What To Order At Chick-fil-A For Fat Loss (Men Over 40) - 149

Coach Brian Parana (0:7.278) Chick-fil-A's menu has some of the best protein options available of this whole series that we're going through. It also has some of the worst sodium traps. That's something that guys aren't really paying attention to. Coach Brian Parana (0:32.526) Chick-fil-A's menu has some of the best protein order options available in this whole series. It also has some of the worst sodium traps. These are things that guys aren't paying attention to. If you're running around on a Saturday morning with soccer or baseball or swim meets or whatever with your kids, and everyone ends up leaving there to go to lunch at Chick-fil-A, you end up Coach Brian Parana (1:1.696) three rows deep in the drive-thru. Everyone's coming from that soccer game. And if you're like my client Neil, he's gonna go for the nuggets. And the mom next to him is ordering the Cobb salad because it says salad and it's on the board and it's an implied healthy food option. We're gonna talk about if that salad is a good guess for what to pick or if it is not. Coach Brian Parana (1:26.808) That'll be something that we'll dive into in today's conversation. We're gonna look at the whole menu from every nook and cranny of the basic menu that it has and make sure that we don't assume anything, because it can be implied that this is healthy just like Panera Bread was in the last episode, right? It was episode 148 it was. Coach Brian Parana (1:53.039) Alright, welcome back to Driven for Health. I'm Coach Brian Parana, episode 149. Chick-fil-A has the smallest menu. It's also most repeated. Chicken breast sandwich for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, right? That's basically the whole thing. Now there's six sandwiches, there's some nuggets, grilled and breaded, and same three salads every single time that you go. And you can basically memorize the whole board in one visit. Coach Brian Parana (2:22.796) And that's why it's really easy to stop at this place, because it prevents decision fatigue or overload or having to think through too many options. Because some restaurants, they load you up with too many things and you're unsure what you should get. This one's very simple. I'll just throw it out there. I do like their original Chick-fil-A sandwich that they have. It's very good. I usually go spicy, try and get more pickles on it than the one or two they give me. Coach Brian Parana (2:50.772) Occasionally I do like that Chick-fil-A sauce, but I do use it in very much moderation. I usually go for a fruit cup, pass on the fries, even though the fries are pretty tasty. Who doesn't like French fries? But that's it. And that's just my order. I usually go with a zero calorie drink or just water or none at all when I do that as well. That's my go-to when I go, but I do love getting those nuggies. So we'll talk about those too. Coach Brian Parana (3:18.498) Now, chicken is obviously the main thing that they serve there, and it's not the chicken that's ever the problem. It's grilled, or even if it's fried, it's only adding some calories to the overall fat and carbs because of the breading and the frying process. But on the menu board, there's a lot of potential other bigger challenges like the salad dressings, some of the sides, Coach Brian Parana (3:47.363) the shakes, the sauces, and that can throw you astray. Now let's go through the tiered list. Nine real orders ranked one to ten, from not so good to the best. So stay tuned to hear all of these. I'll rank them. Cobb salad with avocado lime ranch. Two out of ten. This is what that mom next to Neil, my client, had ordered, Coach Brian Parana (4:15.220) assuming that was good, but has the same number of sodiums as some of the other shows that we've talked about, with like the mac and cheese bread bowl. It was a crazy amount. That one had a little bit more, but this one has seventeen hundred plus milligrams in it. That's basically over three fourths of your day's worth of a 2,000 milligram daily allowance that we have. It also has six hundred and ninety calories, Coach Brian Parana (4:44.866) 36 grams of protein, which isn't too bad. I generally like 40 to 50 in a meal, but the fat is where it gets off track. 50 grams of fat if you eat it as is. The avocado lime ranch combo is the biggest thing that takes up at least almost 50% of the total calories, getting upwards of say 300-ish calories there, and then that's before the bacon and the cheese gets counted. Coach Brian Parana (5:13.698) So we have chicken, egg, and greens on the ingredient list are healthy at a glance. But after that dressing cup and the other things that come on this, it adds up a lot. Number two is the chocolate milkshake. 