Is Carne Asada Healthy? (5 Tips For Weight Loss)

If you are a lover of Mexican food, you’ve probably heard of and tried Carne Asada on more than 1 occasion. 

You can see Carne Asada on dishes such as tacos, burritos, burrito bowls, fries or even eat it by itself. 

Carne Asada is a type of beef that is grilled with lime and seasonings to bring it to perfection before it is sliced up and served.

Carne Asada is a very loved food around the world and more often than not, you will only hear good things about it. 

I always like to eat Carne Asada when I have the chance to but I’ve always wondered, is Carne Asada considered healthy?

Carne Asada is a great way for you to add protein into your diet. It is made up of 7.3 grams of protein as well as 0.1 grams of carbs and 3.4 grams of fat per serving which means that it is a good choice when choosing what to eat for your meal. 

In this article, we will talk about 5 different tips you can follow in order to incorporate this food into your diet.

Tip 1: Understand the nutritional value behind Carne Asada

Tip 2: Understand how many calories you should be eating in a day besides Carne Asada

Tip 3: Learn about daily macronutrient ratio as you include Carne Asada into your diet

Tip 4: Stay active while building muscle as you eat Carne Asada

Tip 5: Learn how to portion control when eating Carne Asada

Now that we have a brief outline of our 5 steps to staying healthy while eating Carne Asada, let’s get into the details.

How to Lose Weight When Eating Carne Asada

Before we begin talking about the specifics of incorporating Carne Asada into your diet, let’s take a look into what exactly it takes to lose weight. 

You need to understand the concept of calories in vs calories out, which I will help you out with right now!

This model is what will let you know if you are consuming more than you are expending on a daily basis and vice versa. 

If you are burning more calories than you are intaking throughout the day, you are in what is known as a calorie deficit. 

This is a good thing for people who are looking for fat loss because putting yourself at a calorie deficit is the only way you will be able to experience fat loss. 

If you are eating food of any kind, not even just Carne Asada, you want to make sure that you are mindful of its nutritional content and value so that you know what you are putting into your body as well as how many calories you are consuming. 

If you want to read more about the nutritional facts of Carne Asada, we will go into detail about it in the upcoming section. 

We plan to go over the nutritional content of this food with you so that you are more informed about where its calories are coming from when you are enjoying this dish.

After you have figured out where its calories are coming from, you want to know how many calories you should be eating in a day as well as the importance of the three macronutrients: proteins, carbs, and fats.

At the end of the day, you always want to make sure that you are staying fit by engaging in an active lifestyle.

You want to include resistance training into that lifestyle so that you are burning calories at rest. 

Muscle is the one thing that allows you to lose fat while you are eating and consuming more foods. 

Building muscle through resistance training is truly the ultimate goal when you work out. 

Building muscle will also keep you healthy while increasing your metabolism. 

Increasing your muscle is the best of both worlds!

Now that we have gone over how your body experiences weight loss, let’s get into the specifics about Carne Asada.

Tip 1: Understand the nutritional value behind Carne Asada

In one serving of Carne Asada, you can expect it to be around 63 calories. This is for the meat itself, not including the tortilla for example if you are eating it in a taco, burrito, or fries. 

This serving size would include 7.3 grams of protein, 3.4 grams of fat, and 0.1 grams of carbs. 

This means that it is a great source of protein for your diet.

Protein should be the highest macronutrient you are consuming in a day, as we will talk about in Tip 3, so this will be a good addition to the rest of your meals. 

Although Carne Asada is wonderful on its own, we often see it being eaten with other foods that include lots of carbs and fat. 

You need to make sure that when you are eating Carne Asada with those other carbs and fats, you are watching their nutritional facts as well. 

All in all, though, protein is important and plays the main role in muscle growth. 

Protein is also the least likely of the 3 macronutrients to turn into fat if you eat more than recommended. 

We can now see the significance of protein and how the amount of protein in Carne Asada is beneficial for you. 

