What to Order at Mexican Restaurants for Fat Loss - 162

Coach Brian Parana (0:17.102) How much food can you eat at a Mexican restaurant before you even order dinner? Your hand is in the chip basket, the queso is sitting in front of you, and your margarita is already half gone. The waiter still hasn't even asked what your order is for dinner. Then the fajitas come out sizzling right in the pan with the handle on it and all that. Coach Brian Parana (0:44.948) You choose the grilled chicken because that's the most logical choice on the menu. Right? Chicken and vegetables. It's what Coach Brian always says. And the tortillas, rice, beans, cheese, sour cream all come with it on a side plate. It's like there's a big giant round plate with mounds of this stuff on it. And that's just part of the entree. Coach Brian Parana (1:23.790) Today I'm gonna walk you through this meal in the same order it reaches the table. You'll leave with a simple plan for an enjoyable Mexican food style meal that will help you stay on track, especially with your health goals, weight loss goals. Welcome back to Driven for Health. I'm Coach Brian. This is episode 162. Coach Brian Parana (1:51.458) Let's walk the meal all the way through as it happens, one stop at a time. Number one, the chips. One tortilla chip usually costs roughly 10 to 15 calories. Eat 20 of them, and we're talking about 200 to 300 calories before queso, guac, or anything else starts coming, especially dinner. Coach Brian Parana (2:15.617) And it's really easy to just eat those because you're hungry and they taste amazing and they're usually fresh cooked inside the restaurant in the back. [PERSONAL LOCATION AND ROUTINE — SEE THE NOTE ABOVE. He names his local restaurant, its town, its weekly taco promotion and price, the night he goes, his usual order, the time of evening, and his oldest son by name and eating habits. None of it may be published. 2:15 through 3:42.] Coach Brian Parana (3:42.074) But let's go back to the chips. I do eat a lot of chips when I'm there, but since I'm in marathon mode, I get to eat a lot of food, a lot of calories and carbs are on the list, which is nice. I don't really eat the queso because I know that'll really get me in trouble quick, but tons of salsa and probably more chips than I should. Now if I wasn't training so much, I would definitely slim down on that Coach Brian Parana (4:11.539) meal for sure. That's what I do. And let's get back to the chips, right? They're just sitting in front of you, and when they're close, it's really easy to overconsume them. Again, you're hungry, they taste good, and especially if you're closer to it, you will just keep grabbing it because that's what humans do. Whatever's in proximity, they will grab, eat, and devour. Alright. If you know you're gonna have chips Coach Brian Parana (4:41.215) in the night, then we need to make other choices that are going to benefit you, like less rice, beans, tortillas, to make room for the extra chips. And if you're skipping them, then you were able to just push the basket down away from you to the other side of the table, and you will manage. Number two, the dips. They've got Coach Brian Parana (5:5.781) queso, we've got guac, and a full appetizer order of queso or guac could run 400 to 500 calories. Both of them are gonna have — easily an avocado is 30 grams of fat. So right there, you're gonna have 30, 40, 50 grams of fat, and depending on how much salt gets Coach Brian Parana (5:32.024) cracked into it, because we've been talking about sodium in this whole restaurant series, could be upwards of 2,000 inside that whole order, which is a lot. So the guacamole can run a little bit less because it doesn't have the cheese. Cheese is very calorie dense. So think of guacamole at Coach Brian Parana (5:57.112) 300 for a large appetizer order, and the queso more like 450 or even 500 for easy math. So you just really have to be careful. When you dip a chip, we're adding 20 to 30 calories to the 10 calories that are there. Do some quick math. Every chip could cost 40 or 50 calories. You have five of them. That could be 200 to 250 calories all of a sudden. Holy cow. That ends up being a lot. And you again didn't eat Coach Brian Parana (6:27.069) anything else. Alright, number three, the plate itself. This is a very familiar combo across the board, very much American style is what I'm talking about. I personally like to try to get to more authentic Mexican restaurants that don't just have the refried beans, the fried rice, and that little island of lettuce with the sour cream on it and a couple of Coach Brian Parana (6:57.345) diced tomatoes. On the combo plate, we have enchilada, taco, rice, beans, cheese, sour cream, and this