600 calories, 93 grams of carbs. That is a lot. There's 12 grams of protein because of the dairy in there, but most of this thing is sugars and fats. So it ends up being a Coach Brian Parana (5:42.809) high amount of calories and food that we just probably want to stay away from. It doesn't matter whichever flavor you pick, it's a sugar monster in a cup. So watch out. Mac and cheese ends up being three. It's 450 calories in the serving, 29 grams of fat. That's something that can stack up your fat grams. For most guys, if they're in a fat loss Coach Brian Parana (6:10.786) phase, 29 grams of fat are basically 50% of the amount of fat that you take in. That's a big challenge, and this is just a side, so this isn't even the main thing. You'd end up having a medium shake, medium cup of this thing, and still you might eat more, so you're gonna end up fifteen hundred calories deep on this menu. Coach Brian Parana (6:36.832) Next up is the waffle potato fries. A medium is a four out of 10. About 400, 430 calories, 24 grams of fat. As soon as anything gets dropped in that deep fryer, you are asking to multiply the amount of fat grams. Again, most guys are losing fat around 50 to 60 total grams in a day. And if we go up from there, maybe 70, possibly 80, if you need a lot of calories because you're an active person. Coach Brian Parana (7:6.700) That ends up being — it's still twenty-four out of seventy grams of fat, is still taking up a lot just for a fry. Alright. They do taste good, right? That salt, that waffle pattern hits your mouth and it's like, mmm, this is really good. But it only has five grams of protein and having so much calories in it, it just doesn't do justice. Coach Brian Parana (7:33.259) Next up is the chicken strips. It's a four count. This is coming in around 50%. So the biggest reason — it's 400 calories. So there's about 100 calories per strip. 39 grams of protein, 40. So let's say call them 10 grams of protein each. So 100 calories, 10 grams of protein, but there's 19 grams of fat in that total. So we again divide that up by four. It'd be about five grams of fat. So 10 Coach Brian Parana (8:1.784) grams of protein and five grams of fat for one of those. It's because it's fried, it's because it's breaded, and that ends up being a lot. There are 1100 milligrams of sodium that can add up again. If 2000 is the basis, then we're in trouble there. It's the breading, the fried that kill this as an option. The spicy chicken sandwich, sad to see, it's in the middle, it's 460 calories, Coach Brian Parana (8:29.770) almost thirty grams of protein and nineteen grams of fat. And therefore it's a lot more fat than you think. And that's the biggest challenge always is having the fat there. So more than a third of the sandwich's calories are coming from that. That is a problem. Alright. So what'd we do? Some simple math. Nineteen times nine. So let's do twenty times nine, because that's just easier. Coach Brian Parana (8:55.384) Twenty times nine is one hundred and ninety-one. Divide that by four hundred and sixty. Yeah, we're about — what? — about, quick math is like forty percent fat calories there. So it adds up to be a lot. The heat is a real good, tasty thing there, but the amount of fat there is not. So gotta pass it. I'll still eat it and I'll just Coach Brian Parana (9:23.936) sacrifice and make sure that I get it to fit in one way or another. The market salad with a grilled filet. This is gonna be eight out of ten. This is gonna be a banger. Five hundred and fifty calories. Order the dressing on the side so we use the dip and stab method. I've gone over that — you put the little serving dish on the side, you stab your fork, stab the food, put it in your mouth. That works really well. And so do that, that will cut down on a lot of the calories that are on Coach Brian Parana (9:53.753) the list. So you could literally cut out 100 calories from the dressing, that would bring this down to more 450 calories. And this is the grilled, is where it's going to cut out a lot of carbs and fat on this list as well. Okay, so this can work as a salad. We just have to make sure it doesn't have too many things stacked on top of it. Another winner here, egg white grill. Coach Brian Parana (10:23.714) Chicken with the fruit cup. So eight out of ten, it's three hundred and fifty calories, twenty-seven grams of protein, forty-five carbs, and eight grams of fat. That's a pretty, pretty good deal here for breakfast. And it earns its name with egg whites, grilled chicken on an English muffin, not a pastry. That's good. Just like say the Starbucks orders, right? They come in pastries, usually croissant rolls and Coach Brian Parana (10:53.515) and biscuits and stuff. Coach Brian Parana (10:57.250) So this could be a really good option. You could always double the chicken or double the egg whites if you order it that way. That would then add another 10 to 15 grams of protein pretty fast. The 12 chicken nugget piece is a nine out