What to Order at Greek and Mediterranean for Fat Loss - 165

Coach Brian Parana (0:7.756) You sit down at a Greek restaurant with a simple plan to eat a chicken gyro, however you want to pronounce it, it's both of those. Now we also add a side salad, and then we want to get back to work. The server walks by carrying a hot skillet. It's like sizzling hot. Lights a block of cheese on fire and yells, Opa. Coach Brian Parana (0:36.698) And every head turns in the whole restaurant. Grown adults start clapping for dairy. And of course, everything and anything lit on fire is very exciting. A minute later, someone at your table orders one. Now the warm pita is making an appearance. Hummus is there and it's right in the middle. It's got this pool of olive oil just swimming in it. Fried calamari shows up. Someone orders. Coach Brian Parana (1:6.350) dolmades, the stuffed grape leaves, and another plate. It just keeps stacking up. The saganaki still is sizzling, and you also get that firework-like experience with the fire going on. The forks start reaching for as soon as the plate lands. The server hasn't even written down what you actually want to order. Remembers that chicken gyro. Coach Brian Parana (1:36.319) And the table looks like it's been catered for a wedding. Twenty minutes later, your chicken gyro does arrive, but by then you've probably already eaten a day's worth of calories by just sharing all those appetizers. Welcome back to Driven for Health. I'm Coach Brian Parana. This is episode 165. We've been at this Coach Brian Parana (1:58.677) Eating on the go series of what to order at different restaurants. This is yet another one. We have a couple more and we will be wrapping up this series. If you do want the say the cheat sheet, the quick guide, the eating on the go guide is available in the show notes. go.brianparana.com/eatingonthego, one word. You can grab it. It's loaded with exact instructions on the last 20 episodes that we've been doing of what to eat at Coach Brian Parana (2:27.266) Different types of restaurants for fast casual, fine dining, and beyond. So go grab that now. It's yours to keep and use literally today. So let's go through the pita, through all the way with the dessert, and I'll explain unfamiliar dishes, the most familiar ones as well, and give you useful calorie macro ranges and help you enjoy dinner or lunch without it turning into a nutrition seminar today. Coach Brian Parana (2:56.554) I'm using the Great Greek Mediterranean Grill as the main numbers of this episode because they publish their nutritional information. Of course, your local restaurant might use different recipes, different portions. Of course, any place would serve you subtly different food than what's established online, but we can use it as a gear point, a set point on what to do or how to do it, and make sure that you are. Coach Brian Parana (3:26.904) Focus on approximations and at least having really good awareness around calories of what to eat. Why the at a Greek table, the taverna has traditionally been a meeting place. Food is fun, it's happiness, it's connection, togetherness, love, it's all sorts of different things. And we want that to remain in that place, not just a place where you gain weight. Coach Brian Parana (3:56.535) Every time that you end up eating out or leaving your house for a travel and have to eat on the go. And so people are talking or sharing meals with each other, breaking bread, or in this case, breaking pita. This is the Greek word for this type of hospitality is philoxenia. All right. And it is often translated as friendship or love toward a stranger. Coach Brian Parana (4:26.028) And the guest gets welcomed and fed very well. Now, if I pronounce something subtly off, I have been to Greek restaurants, but Greek is not my native language. So I apologize in advance. I will be doing my best. I have some phonetic spell-outs to help make this easier to hear and understand as well. But in any and all cultures, food is togetherness, and that's really important. It's a shared experience for you to be able to enjoy. Coach Brian Parana (4:55.938) The time together. Greek cooking also has plenty to work with. It's meat, fish, mini grilled with lemon, garlic, oregano, with tomatoes, eggplants, beans, greens, yogurts, olives, and feta show up all over the menu. And olive oil carries a ton of that flavor. Just for reference, though. Coach Brian Parana (5:25.818) One tablespoon of olive oil has 120 calories with 14 grams of fat. And a cook can add two or three tablespoons without even doing anything different in the cooking process. They just pour it into this pan and pour it into