Now that we have gone over the nutritional value of Carne Asada, let’s move on to daily calorie intake alongside this dish,

Tip 2: Understand How Many Calories You Should Be Eating Besides Carne Asada

Calories are essentially a measurement system that demonstrates how many units of energy your body needs in order to function in daily life. 

Even if you plan to have a relaxing day where you don’t feel like doing anything, your body still needs energy to keep you going and support you. 

Your body needs energy so that it can maintain your muscles. It also needs energy so that your organs can keep functioning properly. 

In general, it is recommended that you consume 2,000 calories on a daily basis if you are a moderately active female and 2,500 if you are a moderately active male. Of course this is very general though because everyone’s body is different. 

Your personal necessary calorie intake is unique to you and your body. This is due to different factors such as gender, age, weight, height, and daily activity levels. 

As mentioned before, the 2,000 calories and 2,500 calories is a standardized rule.

What we want to do is help you personalize a rule for your body. 

If your ultimate goal throughout your health journey is to lose weight, it is important for you to know how many calories your body needs. 

The first thing you need to note is that in order to go through your weight loss journey, you need to know how many calories your body needs in order to maintain your current weight. 

The calories required for your body to maintain its current weight is known as TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure. 

In order to calculate TDEE, you need to figure out your BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate and multiply that number with your activity measurement. 

BMR informs you on how many calories your body needs to experience regular functions. 

If you are a little lost in the calculation process of TDEE and BMR, you can find some great online resources that’ll help you calculate them very quickly and easily. 

After you have an estimate of your TDEE through an online calculator, you will be able to adjust accordingly as your lifestyle changes on your health journey. 

Your calorie intake should be lower than your TDEE if your goal is to lose weight.

Your calorie intake should be higher than your TDEE if your goal is to gain weight. 

If you just want to maintain your current weight, you will only have to maintain your current TDEE.

Just for future reference though, if you are planning on losing weight, make sure that you are eating less than your recommended TDEE but not dropping totally below the 1,500 level for males and 1,200 for females. 

You want to keep this in mind so that you don’t ruin your metabolism in the long run. 

If you want less restriction on your diet, make sure that you are eating foods that will satisfy you but also allow you to be in a caloric deficit. 

Eating a food such as Carne Asada is a great idea if you are looking to be in a calorie deficit. 

Make sure that you are always mindful of your daily calorie intake because this will allow you to eat delicious foods while still staying healthy and fit.

This should be the overall general guideline for you to follow if you are confused about daily calorie intake!

Now that we talked about your daily calorie intake and what it means to be in a caloric deficit, let’s move on to what macronutrients are and why they are so important.

Tip 3: Learn About Daily Macronutrient Ratio as You Include Carne Asada Into Your Diet

The 3 macronutrients are carbs, protein, and fat. 

Macronutrients are important for your body because they are what is fueling your body with its daily necessities. 

Your goal is to have a healthy balance of the 3 macronutrients.

The ideal ratio you should strive for is 22% fat, 33% protein, and 45% carbs. 

In order to meet this ideal macronutrient ratio, you want to balance out all of the foods and drinks you are consuming on a daily basis. 

This is of course easier said than done but if you keep practicing by trying to get as close to this ratio as possible, your body will appreciate you in the long run. This is a gradual process, just practice, practice, practice! 

To get more technical, in order to track your macronutrient intake, you want to use a TDEE calculator that you can easily find online, as talked about in the previous section. 

After you have figured out and understood your macronutrient intake, you want to get a deeper understanding of the nutrition labels of your foods.

Let’s take a look into the nutrition label of Carne Asada one more time!

We know that Carne Asada consists of 63 kcals. However, do we know what those 63 kcals consist of nutritionally?

To go over it again, Carne Asada includes 7.3 grams coming from protein, 3.4 grams coming from fat, and 0.1 grams coming from carbs.

We must subtract these numbers from our daily macronutrient recommendations. 

As an example, if we need 130 grams of Protein per day, one serving will take out 7.3 grams from that 130 leaving us with 122.7 grams of Protein left.

An easy way to keep track of numbers like this is through apps such as MyFitnessPal.

Now that you are more informed about what macronutrients are and how they come into play with your favorite foods, it’s time to move on to the physical aspect of keeping your body fit. 

