What To Order At Subway To Lose Fat (Men Over 40) - 148

Coach Brian Parana (0:2.520) Subway built its whole reputation on being a healthy fast food option. That reputation is older than most of the menu it's selling today. Watch a guy build his own sandwich, and it feels like you're in control. You have the sandwich artist right there helping you out, making sure that you're picking the right choices and piling them high. We've got real vegetables going on right in front of you. You get to choose your bread. How cool. And what Coach Brian Parana (0:31.822) protein it is that you want. And then at the end, he's off and eating. It was quick, easy, and fast. But the bread size, the sauce, and the sandwich alone of what he orders can possibly do more damage than the protein that you're getting on that meal. Think about it. The foot-long Italian BMT carries 2300 milligrams. Coach Brian Parana (1:1.558) Guys, 2000 is what the recommended daily amount is. That's more than your daily recommended amount, and that's just for one meal in the day. That can be challenging. We add the chips and maybe a drink in there, and we're just stacking sodium. News flash, sodium isn't everything. By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly what to build when you get into that Subway line, or even better, using the app. Or is a protein bowl better, or even the flatbread? [unclear] Coach Brian Parana (1:31.256) Figure that out in this episode. Welcome back to Driven for Health. I'm Coach Brian. This is Podcast One Forty Eight. We're cooking here with these what to order at what restaurant series. I hope that you're enjoying it and that that cooking is what my oldest son Levi would say. If you've got teenagers, you know what I mean right now. Everything's cooking. Or you're you're you're a bro. That's just the way it is. Coach Brian Parana (2:0.599) Subway is the build it yourself stop, is one of the originators of fast casual. You pick your bread, get whatever protein or sandwiches that you want, and you pick the toppings, and you're along the whole process. At the end, they'll toast it for you, they'll cut it in half, and then off you go pretty quick. Building your own sandwiches is potentially a challenge for you because if you don't know what Coach Brian Parana (2:27.851) the calories are in the things that you are putting on your sandwich. You could be multiplying the calories there. For example, is a a loaf of bread the foot long better than the flatbread? For example, not really. The foot long bread will still have 310 calories in it, and that's what the Italian loaf has. Then when you have the sauce, it can add calories, carbs, fats, sugar. The are you doing six inch or Coach Brian Parana (2:57.495) foot long that size. Are you gonna do double protein? Are you doing any type of cheese? All these things will start adding 50 to 100 calories each, and it all adds up. Let's go through our tiers that we are listing to across the whole menu and help you understand what a better, healthier option is versus some of the other choices there. Let's rank nine real orders, one to ten, ten. Coach Brian Parana (3:26.701) is means that you should be ordering it when you go in. One means just walk away and leave the place because it's gonna really sidetrack your overall goals for the the day and really make you work actually harder at your health goals and fat loss goals than you think you should. Alright I looked at a bunch of different menu items pulled it straight from Subway's own nutrition numbers and to get these rankings. Coach Brian Parana (3:55.794) So let's get to it. First on the list, two out of ten. We start back with what I started off with: the foot-long Italian BMT. The sandwich carries about 720 calories. Not horrible for a foot long, but it has 32 grams of fat because the BMT has just a lot of bacon and it has other foods that just carry lots of fat. Cheese, we've got Coach Brian Parana (4:24.461) 2300 milligrams, as we said, that's just straight sodium, and that's only inside that one sandwich. This will hit it pretty hard. Now, if we order this once a week, that can be over 10,000 milligrams of sodium for just this one thing here. So we order it once a once a day all week long. Coach Brian Parana (4:52.577) That's 10,000 milligrams coming just from sodium. That is a lot from lunch, and that's a big problem. BMT stands for a lot of processed meat, stacked on top of more processed meat, and that's why the sodium is there. Now let's flip it. And a nine out of 10 is going to be the rotisserie style chicken six inch. Coach Brian Parana (5:16.285) Now, cool thing with Subway, they do have the six-inch sandwiches that are under 500 calories. Usually it can be 300 or even definitely under 400. 