What to Order at Italian Restaurants for Fat Loss - 163

Coach Brian Parana (0:6.818) The breadstick basket lands in front of you before you've even opened the menu. You reach for one of those golden delicious pieces of bread, and then the olive oil comes around as well. What we aren't looking at is how we're not denying how delicious these things are, right? But we're not thinking about how many calories are starting to show up each time you reach again for the bread basket. Coach Brian Parana (0:35.512) And wait, here comes the fried calamari. And your drinks show up, and you still haven't ordered what you're eating. All these things: the bread, the oil, appetizers, drink, they're all sitting in front of you. And it's gonna cost you a lot more calories than you think. Here's what we're gonna be talking about today: Italian restaurants. Pasta, bread, deliciousness. Coach Brian Parana (1:5.016) We're gonna go over three different decisions that you can make for the whole meal to make it worth your while. Welcome to Driven for Health. I'm Coach Brian Parana, episode 163 in our restaurant series. We've got a couple more going, and you can grab the eating on the go guide. That is on the show notes here. Go.brianparana.com backslash eating on the go. It is loaded with really easy to understand information. So grab that now. Coach Brian Parana (1:34.018) And you can see what I'm talking about. And so using it literally today. All right. Italian. Everyone loves pasta. Carbs are human. It's like heaven from manna. I say manna from heaven, right? That's how it says. Well, whether we do date nights, family dinner, business meals, Italian is always to come up. And there's always lots of calories on the table that come before the entree does. All right. Coach Brian Parana (2:4.417) Let's jump into this. First example is Olive Garden. It's the top of mind because Olive Garden is a gigantic company. Now, a breadstick at Olive Garden is 140 calories. So let's just round that up to 150 for simple math. If you have grabbed two or three of them, you are basically at 50 to 80% of the calories that you should be eating for that meal in the day. Coach Brian Parana (2:33.693) Or even yeah, it just starts multiplying really quick. All right, so that can be 400 to 500 calories very, very fast. Now you have to decide on how much calories you're actually even going to eat at this place and what it is that you're going to end up eating. And you have to understand this before the server even comes and takes your order. Coach Brian Parana (3:2.133) You get four real choices here that can help you manage what you need to eat. So the bread basket, you have to decide if you're gonna take it or not. If you're gonna skip it, that gives you a little bit more leeway and leverage to be able to have more calories or pasta in your meal. If you're gonna have it, then we might need to think of how am I gonna portion out my dinner so that it doesn't add up too much. Coach Brian Parana (3:30.822) So, two things. Then what else do they have? They have the salad at Olive Garden, right? The bottomless salad dish. Now, one cool fact my wife and I, Amber, have gone there for lunch, and I'll get the soup and salad. You can get more vegetables than they actually add on it. Now, the lettuce itself isn't very calorie dense, but and it's filling, but it goes pretty quick because there's so few calories in lettuce. Coach Brian Parana (4:1.217) But when you add up the tomatoes, the onions, I don't like olives, so I usually pass on those. But what they add on it, then you can actually get a lot more fullness. And you can have, say, two or three salad bowls there, and that'll help. You could also order a soup. In general, the soup can come in a cup, about 100 to 150 calories a cup serving. A bowl can be roughly 200, 250 calories. Coach Brian Parana (4:30.219) Depending on which one it is. Is it more of a broth based one? Which a lot of them are like minestrone, and this can help. Because eating soup before a meal has been shown to cut total calorie intake by even up to twenty percent, which could be helpful because what happens is when we are eating soup and salad per se before the entree, the entree isn't coming for twenty to thirty minutes. Natural human Coach Brian Parana (4:59.315) digestion and fullness feeling starts showing up in about that time frame. So that can be really simple. Now if tonight's about the drink and the dessert, we definitely need to skip the bread and probably appetizers as well because it's not gonna go very far calorie-wise. So you pick one thing on purpose