shape, or want to lose weight, this article is for you. Find out what goes into making this popular Mexican dish and see whether, or not Tacos can fit into your lifestyle.

Tacos are a classic Mexican dish, traditionally made with either a corn- or a flour tortilla and stuffed with different fillings, usually with grilled, fried, or stewed meat. The Taco shell can either be fried, so the tortilla becomes a hard shell, or the shell can be grilled, or steamed on the stove to be served as a soft-shell Taco. The toppings often include various condiments, such as sour cream, guacamole, or salsa, as well as lettuce, chilis, tomatoes, and onions.  

Although, Tacos are quite delicious, are they actually healthy?

Tacos can be healthy, as they offer a balance of all three macronutrients, which translates to a suitable range of calories. However, it depends on how you prepare them. 

Here are seven steps that explain the calorie amount in one serving of Tacos, the ingredients that go into making Tacos the traditional way, and how to stay in shape while eating this classic Mexican dish. 

1. What Goes Into Making Tacos?

2. How Many Calories Are in One Taco?

3. Understand Your Macronutrients (Protein, Carbs, & Fats) 

4. How to Make a Healthier Version of Tacos at Home

5. How to Stay in Shape While Eating Tacos

6. How To Increase Your Activity Level When Eating Tacos

7. Make Sure To Have a Consistent Cardio Schedule

Now that we know our seven steps, let’s get into the details that will help you stay in shape while enjoying some delicious Tacos.

Tip 1. What Goes Into Making Tacos?

The traditional way of making Tacos - for example, Tacos Carne Asada - involves corn tortillas and grilled marinated beef. Authentic Mexican meat for tacos or other dishes is marinated for at least 6 hours with chilis, onions, lime, vinegar, cumin, oregano, and then seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled. The toppings include lettuce, salsa, guacamole, sliced avocado, pico de gallo, sour cream, or Mexican cheese.

Tacos are a simple, yet flavorful and satisfying dish since it gives you fats, proteins, and carbs. 

It is also versatile and easy to be customized to your liking or diet restrictions. Such as use different ingredients to make this dish leaner, which we will further discuss in this article.  

Since it’s a classic dish in Mexican cuisine, you can find it in many authentic Mexican restaurants all over Los Angeles and Southern California.

Now that we know what Tacos are, let’s take a look at the nutrition facts and see how many calories go inside one Taco Carne Asada.

Tip 2. How Many Calories Are in One Taco Carne Asada?

If you live an active and healthy lifestyle, it’s important to understand how many calories you need to consume daily. 

Let’s take a look at the nutrition facts. As you can see, one Taco Carne Asada has 200 calories with a macronutrient ratio of 13 grams of carbs, 16 grams of protein, and 9 grams of fat. 

This dish has a good ratio of all three macronutrients. And it consists of only 13 grams of carbs, which isn’t too bad. 

If you burn more calories than you consume, then you will find yourself in a “caloric deficit” which is the only way fat loss can occur. 

Staying healthy and fit is all about calorie or energy balance, which means that you can still eat your fats and carbs, and stay in shape. The calories are actually not too bad in this dish and can be easily incorporated into your daily calorie intake, as long as you are not over-eating and are working out. 

A good rule of thumb for dieting is keeping a nice balance of macronutrients. A great ratio is sticking to 30% carbs, 40% protein, and 30% fats. 

The key aspect is understanding how many calories you need to eat in a day and making sure not to overeat on your total accounted calories for the day. 

This is why we recommend you try to make this dish at home and substitute certain ingredients to make an even healthier version of Tacos.

Tip 3. Understand Your Macronutrients (Protein, Carbs, & Fats)

Calories come from three different sources of macronutrients called protein, carbs, and fats.

I’m sure you’ve heard of these before but it’s crucial to understand the importance of what each one does and how much of each you should eat in a day. 

To sum it up briefly, proteins are in charge of muscle growth and all bodily functions, carbs provide a direct energy source to fuel your activity, fats maintain hormones, vitamin intake, and give flavor to foods. 

The main thing here is to get your protein which can be one of the most challenging things to do when dieting.

However, Mexican cuisine is pretty good at promoting high protein foods without too many fats and carbs. 

Protein is important due to two things; it helps build and maintain muscle, and it allows you to be more satiated when dieting. 

These two aspects are crucial when dieting and it isn’t enough to simply eat less.

There are so many health benefits to getting shape and it all starts from understanding calories and macronutrients. 

In the next section of this article, we will show you how to make a healthier version of Tacos, when you prepare it at home.

Tip 4. Try to Make a Healthier Version of Tacos at Home

Tacos are easy to make, are budget-friendly, and don’t require many ingredients.

Here we show you, how to make a healthier version of Tacos.

