What To Order At Chinese Takeout For Fat Loss (Men Over 40) - 158

Coach Brian Parana (0:7.660) The takeout menu has 60 items on it. It's laminated. It's it's like this big. If you've seen the video, it's huge. It's gigantic. It's just sitting by the register. It's the same one. It's been for years. It hasn't changed at all the whole time. Right. And even the one that I go to, they use each individual sheet to order off of for whatever it is when you go in and order. They start circling big, giant circles and pointing to this and drawing X's or lines through stuff. Coach Brian Parana (0:37.688) To tell notate to the kitchen right behind them what to get. And if you haven't guessed it yet, it's Chinese takeout. Well, this episode we're going to be talking about Chinese cuisine, specifically like Chinese takeout, Chinese sit-down. And I'm going to give you three easy decisions to make. Pick a protein, a vegetable entree, and control your sauce. And Coach Brian Parana (1:7.094) Rice, that's really gonna be it, and it'll help you really quite a bit save a ton of calories and actually be more successful without crazy amounts of sodium as well. Most guys skip all three of these and they just order whatever they got the last time, the Moo Goo Gai Pan, the General Tso's chicken, however you want to pronounce it, because it's just easy and it tastes great, and they get the fried rice and Coach Brian Parana (1:36.684) I'm going to give you today ways to navigate this to still win out in your health and your weight loss journey, your fat loss journey, and just staying healthy long term when we order Chinese takeout. This is Driven for Health. I'm Coach Brian Parana, and this is episode 158. If Chinese takeout is the one place you get stuck, it's okay. I put this and many other kinds of help. Coach Brian Parana (2:4.307) Even from the airport, which is the last episode, gas stations before then, a lot of fast food and fast casual restaurants. And my free eating on the go guide, you can grab it at go.brianparana.com/eatingonthego. It'll be in the show notes too. Go grab it. My family loves Chinese takeout. I love it too, but man. Coach Brian Parana (2:30.571) When I go, it's like $80. I don't know about you guys. It's like $80, $85. They they actually give me a discount. They feel so bad. They give me like five to ten dollars off. And they throw in extra cookies, fortune cookies as well. It's actually comical when I go in. What is my order that I get from my family? And this is again, it's just the same one all the time. We get two chicken broccoli, sauce on the side, a quart of Coach Brian Parana (3:0.321) White rice, a quart of shrimp-fried rice, quart of pork-fried rice, we get six egg rolls, and sometimes wonton soup, and that's about it. And that's our standard go-to meal that we get. That's eighty dollars. I since have somewhat boycotted Chinese because it's really hard to justify spending that much money on chicken, broccoli, and rice. Coach Brian Parana (3:29.303) When I can make that home for less than $10 for my whole family. But that's it. And that's what we get. And the one idea I want you to remember today is how do we pick the right type of combination that will be enjoyable and allow you to be able to not just add a sodium bomb to your body and crazy amount of carbs to your gut. Coach Brian Parana (3:56.286) Alright, let's jump in. So, decision number one is we're gonna choose an entree that's built around protein and vegetables instead of breaded deep fried ones. This single swap does more for the calorie count than almost anything else on the entire menu. If you want a fried item, an egg roll could work, but General Tso's chicken, Coach Brian Parana (4:25.035) Man, it's really gonna cost a lot, and you really need to be educated around how much it's going to add up with calories. Just make sure that if you do order it, that we have it fit in the day, you're aware of your choices, you maybe move more, and that ends up being super helpful. Decision number two is controlling the sauce. As for sauce on the side, we Coach Brian Parana (4:52.897) Definitely don't want to overdo the sauce because that's where the sodium actually lives. And it's a sodium bomb, in a sense, that will blow up your heart your blood pressure. Not good. And the kitchen will just pour it all over the place on your stuff and soak it in it if you allow them. By putting it off to the side, it really does wonders for you. Now Coach Brian Parana (5:20.775) As we go, the rice, the portion of the rice or the lo mein noodles, we have to order it, but have it separate from the entree. Eat guys, unfortunately, most