that pan, or top it at the end of the meal, and then it's in the hummus, and all of a sudden you can see that just in olive oil alone, there could be a lot of added calories that you can't see. Coach Brian Parana (5:55.481) Probably could taste the olive oil or oiliness of food or say butter as an example in other cuisines, you'll obviously notice it in some level. Just for warning, we never need to take a food scale to these things. We just need to have a good understanding of a couple different decisions that we need to make before we move ahead with whatever we're ordering. Number one, how much shared food do I want? Coach Brian Parana (6:24.266) Again, family style is put a bowl or dish on a plate and then everyone gets a piece. Secondly, what's my main protein source? We want to get ideally at least 40, 50, 60 grams of protein in this meal to help move us forward. Ideally, lower fat. But if it's lamb and lamb naturally has more fat, then we need to have lower fat in other times of the day. A third one, what's the Coach Brian Parana (6:52.494) Starch that I really want to enjoy. Pita, we've got beans, we've got the hummus, we've got all sorts of different things that start showing up in Greek recipes, and we have to pick what our main one is because we can have our pita and hummus, but we can't have everything because it multiplies the calories overall. Coach Brian Parana (7:17.142) In the first 20 minutes, we start with pita and olive oil or with hummus. Now, pita can be somewhere around 125 to 175 calories on average, depending on how big it is. Add one tablespoon of oil, and now we're sitting 250 to 300 calories pretty fast. Two pitas, because your hands are a little greedy, and a tablespoon of two of those end up passing 500 calories before. Coach Brian Parana (7:46.005) your hummus even showed up. Count whole pitas instead of just the triangles, okay, cutting one pita into four pieces didn't send three quarters of it into another dimension, right? We are still gonna end up eating those. And of course if you only eat quarter, 50% of it, then we have a better idea of all right, say each quarter is roughly just for simple basic math, 50 calories. Coach Brian Parana (8:15.372) So then you can keep a tab on it. Now, hummus is chickpea, garbanzo bean dip with oil in it. And garbanzos are excellent because they have protein and fiber that can help fill up the pita. So you end up eating less pita but more of the hummus in that combination. So thinking back to this is that if we're dabbing the hummus, we're not getting tons of calories. If we're scooping the hummus, we're getting Coach Brian Parana (8:44.680) A load of them. The Great Greek's full hummus appetizer with two pitas has a shocking 900 plus calories. It has 25 grams of protein, 10 grams of fiber, which those are great. But when we split four ways with your table, this can make it a lot more manageable for you. 235 calories per person on average, that is a lot more reasonable for. Coach Brian Parana (9:12.274) the appetizer on before the entree. Alright, now if you split it just between two hungry guys, that's 450 to 500 calories. A meze platter is a collection of small dishes that do include a variety of different dips, hummus, tzatziki, olives, feta, dolmades, spanakopita, and Coach Brian Parana (9:41.743) Pita. So this is a big platter of this. And as a real example, the Great Greek has four dip combos with four pitas. The entire order sadly comes to over 2400 calories. And it has 67 grams of protein, but that is a lot. Now, again, we split it between eight people. That cuts calories down quite a bit, but wow. Coach Brian Parana (10:11.622) Talk about a really big way to start the meal off. Dolmades are grape leaves stuffed with rice and sometimes ground meat, and they're rolled real tight and then steamed or simmered, and they typically arrive cold or at room temperature. If we add four of these, they have about 140 calories with 21 carbs, six grams of Coach Brian Parana (10:39.328) fiber, so that's really good, but only three grams of protein. So these aren't jam-packed with the protein that we are thinking of or need. They do add calories. Okay. Just in being conscious of that. So a full appetizer of these dolmades, they end up having almost 250 calories or so. they taste great and can be a really good anchor to the meal, but Coach Brian Parana (11:8.696) They just don't have a lot of protein, so we have to make it up otherwise. Spanakopita is spinach and feta wrapped in a flaky phyllo pastry. These are especially delicious. Anything with phyllo, I am in. Especially baklava, which quick foreshadow, it's coming later, of