of 10. This is gonna be the winner, winner chicken dinner: 200 calories, 40 grams of protein, four and a half grams of fat, and two carbs. So this is a big win here. Now, if you really want to go all in on the protein side, Coach Brian Parana (11:26.978) just get the 20-piece grilled nuggets. Not only is it going to be filling, it's gonna have what? Probably more like 60 grams of protein, and you get a fruit cup on the side, you're more than content. That was the power winner here. So if we're looking for the best protein per dollar pick for the whole restaurant, it's priced around $8.40. This works out to be about 22 cents for every gram of protein. Coach Brian Parana (11:54.051) This is the real deal here with the 12 count. Alright. Then the four count chicken strips from a few minutes ago technically beats that out by a few cents per gram, but there's a lot more fat and carbs in it. So it's not an equal trade. So hopefully you enjoyed that little tier list and it gives you some ideas on what to get when you're there. How do we order when we go up to the counter? Just pretty simple. Coach Brian Parana (12:22.316) Gonna get a 12 or 20 piece grilled chicken nugget with a side salad or with a large fruit cup and a zero calorie beverage, whether it be water, a diet lemonade, or a Diet Coke zero type beverage. Alright. If you have a bigger appetite, that market salad with a grilled filet can help fill you up for a little while longer. Just reduce the salad dressing, as I said. Coach Brian Parana (12:48.962) The real hack is ordering any sandwich — they do have a no bun thing, just like the In-N-Out protein only option where they wrap the chicken in lettuce, or the burger in lettuce, excuse me, at In-N-Out Burger. Now at Chick-fil-A we can actually just get the breast only. So it could be a bunless option, alright. Coach Brian Parana (13:15.360) Now something that I wanna throw in here, just a little bit about the company itself. If you wanted — a lot of people are like, how do you even do Chick-fil-A? Well, it costs about ten thousand dollars to get into being an operator and ends up being one of the lowest franchise fees in the entire country. And Chick-fil-A markets it that way as an opportunity to any person that wants to make something happen. Coach Brian Parana (13:40.835) But the catch is that you are contracted to only own one location ever. And Chick-fil-A is going to take 50% of the pre-tax profits there. And that's ongoing. So it's not really a small royalty cut, but if that ends up allowing you to have a lot more capacity to produce opportunity for yourself, then this could be a huge win. Coach Brian Parana (14:9.216) In twenty twenty-three, the average Chick-fil-A does nine point three seven million. So that average could be up even over ten now. So you take fifty percent of that, that's still a pretty good cut after you do everything else with it. The average McDonald's at that time was roughly four million per store. So Chick-fil-A does double while being closed one day a week on Sunday. So FYI, just remember if you're like, hey, I want to go get Chick-fil-A Coach Brian Parana (14:39.466) on Sundays, it's closed. So pretty cool, interesting story there for that. Now, going back to the top of the list, it's a very simple menu by design. They sell chicken, and that's what we want to be able to take away from this. The grilled are going to be the most obvious, with the lightest sides for it, like the side salad or the fruit cup. Those are going to be the least amount of calories that you have to [unclear] Coach Brian Parana (15:6.562) Jumping into the Fast Five, after we've covered a couple of different options for you. Fast Five number one, why is Chick-fil-A closed on Sunday? Well, the founder Truett Cathy set this rule up at his first restaurant called the Dwarf Grill back in 1946. A day off for himself and his crew. Same policy still exists today. Coach Brian Parana (15:31.395) And you can look at that as either, hey, that's really cool that they do that, or annoying because you want Chick-fil-A because it tastes so good on Sundays when you're not working. Number two, did Chick-fil-A invent the fast food chicken sandwich? Well, yes. The legend goes, Truett Cathy developed the pressure cooked chicken sandwich at the same Dwarf Grill diner, and that was years before the first Chick-fil-A Coach Brian Parana (15:59.885) location opened. So he was perfecting his recipe and then launched Chick-fil-A in a mall, and this is decades before that happened — especially decades before the chicken sandwich wars started happening. Number three, Chick-fil-A's chicken, is it still antibiotic free? Well, not anymore. Back in 2014 they made a big promise: zero Coach Brian Parana (16:27.574) antibiotics in the chickens, and they were able to deliver on that by 2019, 2020. But after they made it, they ended