carbohydrate servings for you, especially if you're in your fat loss phase, is one cup of starchy carbs at most. You could get away with two, but that would have to be some little jenga in in your carbs for the day. Coach Brian Parana (5:50.114) But also, you might have to move more to earn the carbs as well, because carbs are energy in your body. And that's why you eat more carbs is if you move more. Now, a cool thing about the rice is that if you get white rice, you can save it for other meals. With the way I order, I order an extra quart for later meals, but we also get those two-pint sides that come with the chicken and broccoli. Now, most Coach Brian Parana (6:19.447) Chinese restaurants also serve the lunch version of the dish in a smaller portion than the dinner one. That portion control option there could be a big change for you to have on your own and not have to change the the order too too much. For a shortcut list, I have five dishes you'll find at pretty much any neighborhood Chinese restaurant that already fit the approach of Chinese. Coach Brian Parana (6:49.303) Getting a protein, watching the vegetables, plenty of vegetables and the sauce on the side. So we have steamed chicken with mixed vegetables, steamed shrimp with mixed vegetables, chicken and broccoli with light sauce on the side, Moo Goo Gai Pan with light sauce on the side, beef and broccoli with sauce on the side. Any of these are pretty safe for you to be able to have and enjoy and not throw you off track. Coach Brian Parana (7:20.331) If you're starting with something small, steamed vegetable, dumplings, they can run, let's just call it 50 calories each. That's easy math, is 50 calories for a dumpling. So then you don't have to worry about it. A steamed chicken dumpling is gonna run about 75 calories. Egg drop soup is gonna run about 75 calories in a cup. Coach Brian Parana (7:47.224) These are all really good appetizers to start off with because they end up not having a lot of calories in them and can help start to fill you up and not destroy the meal in another sense. Everyone always wonders about those fortune cookies. They're only 30 calories. Yes, finish off your meal with a fortune that goes something like this. Coach Brian Parana (8:14.791) In the f near future, you will be full of joy and love. Something like right there. They're always almost vague and and ambiguous, but by purpose and reason. And I'm all good with that. Now, as far as rice goes, in these entrees, white rice, brown rice, I'm not too big of a a picky one to go one between the other. Sure. Coach Brian Parana (8:42.433) Brown rice has a little bit more fiber than white rice, but I still don't think it's enough to never eat white rice again and just blow it off. When you look at nutrition labels between brown rice and white rice, they're almost virtually the same. I also tell people: just like a potato is a potato, white rice, brown rice are they almost the exact same. And there are thousands of rice. Coach Brian Parana (9:10.195) And even we'll just throw potatoes in here too because they usually are synonymous when I'm talking to someone. There are over 3,000 plus variants of potatoes. They're all basically the same. So I just want to throw that out there. So if you like white rice, excellent. We're just going to portion it out and not eat too much of it because that will be the biggest downfall of what you end up running into. Coach Brian Parana (9:37.910) One more thing worth knowing before you order, a quart container holds about four cups of food. This is simple and easy, knowledgeable for you to then portion size out what should go onto your plate from that container. And it's just not one size. So you just don't need the whole quart, obviously. A quart of rice is if that's four cups of rice and Coach Brian Parana (10:4.937) A cup of rice is about 200 calories and 40 carbs. That is eight cups of rice. And that is what 160 carbs? That is you should have ran a a marathon almost, joking, but you should have ran a lot to be able to end up affording that much. Check out these five dishes and and I want you to pay attention to what the actual physical Coach Brian Parana (10:30.923) Calorie costs are for them because they show up in pretty much every Chinese menu in the country. So knowing these five really helps cover pretty much any Chinese takeout that you could get. Now, there might be subtly differences from the amounts or a cup or a full order or single order side or whatever. That's just part of it. But if we just go to the gross approximation, then here we go. Moo Goo Gai Pan runs. Coach Brian Parana (11:0.247) Two to 300 calories, a cup, 15 to 25 grams of protein. It's got chicken, tons of vegetables already in it. And that's why it ends up showing up as one of the better options here, because you can stack it with lots of protein vegetables, and ultimately just eat that mainly with some low sodium soy sauce. Bam! You get yourself a high protein vegetable-heavy meal. Coach Brian Parana (11:30.081) That sure has some sodium in it, but not stacked with carbs and not the a thousand calories or more. Number two is the Kung Pao chicken. It does bring a lot more protein in it, but it also costs more calories. One order can run anywhere from seven to eight hundred calories and give you about fifty-five-ish, maybe sixty grams of protein, but it has 40 to 45 grams of fat. That's Coach Brian Parana (11:59.692) Kind of a lot. Now sodium is approximated here. This could be between 2000 to 2500 milligrams of sodium, which is basically your day's worth of recommendations based on the USDA in that one dish. The peanuts and the sauce are killing your sodium there and the calories. So we if we can get the sauce on the side, all of a sudden we can be in a lot more control over the amount of sodium there. Coach Brian Parana (12:29.911) But the fat is coming a lot from the s the peanuts. So again, that's okay. That's a healthy fat, but 42 for a whole container, that is in general a lot more for a particular meal. Egg rolls, they add up fast for something that is small, right? They and they only are a couple bites, sadly enough. If we think of these, really gross, easy number to remember. Coach Brian Parana (12:59.841) Is 225 or even 250 calories for an egg roll? And that would do simple math. Maybe the difference there could be what how thick is the skin of the egg roll? Is it more of a spring roll where it's almost translucent? Or if it's that crusty, crunchy type of outer shell. If that's the case, then maybe it's closer to 250. Now they have a lot of fat in them, 11 grams of fat. Coach Brian Parana (13:28.981) Or more, and two of them can end up being almost 500 calories before you even get any food on your plate. They're so good, but they do cost a lot. Chicken chow mein carries about 41 grams of protein, so we're in that 40 to 50 gram of protein I talk about pretty regularly here. It has fewer calories, less sodium than the Kung Pao chicken above. Coach Brian Parana (13:57.802) About 500 calories, and but it's still carrying a little bit of sodium around 1800 to 2000, give or take, depending on how much sauce and the way it's cooked at the restaurant. But that can be an option because of the chicken can carry some good protein there. The General Tso's and General Tso's, if you want to be my kids, or just me thinking that's how it's pronounced, the chicken there. Coach Brian Parana (14:27.559) Nine pieces can run almost 500 of this. Sure, it has some protein because there's chicken in there, but there's an enormous amount of fat. There's more fat. So maybe it has about 20 grams of protein, but 25 grams of fat. And as we've talked about in the past, that's not a good win. And most of the fat is coming from the frying process, the breading. There's sugar in the sauce. Coach Brian Parana (14:54.081) That makes it taste so good, that red soupy, gooey, gunky sauce they they pour all over it, right? That smells interesting. And obviously each piece can be a little bit larger or smaller. But if we say, hey, one slice is about, or one piece can be about, let's just do some simple math and just call it 50 calories for easy math, then you know how much of this. Coach Brian Parana (15:24.065) The General Tso's that you can have. Now, these are five different dishes that you can have. And a lot of it we have to just pay attention to the pattern that we're trying to do. Whether if it is more steamed, we're good. If it's more fried, we are not good. We do not want to have a lot of fried Chinese food because that's what multiplies the numbers in a sense. So if we Coach Brian Parana (15:52.264) Want to go in there and order the healthiest option: steamed chicken with mixed vegetables, sauce on the side, rice on the side, and you will be able to serve yourself an appropriate amount of that when you get home, which is ideally six ounces of protein, three to four cups of the vegetables, and maybe a cup of rice. Having the dip and stab fork method will work really well. Coach Brian Parana (16:21.695) Now, if you're running into eating on the go situations and you are trying your best to lose weight and you just can't get a hold of it, that's what I'm doing. The Call to Rise 100-day fat loss