A good start is to swap out corn- or flour tortillas with whole wheat tortillas, and instead of frying them, grill or steam them. Regarding the filling, instead of using red meat, such as carne asada or al pastor, a better option would be lean chicken, shrimp, or fish. These options are high in protein and less in fat, as long as it’s not fried. Shrimp and fish are also packed with omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin D. If you’re not into eating meat or seafood, going vegetarian or even vegan would also be an option. By using veggies such as beans, squash, jackfruit, tempeh, or soyrizo. 

Now that we know a little bit more about the nutrition facts of traditional Tacos Carne Asada and how to make Tacos healthier at home, let’s take a look at how you can eat Tacos, stay in shape, or lose weight.

Tip 5. How to Stay in Shape Eating Tacos

As we have mentioned in section two of this article, it’s important to understand how many calories you need to eat to lose weight and stay in shape. 

You can easily over-eat unhealthy, processed foods that are high in fats and carbs, especially when something is as delicious as Tacos. Overeating is usually the quickest way to get out of shape. 

To stay healthy and in shape, we need to first go over your daily caloric needs and figure out how many calories you need in a day, as well as figure out how much of each macronutrient you should be consuming.

Eating Tacos, which is customizable and filled with whole, fresh ingredients, is a great dish if you are looking to stay in shape. However, if you are ordering Tacos at a restaurant, order Tacos either with shrimp, chicken, or just vegetables and order them in a soft-shell taco. If the restaurant has the option of both flour and corn, choose the flour tortilla. 

There are a few factors that determine your daily calorie intake. Such as weight management, weight loss, or weight gain. Other factors that play a big role, are your gender and your height. 

So, how do you know how many calories you should be eating in a day?

The answer is through trial and error and finding a calorie range that allows you to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. 

However, a good place to start is to multiply your body weight by 12 or to use an online TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) calculator.

Your TDEE relies heavily on how active you are and how much movement you see in your day.

Within your TDEE lies a subsection, which is called TEPA (Thermic Effect of Physical Activity) which accounts for 15-30% of your entire day’s worth of calories.

This means, you are in control of 15-30% of how much you can eat, which is a huge portion of calories.

If you’re someone who loves to eat a lot while staying fit, then the activity is the key to a balanced lifestyle that allows you to eat whatever you like, such as Tacos, and stay in shape. 

Once you know your calorie intake based on your weight and height, you can then decide how much you want to decrease it. If you want to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, we suggest you start with 100 calories less than what you are currently consuming and see if you notice a difference within a week. 

It is suggested, however, to not decrease the calorie intake below 1,200 per day for women, or below 1,500 calories per day for men.

If you don’t see any changes in your weight, decrease your calorie intake by another 100 calories and see how that works. 

Most likely, you don't have to drop your calorie intake too low, as you’ll get a pretty low number to start with this dish.

So, how do you stay in shape or even lose weight eating Tacos?

As mentioned before in section two one Taco has only 200 calories with macros of 13 grams of carbs, 16 grams of protein, and 9 grams of fat. You can just add this into your day and subtract this from your total daily calorie intake.

The key here is to find foods that keep you full longer and still deliver a balanced amount of macronutrients. 

You don’t want all of your calories simply coming from carbs or fats, you want there to be a balance coming from carbs, protein, and fats as mentioned in section two of this article.

So, just calculate whatever calorie range you find, and split up your calories by following those macro guidelines. 

Tip 6. How To Increase Your Activity Level When Eating Tacos

After you’ve figured out how many calories you need to consume daily, you need to make sure that you increase your activity level, by exercising regularly and building muscle throughout every week. 

This can be really hard if you’re someone living in LA who has to go to work or commutes with a car most of their lives. 

This is why for so many people, activity level is something that we need to actively seek out and put into our daily schedule.

The best way to do that is to get a gym membership and do some cardio or to go outside for a walk or run throughout your week. 

Activity throughout your day matters as you can increase your daily calorie expenditure and build muscle.

Since building muscle allows you to burn calories at rest, which means you can eat more and still lose fat.

This is really the goal of working out and is what keeps you healthy as your metabolism increases.

So if you love eating Tacos Carne Asada or Al Pastor, you have to make sure your activity level is higher than usual, especially if you want to lose weight. 

We talked about the importance of understanding how many calories you need to eat in a day but now it’s time to shift the focus on why calories and building muscle go hand in hand. 

Keep in mind that weight loss is really the concept of calories in vs. calories out.

If you live a sedentary lifestyle, then it’ll be much more difficult to lose weight and you’ll start to see that the number of calories you need to eat daily to shed fat is very low.

That’s why it’s important to increase your activity level at least 3 - 4 times a week if your goal is to get lean. 

The other factor that you can control is how much muscle you currently carry.

Muscle allows us to burn calories at rest which means we can burn more calories by just living life.