before you order Coach Brian Parana (5:26.953) And end up eating everything that showed up on the table. And something that you can say, you might have to practice it. Is we're gonna hold off on bread tonight. Can we start with a cup of soup or salad? Dressing on the side. If you can muster those words out, you're going to be saving yourself probably 500 calories pretty darn fast in that meal. And of course, we need dressing on the side because you can dip and stab and still get that dressing-like experience. Coach Brian Parana (5:55.096) With your fork, dip, stab food, eat in your mouth, that can still be really enjoyable without costing you a lot of extra calories. When we're also assessing the menu, we have to look at words like grilled or roasted and what that means with the kitchen. And does it add extra fat or carbs in the cooking process, such as breaded or fried? Those are clearly things that Coach Brian Parana (6:24.493) Add or stack or even multiply calories on your plate before sauce even gets added. And yes, sauce does have calories. A sauce comparison that might surprise you. Spaghetti with marinara, a full dinner portion can run 400 to 500 calories with 12, 10, 12 grams of fat. That's quite a lot. And chicken Alfredo. Coach Brian Parana (6:51.895) Will get you in even more trouble. So you get chicken Alfredo with the grilled chicken. That could be upwards of 1,500 calories and basically almost two days' worth of fat. 95 grams of fat is what's listed on Olive Garden's menu, on their nutrition menu. That's ridiculously crazy between marinara and Alfredo and what Coach Brian Parana (7:19.093) type of sauce you do have there. So you do have to be careful. The red is going to be a bit in quotations healthier in a sense, meaning that it's gonna be lower fat. The white sauce is going to be creamy, buttery, cheesy, and that kitchen will pile the cheese on even on top of it afterwards to make it even that much extra goodness. And so even a couple cranks of the Parmesan Coach Brian Parana (7:47.598) Could end up adding 25, 50, 75 calories to your salad, to your meal, right? How many times do they ask if you want cheese with that? You have the salad, soup, and you have the entree itself. So that ends up being easily 100 to 200 calories just of Parmesan cheese that gets cracked on there. Coach Brian Parana (8:13.739) Let's jump into what the breading does on top of the chicken Alfredo, that the crispy Chicken Fritta is a breaded piece of chicken over pasta with cream sauce. And that is easily gonna hit 1500 calories. And shockingly enough, most meals at Olive Garden or most Italian places, period, are gonna end up Coach Brian Parana (8:41.719) Going easily over 1,000, but more like 1500 or more. Even like the Tour of Italy, that's over 1500 calories if you eat the whole thing. It's full of deliciousness, but man, it's a lot. And if we have something that's over 1,500 calories, then the chances are, especially at an Italian restaurant, you're gonna have over or around or over 100 grams of fat. Coach Brian Parana (9:9.985) And that is going to be a significant load on your body after you come rolling out of the Italian joint. If you were to just go, let's go to the breaded example here. If we were to just swap the breading off, you could potentially save 200 to 300 calories for a grilled chicken piece because the breading itself and the frying can cost that many calories, like two to three hundred, depending on how thick. Coach Brian Parana (9:39.242) Breaded or big of a piece of chicken or whatever it is that got fried and breaded. So when we stack all these things together, that's why we get so many calories here. Two questions that you can ask: Is the protein breaded or grilled? And can I get sauce on the side or use lightly sauced? All right, that can be a really easy way to be more strategic about Coach Brian Parana (10:8.723) how you get it. Now, I also want to pay attention here. If you're going to a restaurant, we can still use the decision to just cut the plate in half and take half home, which will give you, let's just do a roundabout estimate of seven to eight hundred calories, which fits a lot easier into your day-to-day life. And you can manage and plan around that then eating that whole thing, that entree and what happens after it. Coach Brian Parana (10:38.195) A third point and decision that you can make is if we can actually order and build your plate. We always want to go for toward protein double vegetables. Now I know that Olive Garden has a chicken and broccoli dish that you can have that can help keep calories