Tip 4: Stay active while building muscle as you eat Carne Asada

You can see from the previous sections that Carne Asada is made up of a lot of protein. 

This is a good thing because we want to use that protein to fuel muscle growth!

You want to take full advantage of the protein and maximize it to the fullest. 

Muscles are extremely important in staying fit because of the fact that they burn calories at rest. 

If you want to get started on building a routine to grow muscle, we have laid out a plan that you can follow to help kickstart your journey!

Women 

Monday (Full Upper): 

• Seated Shoulder Press: 4x20 

• Lateral Raises: 4x15

• Lat Pulldowns: 4x12

• Dumbbell Row: 3x10

• Dumbbell Fly: 3x10 

• Knee Push Ups: 4x20

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 

Wednesday (Back/Hamstrings/Biceps) 

• Assisted Pull Ups: 3x10

• Lat Pulldowns: 4x12 

• Cable Row: 4x15

• Stiff Leg Deadlift: 4x15

• Hamstring Curl: 4x15

• Bicep Curls: 3x10

• Hammer Curls: 3x10

Friday: (Legs/Butt/Abs): 

• Squats: 5x5 

• Goblet Squats: 4x20

• Glute Bridge: 4x20

• Glute Kickbacks: 4x20 each leg

• Jump Squats: 4x20

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 

• Leg Lifts: 3x35

MEN 

Mon: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Abs (Push Day)

• Bench Press: 3 sets 10 reps

• Dumbbell Press: 4 sets 12 reps

• Shoulder Press: 3 sets 10 reps

• Lateral Raises: 3 sets 15 reps

• Triceps Rope Push Down: 3 sets 15 reps

• Cable Crunches: 4 sets 15 reps 

Wed: Legs & Abs

• Goblet Squats: 4 sets 20 reps

• Weighted Walking Lunges: 2 sets 20 steps

• Stiff Leg DeadLift (Romanian Deadlift): 4 sets 15 reps

• Glute Bridges With Weight: 4 sets 20 reps

• Jumping Squats With Resistance Bands: 5 sets 20 reps

• Weighted Sit Ups: 4 sets 25 reps

• Weighted Toe Touches: 4 sets 25 reps

Fri: Back & Biceps (Pull Day)

• Assisted Pull Ups: 3 sets 10 reps

• Lat Pulldowns: 4 sets 12 reps

• Dumbbell Rows: 4 sets 10 reps (Each Side)

• Seated Cable Rows: 4 sets 15 reps

• Bicep Curls: 3 sets 10 reps

• Hammer Curls: 3 sets 10 reps

This is a simple resistance training workout plan.

What I recommend is to just look these workouts up on Youtube and choose weights that are not too heavy at first so you can really get your form down. 

All it takes are a couple of adjustable weights (bowflex adjustable weights on Amazon) and a reliable workout bench (steelbody bench on Amazon) that will allow us to do all the necessary workouts. 

When you feel that you’ve grasped the form, feel free to go heavier and heavier every week. Remember, this will not get you big and bulky. It will get you nice and lean.

Tip 5: Learn how to portion control when eating Carne Asada

Portion control is very important in many cases because it can hurt you or help you in the long run.

When eating a food such as Carne Asada, it is important to portion control for the reason that this is a food that is enhanced to the fullest when eaten other foods such as tortillas and fries.

If you want to portion your Carne Asada or just any food in general, you should consider a suitable serving size that fits in with your lifestyle.

Portioning is also important in balancing out your macronutrients because it helps to determine how much you should be eating to reach your ideal fats, protein, and carbs. 

When portioning your Carne Asada, it does not mean you have to get rid of the added foods that go with the meat.

You should portion to have more Carne Asada than the fries you eat with it as an example. 

Overall, make sure that you are balancing out portion sizes as well as the other factors we touched upon in this article. 

Conclusion

There you have it!

We talked about a variety of different tips to staying fit when eating a food such as Carne Asada. 

It’s time for you to go enjoy this delicious dish even more so now that you are informed about its nutritional content!

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