challenge. I'm getting guys to drop 20 plus pounds in 100 days. We focus heavy on nutrition, fitness, and lifestyle that are able to work around your job, your family. And you can learn more at thecalltorise.com. Coach Brian Parana (16:50.315) My fancy hat here if you're looking in video. And this is one of the main things that I've been doing for a long time is helping guys step up and step out. And you hear lots of testimonials on this podcast of guys in real situations. So check that out. All right, back to some Chinese. If you're ordering for the family, I think we do a pretty good job overall. Certainly the fried rice of shrimp and pork-fried rice. Coach Brian Parana (17:20.039) Add more calories, but the way we order the other stuff, chicken and broccoli with rice on white rice on the side and one egg roll, I I think that's okay. I think we're doing ourselves a favor. Now it doesn't do my credit card a favor every time I go there, so we have to do it. Now we all sit down family style, serve each other up, and then off we usually when it's Chinese time, we'll watch a movie together or something and just spend time. Coach Brian Parana (17:49.560) Together, which is good. And then there is always some leftover, and you can then portion them out to the appropriate amount of meals that you have left. And that would be great. A little note on leftovers. Anytime that you actually have a leftover, you can always pair it with leaner protein, lots of vegetables, and chances are you'll have plenty of carbs there, and you just won't have to add more. Coach Brian Parana (18:18.551) Carbs to that meal already. But the other stuff would be a good way to borrow the flavor, the taste, the experience, and just add a little bit more of the protein and vegetables. If the restaurant won't customize your order or kitchens don't take special requests, that's fine. Just try and order steamed whatever protein. Coach Brian Parana (18:47.297) And the chicken shrimp are going to be the most obvious. And which order can you get that has the most vegetables in the picture on the plate of food that they have on the menu? Right. All Chinese places have that on the menu so that you can see which ones would be more carb-laden with vegetable or with noodles or rice, and which ones have a lot more of the the goods, the veggies. All right. Coach Brian Parana (19:18.149) One interesting thing, General Tso's chicken didn't start off the way most people order it now. A chef named Peng Chang-kuei created the original in Taiwan in the 1950s. And by his own account, it was hotter, sourer, saltier, and less sweet than what you get in the mall today at the Chinese takeout place. Coach Brian Parana (19:46.636) This is much closer to the real Hunan cooking experience than we again get at the mall food court. The Americanized version ends up with that sweeter sauce, a crispier batter, and ends up being what more Americanized version of it that his what we do. And Peng himself saw Coach Brian Parana (20:15.221) photos later and on in his career, the Americanized version of many thought it was crazy nonsense. And calorically, yeah, we could definitely think, yes, it's a bit silly how we prepare foods to then get them to not be as healthy as we need them to be. So a couple things just to wrap up, w what what else do we have when we come? You have dumplings, we have the the [unclear]. Coach Brian Parana (20:43.649) We've got other crispy, crunchy things. Those are probably going to be things you want to avoid because they will again fall under that twenty five to fifty calories per food item there. And that will get you in trouble if you're not careful. Eating slow. I myself, guilty as charged. I will eat it's like I'm engulfing. I'll get the big spoon, the one that's in the back of the the drawer. Coach Brian Parana (21:13.611) the you the the the s the forks and spoons door that big one and scooping it up and if you're like my son [MINOR NAME - DO NOT PUBLISH] my oldest he this is like dude slow down he puts his mouth about one inch up above the food and it's like someone's trying to steal it from him. So we need to go slow. Also remember obviously there's lots more sodium we probably should increase our water consumption. Coach Brian Parana (21:44.008) Obviously, to help flush out that extra sodium so you're not wearing your Chinese for two days because your body's swollen. All right, that'd be good. And maybe walk a little bit more, get your heart rate up, burn some calories, sweat some things out so that your body can regulate that. Now, if you need help with Chinese or Japanese is coming up here next. Coach Brian