lower. All right. A cup of pasta, just an FYI, runs about 200 calories just in one cup. When you get a full plate of pasta, there are multiple cups. Coach Brian Parana (11:8.229) on that plate. So we do have to be conscious of how many just calories are coming from the pasta itself. And that equals roughly about 40 carbs just for one cup of pasta. That's pretty standard. So it does multiply. Think of how many carbs you can actually get out of one of these meals. So you can have a cup of pasta, a salad, a Coach Brian Parana (11:37.592) Protein and still suffice there. It's not as fun as what they're going to serve you or whatever the special is or the Tour of Italy, but it checks the box to help you know. Here's something also worth considering and knowing: if you're at a local family run Italian joint, you're not going to see nutrition labels, facts anywhere. Why? Because it is a lot more expensive for mom and pop places to do it. Coach Brian Parana (12:7.321) than in consideration to Olive Garden, which is a large chain. Researchers at Tufts measured real restaurant meals in a lab instead of trying to figure out what the menu descriptions were. Italian food always, always, always comes in the highest of any cuisine, and the average being, they state upwards of 1755 calories. So 175 calories for a plate. Coach Brian Parana (12:37.227) This is a full study of independent small chain restaurants ran about 49% higher in calories than larger chains. Why? Because there's no corporate spec sheets, no actual, say, recipe or quantities, and a mom and pop can pour more oil or butter or have different portion sizes than say Olive Garden, which is a lot more standardized. So don't assume that a smaller local spot Coach Brian Parana (13:6.327) Could be a healthier choice. It's been proven by independent studies that it's likely that they might have even more calories. But if you are at one of these mom and pop places, the best way to manage Italian is just borrow from a bigger chain. So if you're gonna order chicken Alfredo, then just look up Olive Garden's version and have a rough guesstimate of how many calories that we need to hold to account. Coach Brian Parana (13:35.000) For that specific amount of food. And now let's jump into some two default orders that you're good. They're not as fun. Italian is not as fun if you're trying to lose weight or manage your overall calories, right? It's that's obvious. So this one, this whole podcast episode here is just difficult because Italian and weight loss. Coach Brian Parana (14:2.218) there's a lot of struggle there because of literal portions. If they served you normal portions, it wouldn't be so bad. So can I have grilled chicken, shrimp, or salmon with vegetables? Can I have sauce on the side and a side of pasta with marinara? You did that, you're going to be the lowest, leanest amount of calories that possible for that meal. Certainly on the side we're having zero calorie beverages, water, Coach Brian Parana (14:31.135) sparkling water, unsweetened tea, and that will help keep calories lower. And if anything, we might have a piece of bread or a bite or two of bread, but we're definitely skipping any other appetizers as well. Another order, if it is pasta night and you got an extra movement, and then we can just do spaghetti and marinara with grilled chicken added, maybe a side salad as well, because that'll help you then take home some of the pasta. Coach Brian Parana (15:0.979) As well. Remembering that a marinara base runs about upwards of 450 to 500 calories and the added chicken breast, that alone can pop you out around seven to eight hundred calories just between those two. Then you add the 200 calories of pasta, so we're at about a thousand, which is way better than maybe a 1500 calorie dish on an alternative order there. And you just again take home box. Coach Brian Parana (15:30.049) That's going to be the thing. If you are doing chicken Parmesan or lasagna, this one is going to be a huge calorie hit, a lot more than you want. Even with chicken Parmesan, again, it's breaded and fried. So it's just gonna cost a bit more, and you're gonna have to work in the day to burn some calories and eat less as well, like protein shake, a chicken and vegetable or chicken salad or something like that. Coach Brian Parana (15:58.638) High protein yogurt with berries could hold you over until you manage that. So if we have to look through the top-down of when you actually go in and order, we've had to watch out for the bread, salad, soup. Those are possible lower calorie opportunities. We need zero calorie