can land easily a thousand to fifteen hundred calories depending on which proteins you pick and how much fat is in them. Because let's face it, most restaurants are not, I repeat, are not serving you the highest, leanest quality meat Coach Brian Parana (7:27.041) that they can, because it's more expensive and it doesn't taste as good as the fattier stuff. Think about a sirloin or flank steak or strip steak compared to a ribeye, a tomahawk, a T-bone, a porterhouse, right? There's a big difference in having a ribeye that's cooked just right and it has all that marbled fat in there. It's really, really dynamite. Coach Brian Parana (7:54.786) So the exact portions of these are very much determined by who is serving you and what goes in the food. Is there a lot more butter or oil that could be added into that or not? And this is a challenge for you to assess what a true calorie or macro count would be if you were tracking. We're just gonna have to look for a major chain restaurant to anchor the calories and the macros that might be inside Coach Brian Parana (8:23.425) this type of a dish. So we just have to be careful. We do want to limit the higher calories, so the rice, the beans on that plate, and even the tortillas. A corn tortilla is about 50 calories, unless you have two. If it's street taco style, sometimes it's double wrapped. That'll be a hundred there. You have wheat Coach Brian Parana (8:50.921) as well. Wheat is roughly, for the smaller ones, generally upwards of a hundred calories. This is pretty basic when you think about tortillas at the grocery store. It's pretty common that they're gonna be about a hundred calories and pretty much just carbs, so 20-ish, 25 grams of carbs, somewhere in that amount. So there you go. We do want to try and get the Coach Brian Parana (9:18.625) lowest fat there if we can, and make sure that we are paying attention to portions of how much goes in your mouth. Number four is the drink. A regular house margarita can go from 200 if it's on the rocks to 500 if it's a frozen sugary concoction. And a lot of people don't realize how impactful a house margarita is. Coach Brian Parana (9:48.502) Secondly, how much alcohol is in it? For simplicity, just say a shot's 100 calories, because they're gonna serve you a little bit more, you know what I mean. Pour heavy sometimes, and you might order a second house margarita. The first one comes all heavy, right? The second one you don't notice because you're already there, right? You're already having a good time. But that is a huge shocker for a lot of people if they never paid attention to Coach Brian Parana (10:18.081) that. Number five, the extras. There's always more chips on the way. We've got all the extra stuff in the order that we talked about before. If you end up going for a round two on a cerveza, a margarita, or anything else that they might serve, then we're just adding and adding and adding. We could end up walking out of there with 2,000 calories in your belly Coach Brian Parana (10:46.861) pretty darn quick. Now, just a reference number. I generally see street tacos at about 250 calories. Why does that help you? It just anchors it in. That's a basic street taco, meat, maybe some vegetables on it, maybe a little bit of sauce. But as soon as we start adding that cheese, a quarter cup of cheese is 100 calories. So then it adds up a lot more. Alright, here's a good one for you. Coach Brian Parana (11:17.001) Let's try and guess how many calories are in this dish. Chicken fajitas. It sounds safe, of course, but it can vary quite widely from wherever you're at. Chuy's, which is a national chain, I went and checked a couple of those in the research for this episode. Chicken fajitas can be almost a thousand calories. Coach Brian Parana (11:46.534) El Torito lists their famous grilled chicken fajitas around 800 to 900 calories. That ends up being an older published guide that I found, but regardless, we can just treat it as roughly about 900 calories. And that's helpful for you to know. And again, this includes the tortillas, the rice, the beans, the whole thing. Like you clean the plate. Abuelo's has their Coach Brian Parana (12:16.065) fabulous fajitas at 430. Alright, this one's winning here. Their own menu states that these figures exclude all sides and condiments. Dun dun dun. There you go. That's why they're so low, because it doesn't add it. So even if you think okay, the fajita mix is 430, then we go even just basic 100 calories of rice, that's 530. Coach Brian Parana (12:44.529) Of beans, 630. Of sour cream, 730. Tortilla, 830, 930. There you go. So we're right back up to around a thousand calories. So it is important to pay attention to nutrition labels. And I