course, because how could you not talk about Mediterranean and baklava in the same sentence? Rip. Coach Brian Parana (11:38.029) Now, one spanakopita can have almost 300 calories. This is unfortunate. And because of the feta that's in it, it can add almost 20 grams of fat in that one serving. So that ends up making up, if we do the math, 20 times nine. That's 180 calories of fat out of 290. That means that well over 50% of this is coming from fat. Coach Brian Parana (12:7.468) calories. Okay. So we have to be very conscious of how much spanakopita we actually have. Coach Brian Parana (12:16.600) Calamari, another very popular dish, of course, is squid. It's usually breaded and fried. Squid has the protein, but the oil and the breading come with lots of fat and carbs. One published restaurant order comes in around 450 to 500 calories, with of course 32 grams of protein. But that's again, we just do basic math, say 30 for simple math, 30 times 4 is. Coach Brian Parana (12:45.356) 120. So 120 out of over 450 calories is not a lot of protein in terms of the overall percentage of that dish. It's a lot more coming from fat and carbs in that meal. If you end up getting a larger order of calamari, it could be 600, 700 calories. Again, if we split it between the table, that is an effective way to do it. Now, the reason I'm going through these are very popular. Coach Brian Parana (13:15.060) Items in the list, and just want to make sure that you're familiar with what they are and what purpose they serve and how you can put them or fit them into your meal of the day. Saganaki is fried cheese. It's that flaming presentation with the opa at the end. And this is served all over the place. And it's probably one of the best marketing campaigns for cheeses. Coach Brian Parana (13:43.053) that cheese has ever seen or dairy industry has ever done. But just know that one ounce of cheese can run roughly a hundred calories and about seven grams of protein. Think of a cheese stick worth of cheese. That's about one ounce for a good visual. Now if four people are splitting this, then we definitely cut it down to about an ounce of the total Coach Brian Parana (14:11.988) saganaki itself because that can come in a couple ounces of how much is going on in it. So cheese unfortunately is not a protein source unless it's fat-free or very low fat, then it's usually a fat source that has a little bit of carbs and protein to it. We have a couple other things, feta fries, fried potatoes covered in feta. These things just start to Coach Brian Parana (14:41.312) Multiply. That's basically what they are, potatoes and fat. So think of it's gonna be an order of these on the Great Greek menu, about 800 some calories, 52 grams of fat, which for most guys that's pretty much a day's limit. So if you ate the whole thing, what else are we eating today that doesn't have fat? And it only has 23 grams of protein, so it tastes really good. But if we add that to a Greek gyro, Coach Brian Parana (15:9.802) then your lunch is easily close to fifteen hundred calories. And if you're trying to lose weight around two thousand as an example, whew, we are in trouble because you only have five hundred ish calories left to eat in the whole day. Coach Brian Parana (15:28.662) Now, what we have to remember here is these are generally for the table, not a portion size. Okay, no matter what, whatever you put in your mouth is how many calories that you actually eat, of course. Something has 830 calories, you can just still have 50 or 75 calories of it and be okay. But that's going to be basically a bite. Most of the time, it's really easy to diffuse most calories. Coach Brian Parana (15:56.909) Appetizers too, one bite being 50 calories for simple math. All right, let's break up the menu in a couple different ways. We have the food shared and then the main menu gets a lot easier. We have handhelds, we have things from the grill, and then oven or skillet dishes. Let's go over handheld ones first. Coach Brian Parana (16:22.092) The gyro, however you say it. This is the classic Greek entree that is delicious, and I absolutely love it. Meat's used on a vertical rotisserie, sliced in a variety of chicken, lamb, beef, or a beef and lamb blend. Right? Then we slice that off, put it into pita, tomatoes, onions, tzatziki sauce, and there you go. I absolutely love. Coach Brian Parana (16:51.480) gyros, and the place that we have close to us [RESTAURANT NAME REDACTED -- see header]. They put so much meat on these things. You have to get a small and it still looks like a large. But they do take that big, huge spoonful of tzatziki sauce and they scoop it out and then just like