drink and probably pass on dessert because that again will add easily upwards of 500 calories as well. Now, something about Coach Brian Parana (16:27.741) Olive Garden, I thought was interesting. The unlimited breadsticks started by accident. In opening week 1982, year I was born. The first location in Orlando, the staff got overwhelmed by demand, and the staff started handing out free breadsticks to keep customers happy while the food was able to catch up. What started as a stopgap actually became the signature of the company, right? Everyone knows you get unlimited breadsticks when you go. Coach Brian Parana (16:57.959) In 2014, an activist investor pushed Darden to cut the free breadsticks back. And so Olive Garden serves more like 700 million of them a year, which is basically three per customer. But Olive Garden is keeping the policy anyway. Can you imagine making 700 million breadsticks? Holy moly. What is important is that Coach Brian Parana (17:28.295) The free breadsticks are tasty, delicious. Definitely a way to get you to come into the restaurant, but man, that's a lot of calories that you could add if they're say again average 150 each for simple math. All right, let's jump into the fast five to start wrapping this episode up. What does Parmesan mean? Well, breaded fried topped with melted cheese and sauce. It's the heaviest word of calories, fats, carbs. Coach Brian Parana (17:57.624) For the preparation of any food ingredient there. Even say eggplant. It multiplies. Eggplant is very low calorie, but Parmesan, eggplant Parmesan will multiply those calories quite a bit. Number two, you copy the people around you without noticing. So pay attention. If you order first, you have control over what it is that you're going to do. And then you're not influenced by anyone else or the menu because that is just Coach Brian Parana (18:27.469) Say peer pressure in a sense, it just happens. So order first and move to the other side of the table away from the bread so that you're not just hand in bread basket. You actually could just wait to be the last one served on there as well. Number three, a single breadstick is again 140. We don't want to just keep refilling the basket because it will cost you a lot at the end of the day. Coach Brian Parana (18:54.987) Number four, here's a sodium issue. A spaghetti with marinara can run about twelve hundred, thirteen hundred milligrams of sodium. The breaded fried Alfredo can mean well over two thousand twenty six hundred in some cases, which is substantial, especially when your overall amount of sodium should be twenty three hundred for the whole day. Number five, don't order off Coach Brian Parana (19:24.177) A just the old way that you order. Every menu gets refreshed, and we can look for lighter dishes that can help you, especially with in general some form of health consciousness going on in society. So as we wrap up here, the next time the bread basket lands in front of you, push it, pass it along, let everyone else take one. Coach Brian Parana (19:49.645) And see what's left. Maybe it'll go all the way around and you'll just wait for the second bread basket to come. That will be great. Grab the eating on the go guide and you can head to go.brianparana.com backslash eating on the go. This allows you to be able to get information that you need to be accessible when you go eat places from the last couple of we did Mexican yesterday. We're gonna be doing Coach Brian Parana (20:19.255) Probably sports pubs next. That's gonna be a really good one that will come up of what do we eat at burgers and beers and fries and in the bars and such with your buddies. And if you need help, the Call To Rise is a hundred-day fat loss challenge where I help men implement the things they already know what to do but aren't doing to get long-term success. Check out thecalltorise.com. Coach Brian Parana (20:46.803) And learn more about how I help guys lose 20 plus pounds in a hundred days by implementing sound nutrition, exercise, and a lifestyle that is sustainable for the rest of their life. And listen to multiple different episodes throughout Driven for Health podcast because there are a lot, a lot of examples of guys losing even I've had two guys, episode 53 and 140, Andy and Jamie, they both lost 38 pounds. Coach Brian Parana (21:16.083) eating real food, doing it in a real way, which is phenomenal and amazing. All right. If this resonated with you, share with someone, leave me a review. It's awesome. And that's it for this episode of Driven for Health. Train hard, eat smart, and I'll catch you in the next one.