up in twenty twenty-four — they walked that back. They followed an alignment with the USDA's standard on antibiotics in the food source. Same thing that Tyson, chicken producer, did as well that same year earlier. So interesting. Coach Brian Parana (16:55.724) Just have to pay attention. Understand where your food is sourced. Number four, is the bunless order a real thing? Well, yeah. Ask for any chicken sandwich, no bun, extra lettuce, and they'll wrap it up for you and you'll be able to take it away with a high protein option there and low carbs, right? Number five, how many calories in a packet of Chick-fil-A sauce? This is a sleeper. Coach Brian Parana (17:23.736) Here it's 140 calories for that little ketchup packet worth of deliciousness. 13 grams of fat in that condiment, and most guys can take two or three, so be careful there. So that's the Fast Five. I hope that was insightful and entertaining. So the next time that you are looking around for a healthy option, I think Chick-fil-A is going to be a really good option for you. We go with the 20-piece if you really want to go big on the protein, the 12-piece Coach Brian Parana (17:52.655) grilled chicken nugget there, side salad or the fruit cup, always go well. Skip the shake, skip the mac and cheese. And just if you were to get the Cobb salad, just understand that some of the ingredients on it — the bacon, cheese, dressing — add up to easily three to four hundred calories in that dish. And you can modify it to make it healthier. If you don't want to have to worry about picking things out Coach Brian Parana (18:20.502) and understanding what's the best order here — well, I have the Eating On The Go guide. You can grab it at go.brianparana.com. It's the Eating On The Go guide. And that's all one word. It'll be in the show notes. You can download it free. It's got the same breakdown for Chipotle, Starbucks, Panera, Subway that I've already done. And we'll just keep dropping more and more here. I just got started with Chipotle at 145. Then we had Coach Brian Parana (18:50.410) Starbucks at 146, Panera Bread at 147, Subway at 148, and this is episode 149 at Chick-fil-A. I hope that this is enjoyable and you're learning a lot in how to manage getting healthier while eating on the go. That's the whole point of the series. Next up is the obvious, the Call To Rise. If you see this on a video, you can see I got this hat here to celebrate a year into crushing it with guys. Coach Brian Parana (19:19.298) The average guy, I did the math, loses about 25 pounds in the program for the 100 days, which is astonishing. But more importantly, we focus around a number of different pillars. The identity piece, which I call it the Call. Why are you doing this? Live a legacy of a healthy, fit individual, because it will carry over and cross over into all areas of your life. You'll have energy to produce and be productive and be there in the moment for everyone that needs you. Coach Brian Parana (19:46.850) We've got the Forge, which is the exercise. Let's build muscle, burn fat. The Fuel — eat the right foods at the right time in the right amount. This is a huge pillar that we spend probably the most amount of time on. It's helping guys actually understand nutrition. Not doing some weird no-carb thing or fad diet thing that doesn't work. Meal plans don't work. And I help educate and implement Coach Brian Parana (20:12.360) sound nutrition into a lifestyle process. That's one of the magical things that we do here. We've got the Code, which is the mindset. Think differently. Alright. We're putting on a different lens, like a different pair of glasses that make you look way more cool, but you think differently when you see things and understand it. And last is the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is super important. And with this we've got so much effort and support by the guys that are in the group. These guys crush it in life but they just have Coach Brian Parana (20:42.188) been challenged with maintaining a successful body weight that they like to look and feel and live in. So that's thecalltorise.com. It's a hundred-day fat loss challenge. We also do blood panel work as well to make sure you're improving your blood panels in that hundred days. So the goal is to lose 20 plus pounds and improve those blood panels. Thecalltorise.com. Now, if you found value out of this, Coach Brian Parana (21:7.842) please leave a review. I read every single one of them. Drop me a question at brian@brianparana.com and I can respond and give you an answer. I can help you in any which way possible. Alright. That's gonna be it for this episode of Driven for Health. Train hard, eat smart, and I'll catch you in the next one. Again, another teaser on what's coming up probably tomorrow. Coach Brian Parana (21:36.876) I wanna release these every day. Alright, off we go.