that. This literally sound effect, not really, but there you go. Tons and tons of sauce because that then is a multiplying calories. But if we just take an average Coach Brian Parana (17:19.956) off of that menu that we're referencing, the Great Greek gyro with chicken has about 600 calories, 46 grams of protein, 46-ish grams of carbs, and 24 grams of fat. That's a reasonable lunch for your workday. I would definitely try to get heavy tomatoes and even add cucumbers and onions, heavy amounts. Like could you add two or three times more of that, please? Coach Brian Parana (17:48.407) And just have enough tzatziki to get schmeared all over to enjoy in every bite, but not have it gloppily gloop all over the place because that'll again multiply calories. Now we go with the chicken being 550, 600, the beef and lamb combo 810. The biggest difference here is fat. So instead of 24 grams of fat in the chicken, the beef lamb version, because those are fattier. Coach Brian Parana (18:18.296) Pieces of meat have a double basically fifty-three grams of fat. So it's two hundred and twenty calories or so more than the chicken just because of the fat itself. Be careful, buyer beware. Eater beware, of course. Tzatziki, the topping, the yogurt, cucumber sauce, has tons of herbs and garlic in it, and super duper amazing, and it needs to be on your gyro. Coach Brian Parana (18:46.338) But we just need to make sure we're conscious because we go back to that example. A full tzatziki appetizer with two pitas can be 810 calories with 43 grams of fat. And the pita doesn't really have fat, it's a bread source, it's a carb source. All right, falafel comes in on this as well. This is with the vegetarian approach. This is chickpeas that it's fried and four pieces. Think of them pieces like a chicken tender type. Coach Brian Parana (19:16.214) In a sense, or a patty. They have about 250-ish calories, about 33 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fat, and 11 grams of fiber. So this is a really great fiber source. It's a carb with some fat and it has some protein in it, about 20-ish grams. So this is a fair choice for a carb, vegetable-based plant protein. Coach Brian Parana (19:45.913) That you could have that could be really enjoyable. Just pay attention because as soon as you add the hummus and more pita, you all of a sudden are 33 carbs and the falafel go to a hundred or more, and it ends up being a lot, a lot of calories. So obviously the winner here ends up being the chicken gyro there, because it has twice as much protein, has half as much fat as the beef lamb one. So that is something to consider. Coach Brian Parana (20:16.544) The second option is from the grill. Souvlaki is meat or seafood grilled on skewers. Quick shout out to any meat on a skewer, on a grill. It's amazing. They usually come in chicken, pork, lamb, steak, and shrimp are the very most common ones. Now on the menu, these plates come with a side of Greek salad, tzatziki, pita. Coach Brian Parana (20:45.388) Rice pilaf, regular fries, or the feta loaded ones. And the sides can totally change the game in terms of our overall calories and the impact. Now, a chicken souvlaki plate has 1100 calories or so, loaded with 84 grams of protein, but that's a lot of calories for this here. The shrimp one has Coach Brian Parana (21:14.368) About 950. Shrimp has zero fat in it, and that's a big difference here. It has about 59 grams of protein. So still completely reasonable. Unfortunately, the lamb goes even lower. So the lamb skewer ends up being almost 1200 because the fat in it has about 70 grams of protein. These are very full meals. You're gonna pick a plate when you want dinner to arrive in one order. Coach Brian Parana (21:44.635) And you've already worked through hummus, the calamari, and this one's gonna be a finisher here. Now, lamb chops are another common grill item. The meat is often marinated and deliciousness, all sorts of seasonings, herbs, oil, and grilled or broiled. The number on the chops can vary from one place to another, an estimate could be about 700 to 1,000 calories with roughly. Coach Brian Parana (22:14.050) 45 to 65 grams of protein. Ask how many of the chops actually come with the order. And that helps you understand if there's more, obviously more calories. All right. Now, unfortunately, lamb is a higher fat food protein source. So with that protein is gonna come a lot more fat. So just be conscious of that. Coach Brian Parana (22:44.632) We got fish that comes from the grill. Branzino is a European sea bass, and sometimes it arrives whole or as a filet. Most of us Americans over here like the filet version, right? More