The fastest and most efficient way to build muscle is to learn how to do some resistance training.

You need to use weights and build muscle by doing a variety of workouts that isolate each muscle group specifically. 

Although it can be intimidating to get in shape, as it will be hard to learn and might be discouraging at the beginning, it’s definitely worth it in the long run for both your health and fitness. 

All you really need are some dumbbells, a workout bench, and gym flooring. You can start small by using your body weight, as well as dumbbells that are up to 8 lbs, however, a good start is 2 lbs to 3 lbs dumbbells. Make sure you don’t add too much weight too soon because that could result in injury if you are unfamiliar with the correct body position. It is better to start small and then increase the weight level. 

Here is a workout plan we’ve created, where you can get started if you are someone who hasn’t ever done a resistance training regimen.

DAY ONE: (LEGS, ABS) 

• Goblet Squats: 4 sets 20 reps (With whatever weight you can carry) 

• Walking Lunges: 2 sets 20 steps 

• Hip Thrusts: 4 sets 20 reps (Heavyweight on your stomach) 

• Jump Squats: 4 sets 20 reps 

• Stiff Leg Deadlifts: 4 sets 10 reps (Heavy, with good form) 

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 reps

• Leg Raises: 4x25 reps 

DAY TWO: (CHEST, SHOULDERS, TRICEPS) 

• Flat Bench Press: 4 sets 10 reps (With whatever weight you can safely do) 

• Incline Fly: 4  sets 10 reps (With whatever weight you can safely do) 

• Seated Shoulder Press: 3x15 reps (you get the point) 

• Lateral Raises: 3x15

• Knee Push-Ups: 3x20 

• Tricep Rope Pushdown: 3x10 

• Tricep Seated Dips: 3x20 

DAY THREE: (FULL BODY WORKOUT) 

• Squats: 4x20 (With Weights) 

• Jump Squats: 4x20 

• Lat Pulldown: 4x20 

• Seated Rows: 3x15 (Heavy) 

• Push-Ups: 3x10 (If you can’t just do knee push-ups) 

• Lateral Raises: 3x15 (With whatever weight you can carry) 

• Bicycle Crunches: 3x35

• Planks: 2 sets of 1 minute 

This is a very basic workout plan but the point is to lift weights and make sure to follow a regimen.

We recommend working out at least three times per week in the beginning, since the resting days in between are important to build muscle. 

Tip 7. Make Sure To Have a Consistent Cardio Schedule

Although working out and building muscle takes priority, having a consistent cardio schedule can help with expediting the fat loss process as it raises the energy expended throughout your week.

There are two types of cardio that you can do in your week that will speed up the fat loss results. Those two types come from LISS (Low-Intensity Steady State) cardio and HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) cardio. 

What you want to aim for is to burning around 1,000 calories of cardio every week through means of either LISS or HIIT. 

LISS is cardio that comes from walking or a brisk walk, you should be able to have a conversation while still building up a sweat.

HIIT cardio is intervals of a very high-intensity movement such as sprints, battle ropes, or kickboxing movements that aim to raise the heart rate quickly.

The benefit of HIIT is allowing yourself to burn calories in a shorter amount of time. 

We recommend having 80% of cardio coming from LISS while 20% comes from HIIT for optimal fat loss throughout the week.

The reason for this is because HIIT is very hard to consistently track as many of the calorie tracking devices are inaccurate. 

LISS is a much more reliable source of consistent movement and does not require rest as it does not shock the Central Nervous System the way HIIT can.

There’s a time and place for HIIT but just make sure that 80% of those 1,000 calories come from brisk walks and light jogs. 

You can also do a combination of resistance training and LISS (Low-Intensity Steady State) cardio or HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) cardio, to improve your heart health and maximize fat burn. 

If you are new to working out, building muscle will happen relatively fast, so this is great news for anyone looking to get in shape.

Working out allows you to be more flexible in your diet and lifestyle, which is so important if you want to sustain a lean body and stay healthy. 

The important aspect is patience and dedication. Fitness, unfortunately, isn’t something that occurs overnight and is an investment that you put into yourself that pays off over time. 

Some may be genetically gifted to stay slim and skinny while others may not.

As mentioned prior in this article, calories dictate how we look and how much fat we carry. 

The hardest part is to just stick with it and be consistent for a year but we recommend sticking with it for longer since having a workout routine has many health benefits. 

It’s all a process of dedication and holding on for many years. 

So, don’t be discouraged if in a month you don’t see results right away. It’s a long process and, if you just try it out for a year, you’ll see what you can accomplish and how great you can feel. 

THERE IT IS!

It’s crucial to understand the importance of diet and working out to enjoy foods like Tacos the traditional way. 

It’s all a process of controlling your calories, substituting certain ingredients packed with protein and fibers, and working out consistently and for a long period.

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