36 grams of protein in this rotisserie-style chicken that's a slam dunk with only six grams of fat. That is a huge protein boost without the fat to back it up. If we grab this into a busy afternoon, you'll get a a good reasonable amount of your Coach Brian Parana (5:42.808) protein needs met. Remember, generally you're trying to do 40 or 50 grams per meal, and that really helps. This is the Subway sandwich should be putting on every billboard it owns. And instead, it's buried under the tuna fish salad, which is a high fat source, and it's yeah, there's a lot of fat. Not lot of protein, a lot of fat. Alright, back to the not so good. Coach Brian Parana (6:10.379) We're gonna the meatball marinara six inch. That was one of my favorites when I was growing up. it tastes so good. Cheese, meat, and a Italian bun? Tastes so good, but there's a reason because it's simple carbs with the white processed bread, the cheese, and the fatty meatball. It has 27 grams of fat and about 500 calories in the six inch and 1300 milligrams, which is just a little bit under the 2000. It only has about Coach Brian Parana (6:39.041) 23 or 24 grams of protein. That's a rough trade-off of calories for protein in compared to say the chicken sub. And obviously we're gonna lean more that way to make sure that you stay in alignment with your health goals. Next in line, we've got the it's a pasta dish that's wearing a sandwich clothing. The the bread is only there to hold the sauce in. Coach Brian Parana (7:8.683) And that's kind of what that that meatball sub is. So what we have next is the the the foot-long rotisserie style chicken or the turkey sandwich. Those are gonna be the top wins to be able to do it. One of my favorite things to do is take one foot-long Subway sandwich and dump all the content onto one six-inch sub. That's a super hack. We're just gonna throw it here right in the middle of this episode. Coach Brian Parana (7:38.520) Think that is a power win. You can load it tons of vegetables, get double the protein on about 150 calories of bread, and you're going to be talking about 40, about 50 grams of protein in there, and only maybe 10 to 15 grams of fat, which is a slam dunk. So that's going to be the power hack of this whole thing. So I hope you're listening in. We go a four out of ten, the tuna six inch. Remember. Coach Brian Parana (8:7.317) It might sound like it's healthy, but it's got 450 calories with 25 grams of fat. That's about 30 to 50% of your overall fat intake just coming from this sub, and it's mainly because of the mayo that the sandwich and the protein is mixed into to bind it together. The fish, tuna, doesn't have any fat in it, which is nice, but when we add it to make it more enjoyable with the mayo, that's where we get a challenge there. Coach Brian Parana (8:38.057) Another miss of three out of ten, or probably one out of ten, the chocolate chip cookie. It'd be nice if they baked them fresh from actually homemade ingredients in a sense of or made in store ingredients, but they come in a tub that was produced whoever knows where, and then they just bake them in their oven, and that's where those come from. They're not in the back actually making delicious homemade chocolate chips. That might be an eight out of ten, but this way, it's just gonna be. Coach Brian Parana (9:7.435) The calories on these guys can be 220 calories, 10 grams of fat, 30 carbs, and easily half or more coming from just straight sugar and no protein. These are not gonna be it. And if you grab three lunches a week with these, that's 660 calories that you're eating just because they said, Hey, here's a cookie with that, and you said, Okay, and you ended up eating it. This is not Coach Brian Parana (9:36.034) good. It's nearly the calorie cost of the healthiest sandwich on this whole list. If you grab the cookie, one more miss, of course, the fountain soda. That's an obvious with sugar. I'm a big non-sugar sweetener guy. In episode 99, I go over artificial sweeteners, if they're good for men or not. So listen in there. Coach Brian Parana (10:0.769) to see the take, but in this instance, zero calorie beverages are always going to be better than higher calorie sugary beverages or sure. A large Coca-Cola there can be 300 calories with 80 plus grams of sugar. That's insane. That's more than your full day's worth just in that one drink, and you're going down the diabetes alleyway and just knocking on the diabetic door saying, hey. Coach Brian Parana (10:30.187) my blood sugar levels outrageous by a liquid white sugar that I just drank. Coach Brian Parana (10:38.313) It's definitely not gonna help you reach your goals and definitely not gonna help your long-term energy needs in the day. This can be a big problem. So obviously, we need to swap it for water as much as we can or a zero calorie beverage. The sandwich here is the biggest thing that we need to pay attention to, is the grilled chicken six-inch sandwich. Coach Brian Parana (11:3.947) Coming in at just under 300 calories at 290 calories, 27 grams of protein, four grams of fat. If you double this up to the foot long, the two chicken breasts, and just put it on to one six-inch, this is a slam dunk for you to get over 50 grams of protein at the Subway [unclear] here. This is the one of the Subway series lineups of their lower calorie foods, and this can be Coach