always share this, and I hope you get the undertone in this series, that when you're looking at a restaurant that might not have Coach Brian Parana (13:13.873) nutrition posted, where it's more of a local place, then you can just borrow from a larger chain that probably has something similar. Even say Chili's. You can find Chili's chicken fajitas to give you at least a number to account for what it is. Ultimately, at the end of the day, you are putting it in your mouth and Coach Brian Parana (13:41.014) that's the number one thing to do, is to make sure that you portion control. Please, please portion control. When it's all said and done. And they have lots of water there. I've drunk tons of it. I would encourage you, drink one glass of water before you put anything in your mouth, and have another one before your entree gets to you. If that's your strategy, you're gonna be pretty darn full Coach Brian Parana (14:9.217) when it comes to actually eating the food, and that will be highly, highly beneficial when you don't overeat. Alright, here's a hack that I absolutely love: the chip and dip rule. Decide before that basket's pushed right in front of you. Either you're going to have the chips or you're not, and you have to plan the rest of your meal journey there Coach Brian Parana (14:34.217) one way or another. So if you are gonna have the chips and dips, then we will eat less rice, beans and tortillas to make room. If you're gonna have the guac, then we definitely are gonna want to go with more like the chicken or the shrimp instead of the steak or the beef, because those are naturally higher fat protein sources. If you're having a beer, a cerveza, or a margarita on the rocks or frozen, you have to then again Coach Brian Parana (15:3.597) pull back something there. So the rice, the tortillas, the tortilla chips could all be things that you would do. If you were going to eat any of those starchy carbs, the beans would be the best one. And why? I hope that you already have it in your head as you're listening in, which is it's going to be the protein and the fiber. Those are the things that are most filling. So Coach Brian Parana (15:31.786) we go in there, we can always order double vegetables, salsa, pico on the side. We want to probably pass on the sour cream and go light on the rice, or just omit it, and then you'll be okay. So here's some orders that you can throw out. A tight one would be one enchilada, grilled chicken, and another grilled protein source that could be Coach Brian Parana (16:0.690) another piece of chicken. You can literally just order two chicken breasts if you want. And of course it might vary in terms of price, but you're gonna get tons of protein and keep the carbs and fats lower. We'll have beans instead of rice. We'll have light cheese. Probably have the salsa instead of the sour cream. And that will help you keep the calories under a thousand at that meal. On a social night, order the Coach Brian Parana (16:29.901) combo plate exactly as served, and just split it with someone. If you literally just cut it in half and had it with the friend or the loved one that you were with, that would be the ultimate goal there to help you navigate and manage that quite a bit. Why? You just cut the calories in half. It's always a good order, especially if you're going out on a date. Coach Brian Parana (16:57.053) The goal isn't to eat a day's worth of calories while you're out entertaining someone. Alright, so a hidden order that you can find occasionally is ceviche or some grilled fish with heavy pico on the side. We've got raw or grilled seafood with some form of citrus on it. It ends up being high in protein, low in carbs, of course. Coach Brian Parana (17:22.175) And we want to know how it's prepared, trying to go away from things that are crispy or fried, of course. And again, the street tacos can be an easy win if you get two or three of them. That could keep things in check as well. So hopefully those are some simple, rememberable meals for you to have while you're at a Mexican restaurant. Coach Brian Parana (17:47.862) Here's the Fast Five, returning again. I kind of got away from it and wanted to bring it back. Number one, what does carnitas mean, and why is it higher in fat than grilled chicken or fish? Carnitas usually contain more fat than grilled chicken or fish because of how the pork is actually prepared. Coach Brian Parana (18:16.617) It's slow cooked in its own fat. It can run upwards of 200 plus calories and have 12 grams of fat in it per serving. Whereas grilled chicken, as its counterpart, could have 50 calories less and have only half the amount of fat, at five or so. There's obviously a big win. Number two, Coach Brian Parana (18:42.741) here's the tortilla math. We have one corn tortilla at 50 calories. Most servings, restaurants will serve three corn tortillas or hard shell tacos, and that would be 150 calories in just the shells themselves. Number three, what do the different words on the menu mean? Pollo asado is grilled chicken. Coach Brian Parana (19:9.677) Carne asada is grilled steak. Carnitas is pork cooked in its own fat. Al pastor, which is one of my favorites, is pork roasted and marinated on a spit. Barbacoa is slow cooked meat, and it's usually beef on most American menus. Sometimes it can be lamb or goat. Coach Brian Parana (19:32.824) When you understand that asado is grilled, and then we go down the line of just Spanish words -- pollo chicken, carne steak, carnitas pork -- then we can figure out pretty easily what you're getting. Number four, watch the word salad. Throwing Chili's out here. Chili's Santa Fe salad runs about 540 calories. Their Quesadilla Explosion salad runs Coach Brian Parana (20:1.833) almost twelve hundred. Same word in there, but radically different amounts. You could basically eat two Santa Fe salads for the price of one Quesadilla Explosion. Be careful. Number five, On The Border, another popular Mexican-style restaurant. The stacked nachos can be 2,000 calories. I know, it's so sad. Nachos will have a lot of calories because of the chips and the Coach Brian Parana (20:30.551) cheese and the deliciousness that comes on that plate. And that could just be an appetizer sometimes. Holy moly. Alright, there's the Fast Five. That's how to order really well at a Mexican restaurant. And the next time the chips hit the table, before you decide anything else, you need to make sure you stop. The underlying running joke in the family: stop, drop and roll, right? Get away from the chips Coach Brian Parana (20:58.743) so they don't sabotage you before you start doing anything else. Now I do have the Eating On The Go Guide. You can head to go.brianparana.com/eatingonthego. Download it, it's free. It's got 25 plus pages of really actionable information, and it's very practical for at home, restaurants, travel, airports, you name it. I have thought about it. Coach Brian Parana (21:26.953) Indian, Asian, we've done a whole gamut of fast food, fine dining as well. So these episodes start at 145 and we're at 162 now. So we've gone in deep on a lot of different options. We're starting to get to the end. I know it's sad but true, but we're starting to cover all of our genres of food and what's in the guide, and then we're gonna move on to something else. But if you need Coach Brian Parana (21:57.078) more help than the guide has, or you've been struggling with your weight for so long and you know what to do but you're not doing it, that's what the Call To Rise is for. It's for guys to show up as their best self. The Call. What I say is the legacy ladder, and this is what this is really about. Identity, when we think about it, broken down into the three L's: we have lifestyle, Coach Brian Parana (22:24.993) your daily habits, that can bring consistency around two of the other pillars. The Fuel, which is nutrition, eating the right foods at the right time. Then the Forge, which is the exercise component, burn fat, build muscle, and how you live every day. That's the lifestyle. Now the leadership is how you lead people in your family, in your business, in your career, and ultimately yourself. And that's what the fourth pillar is: the Code. Coach Brian Parana (22:54.635) And the Code is the way you think, your mindset around this whole journey together, to reshape it and make it better. And then finally you have legacy, which is ultimately what we're trying to do. Where you're at now is super important, right? Your present, it's the only place that you live, is right now. And we need you to be powered up for everything that life has for you. We've got the Coach Brian Parana (23:19.691) future, what you're becoming, and becoming the best version of yourself always, and then what you're gonna leave behind. We want to have that in your idea. So that's the legacy ladder that I have and shared in for the Call To Rise. So check that out. Lastly, leave a comment, leave a review on Apple and Spotify, that's so helpful. I read those things and it keeps the show going. Coach Brian Parana (23:48.002) And next up, we're gonna hit Italian restaurants. Olive Garden, the mom and pop places down the road. You'll get the same breadsticks, the bottomless pasta bowl, and we'll get the same questions answered by the end, and you'll know what to order before the waiter shows up. That's it for this episode of Driven for Health. Train hard, eat smart, and I'll catch you in the next one.