than the whole. That ends up just being a bit more visually appetizing. this one time in Romania, I was on a missions trip. I went over there, they served me a fish. Coach Brian Parana (23:11.968) And this is the first time I'd ever gotten a fish on a plate. It's like, hmm, what do I do with this? It had the fins and everything. I don't think it had an eyeball. But I was like, what in the world is going on here? I was a little shocked because I had not experienced that before. All right, back to branzino. White fish. And the one that I ate in Romania was whitefish too, but it is packed with protein, very low fat. If you keep it out of the oil. Coach Brian Parana (23:41.845) or butter. Now 200-300-calorie fish serving size can give you 35-40 grams of protein, which is great. So we always want to ask how it's cooked and how we can just have the grilled fish with lemon vegetables and a small amount of starch. That would actually be really good. Or double vegetables with this guy because you had the pita and hummus beforehand. That actually makes a lot of sense. Now we go with the third one Coach Brian Parana (24:11.752) Is the oven and the skillet. Moussaka is layered eggplant, meat sauce, creamy bechamel, and it is baked rich. And this is like a lasagna type. The easiest way to picture it. These recipes vary a crazy amount. A normal size can be anywhere from 500 to 800 calories with anywhere from 25 to 40 grams of protein. Coach Brian Parana (24:40.866) The size of the slice and how it's stacked ends up making a big, big difference. All right. We have to be careful with this. We absolutely need to pair it with some vegetables, a side salad, and minimize whatever else you end up eating. Now, if we have shrimp saganaki, this is a completely different flaming cheese appetizer because of the shrimp. It's cooked in tomato sauce with feta and a skillet. Coach Brian Parana (25:9.088) And this can land anywhere 300 to 500-ish calories. Again, shrimp being a really good idea with 30 45 grams before the bread and the rice come. So again, if we're getting these things, if we can spare the starch, you're gonna end up being really good. Let's speak of the salad, the Greek salad itself. It can be a side or an actual entree. It includes tomatoes, olives, feta, onion, oregano, and of course. Coach Brian Parana (25:38.805) Olive oil dressing. The American restaurant version adds lettuce, some entree salads also come with pita and tzatziki. For reference, a side salad can be say 250 grams of protein. Sorry, 250 calories, but only a very couple grams of protein because the salad isn't where the protein's at. The classic Greek salad off of our reference menu. Coach Brian Parana (26:4.898) With pita and tzatziki has eight hundred and fifty calories. That's a shocker there. And the large has over a thousand with about twenty grams of protein. So you do have to be conscious of salads being exponentially higher in calories because of all the toppings. It's not the vegetables or the leafy greens and those things. It ends up being all the toppings that get added. Of course, we also Coach Brian Parana (26:34.558) With salads, we have dressings and a two-tablespoon serving of Greek dressing can be a hundred and ninety calories with 21 grams of fat. So we think about a tablespoon of dressing being about 100 calories. That is basic math for you to leverage off of. And of course, we want to use the dip and stab method, something I absolutely love. We have the dressing on the side. You stick your fork in it, poke the food, eat it, and you're gonna get that dressing-like taste in every single bite. Coach Brian Parana (27:4.172) It ends up being a big winner here for ya. Coach Brian Parana (27:7.896) Feta deserves the same portion control check too, because a serving of it can run upwards of 100 calories. Remember, one ounce of cheese usually is about a hundred calories, but only has six grams of protein. Again, referencing a cheese stick as a good example here. When you crumble it over the tomato, thicker blocks or smaller blocks on the platter. Coach Brian Parana (27:35.167) And you add it with the cheese inside the spanakopita and the saganaki flaming cheese, too. Whew, you've possibly eaten a lot of cheese and well over 60 or 70 grams of fat in the day. Lastly, coming in with some of the starches that get added, rice pilaf can easily be 450 calories with 80 carbs. Remember, a cup of rice is about Coach Brian Parana (28:3.320) 200 calories with 40 carbs. So this would be roughly a two cup serving. And there might be oil in it. And then the French fries can range 400 to 600 calories pretty quick. Lots of carbs, lots of fats