Parana (22:11.807) In the next episode of 159, we're gonna go over sushi and hibachi. And I do love Chinese, but Japanese has a special place in my heart. We are planning as a family to go there in spring break next year. I hope that we can and really enjoy the live sushi experience over there. That would be amazing. The hibachi shows and all the other things that go on over there. But if you need help, Coach Brian Parana (22:37.751) Picking things out. Remember, I've been going through this series for this is like the 12th installment. So there's a bunch of different options and opportunities around specific food choices that you can make at these restaurants to be healthier. We started off at episode 145 with Chipotle, going through some of the fast casual places: fast food, Starbucks, Panera Bread, Subway. We've got Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell. Coach Brian Parana (23:8.105) a lot of different ones. The airport, gas station, a lot of different options. And you can find those in the resource that I have for my clients. And I'm happy to give it to you as well. Eating on the go guide. You can find it at go.brianparana.com/eatingonthego. It's all one word. You'll find this in the show notes for you. And it will, it's very detailed and very easy to understand, quick. Coach Brian Parana (23:34.026) Understand it's got a table of contents that organizes it very well. If you're a guy that's tired of trying to figure it out on your own, you've lost weight, you're tired, your clothes don't fit, you're low energy, you're low confidence, self-esteem, your wife has been on you to go to the doctor, your doctor's been on you to start medicine, or maybe you're starting too many medicines, or you feel like everyone around you is on the GLP-1. Should you try it too, but you don't really want to? Coach Brian Parana (24:3.327) If any of those things are on your brain, you don't recognize yourself, your clothes don't fit anymore, all those things, then let's change. That's what I do for a living. That's what the call to rise is about. In the 100 days, we transform who you are, the way you think as a person, to show up as a leader around your health for the sometimes the first time in your whole life. Be the leader for your Coach Brian Parana (24:32.279) Family, for your kids, but most importantly, for yourself. Show up with more productivity, energy than you have had in years. After I'm done with you in the hundred days, then you will be a different person because we create, co-create this together. It's you and I working together to figure out what's the best situation for you with your nutrition, with your fitness, with your lifestyle, no matter how stressful it is. Coach Brian Parana (25:2.487) How much you travel, check out thecalltorise.com. And there's an explicit amount of questions that get answered there. Check out some of the episodes on Driven for Health. some of the most recent ones were 140 episode with Jamie that he lost 38 pounds. We've got Nate and 137. This guy was eating ice cream that is actually holds up to its legendary status inside Coach Brian Parana (25:31.627) That conversation lost 25 pounds, dropped his A1C down two points, dropped his blood sugar levels. We've got Chris who travels for a living as a busy executive. We have Mike who handed off his daughter at the end of the hundred days to his new son-in-law in marriage. And he's so proud because he lost 12% body fat. And I've got countless more. I've got two more on deck coming up of Joe, who's currently in the program. Coach Brian Parana (26:0.285) Losing 20 plus pounds while still traveling and being able to have more success on his vacations this past summer than he's ever had ever. And whenever he's left the house for vacation or travel for work, and Pablo, this guy's pants were falling down all like all the time. He had to get an extra belt and start punching whole more holes in it. So those are some more stories. So wrapping up. Coach Brian Parana (26:26.615) Chinese takeout three important things to remember. We need a lean protein. We need a lot of vegetables. We need to control the sauce and the rice on the side or the chow mein and the portion that is appropriate for you to eat. If this was helpful, pass this on to a friend. Send leave me a review. I read all of them. Send me a question, brian@brianparana.com. I'm here for you. And that's it. Coach Brian Parana (26:53.601) For this episode. Next up is again Japanese and hibachi and sushi. I hope that you're looking forward to that. Wrapping up for Driven for Health, train hard, eat smart, and I'll catch you in the next one.