there. So you do have to be careful going into Mediterranean Greek style restaurants. If you wanted to keep it light, we're looking at a chicken gyro with side salad, dressing on the side. Coach Brian Parana (28:32.226) That will keep things under 800 calories with 50 grams of protein. At dinner, if we get the chicken souvlaki or the shrimp with rice on the side and double vegetable, or just doing the chicken double vegetable, could be a good idea. If you're in a long social dinner, let's split the meze platter and have some grilled fish and vegetables to pair with that. Coach Brian Parana (29:3.032) Couple other notables. We have soups and stuff. Soups can always get in around three or four hundred calories. That's something to pay attention to if you wanted. But let's hit with the baklava and the desserts. Like let's get to that finally here as we start to wrap up. Baklava, lovely layered phyllo with nuts, honey, spices, but a single triangle can be 500 calories on the Great Greek's menu. Coach Brian Parana (29:32.473) The serving was over 500 with 38 grams of fat. Now that's delicious, but that would be a lot. Rice pudding, also very delicious, but 350, 400 calories there. If we get something like the baklava ice cream, this is well over 500 calories. It's going to be a big calorie challenger here. Can't forget the loukoumades. Coach Brian Parana (30:2.090) These are small fried dough balls finished with honey, cinnamon, and sometimes nuts or chocolate. I remember we went to Greece last summer, so not this one past one, but the last one. We had a two-week trip that we did a seven-day cruise in the Mediterranean and then six days in Paris. It was absolute heaven. Loved it. Now we were at a lot of different Coach Brian Parana (30:32.530) places in Greece and we ended up finding one of these loukoumades as we are roaming around the super hot city of Athens on a bike tour and seeing I absolutely loved the Olympic stadium. Obviously I'm in athletics and that was really Coach Brian Parana (31:2.199) Excellent from me. And then what else did we have? We had Coach Brian Parana (31:10.572) The Parthenon, the Acropolis as well that we saw. Just wonderful. But we stopped off and had some loukoumades and they were delicious. Timed it right. Right after we got off the Acropolis was amazing. So these can be anywhere from fifty to a hundred calories. So six piece can be do some quick math. Six times fifty is Coach Brian Parana (31:38.415) 300 or more calories. Now, Greek yogurt and honey is another popular one. This can run, say, 300, 400 calories. It's very delicious, but we might want to do the honey on the side just so you can control it because a serving honey is about 30 calories, and they could put three or four on that. Now, in closing, Greek restaurant meals are a center for food, fun, family, friends. Coach Brian Parana (32:7.448) We got to keep that part, but we don't need to bring an excessive amount of calories. We need to enjoy a little bit of finer Greek style food that is very exciting and appetizing, but we don't wanna overdo it. Now, if you know someone who absolutely loves Greek Mediterranean style food, then please share this episode with them. Grab the eating on the go guide at go.brianparana.com Coach Brian Parana (32:36.770) /eatingonthego. It's free. It's yours. It has Mediterranean. Our upcoming next episode is going to be Indian cuisine and going through some of the delectable, awesome, amazing food as well. So go grab that. It's packed with really good information and the whole series of episode 145 through this current one at 165. What to order at different restaurants for you to be able to. Coach Brian Parana (33:7.330) be, you know, maximize fat loss and still eat out. Lastly, if you're needing some accountability, actual coaching, real support to have a sustainable long-term approach, that's what I do in the Call to Rise 100 Day Fat Loss Challenge for men. We're going to come together, we're going to eat the right foods at the right times in the right amounts. We're going to do it for sustainable long-term success. We're going to build muscle, burn fat, and do it in a way that Coach Brian Parana (33:35.979) You are supported, held accountable every step of the way with me and also the brotherhood of other really successful guys, but have found difficulty managing that same level of success in their career, their relationships, but their body. They just can't keep it together there. So check that out, thecalltorise.com. And that's it for this episode of Driven for Health. Train hard, eat smart. Coach Brian Parana (34:3.638) And I'll catch you in the next episode, Indian Cuisine.