Brian Parana (11:33.514) a slam dunk again. We're gonna load it with for me. If I'm gonna load it, it's gonna be tons of all sorts of different vegetables from lettuce, maybe a little bit lettuce, because that just hogs the space. But we want actual whole vegetables, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions. I love the banana peppers, jalapenos, things like that are gonna do the real work to help keep you full as you go throughout the day. Coach Brian Parana (12:1.227) Veggie Delight, if you do it right. This can be just over 200 to 250, depending on what's on it. And it can stack a little bit of protein because the bread has some protein and vegetables, they don't really have a lot of protein. You gotta eat a lot to get that. So the veggie delight, if done right, piled high with tons and tons of vegetables. I mean you really have to annoy the sandwich artist to be able to get more in, and then that makes it work for you in that situation. Coach Brian Parana (12:31.117) And honestly, we can always turn these things into a bowl without the bread. And you save about 300 calories for a foot-long sub sandwich. That's just how much the bread costs. So recap: the foot-long BMT, large soda, the meatball with a cookie, the tuna with a bag of chips. You are talking about tons of calories and a lot of fat. This isn't gonna be a good idea for you. Coach Brian Parana (13:0.813) So we got the veggie delight, then the anything with the chicken, grilled chicken, rotisserie chicken, the turkey, things like that. Even the black forest ham is gonna be a slam dunk in comparison and give you lots of protein as you go. So what do we say when we go into this? We want a six-inch rotisserie or grilled chicken or turkey or with double all the vegetables, maybe some oil, but vinegar can definitely work. Coach Brian Parana (13:29.663) You can do you can do some say chicken teriyaki sauce just to make it more fun. If you're cutting out a lot of the calories, that makes a lot of sense. And you can get in and out of there for under 500 calories at lunch, which would be another protein plus in a sense of making it work for you. Now we again piggyback once again on the protein bowl, skip the bread. That could be the super duper slam dunk, and you'll have tons of protein. Coach Brian Parana (13:59.606) Lots and lots of vegetables. Just again, don't let the sandwich artist just dictate how much vegetables you have. Keep asking for more. But hey, could you do do me a good one here? Just can you grab like two handfuls of cucumbers and two handfuls of tomatoes? That would be a power play for you to to do it and and really staying full for longer. Because if you're just on a bed of spinach, guys, there's maybe thirty calories of spinach. No, probably like Coach Brian Parana (14:28.001) 20 calories of spinach in that bowl, and it literally is not gonna fill you up. Now, I want to throw in a little bit of angle on Subway itself. In 2021, Subway launched what it called Eat Fresh Refresh, the biggest menu overhaul in the brand's history. New bread recipes, upgraded proteins, the rotisserie-style chicken that we ranked there, Subway's own release. Coach Brian Parana (14:53.815) said it it framed it as proof that the brand was taking ingredient quality seriously. And the timing really wasn't an accident. It landed after a long controversy over what was in the tuna. So this is there's been complications with Subway in 2023. Subway sold to Roark Capital, a private equity firm. The price tag was over $9 billion. This is a Coach Brian Parana (15:23.007) a premium brand. And under that new ownership, Subway's profits jumped by $15 million in 2023 to roughly 684 million in 2024. In that same stretch, the total system of of revenue declined, and it ultimately Subway closed over 600 stores in 2024, and then another over 700 in 2025. And this reported Coach Brian Parana (15:51.566) tracing back to the profit jump mostly to squeeze out more money from the suppliers, the franchisers, to but it wasn't that selling more sandwiches. So fewer stores, less total business coming in the door. The highest profit number in the company's history landed in those two years. Well the math only works one way and Roark is pulling more money out of every location that's still open and not earning more customers walking through the door. Coach Brian Parana (16:20.779) This is a big problem for a long-term business, right? Of actually trying to stimulate an actual success. So put both of those next to each other, the the points should show itself of what's happening. Subway's public story is we fix the food and the financial story running underneath it is that private equity were posting record profits while fewer people were walking through the doors. So it's just something to pay attention. And then Coach Brian Parana (16:49.869) it's now let's not talk about Jared. All right, unfortunately. And Subway being on literally every stop. You wouldn't want to be a a Subway franchise owner in the heyday of Subway as they are building up 'cause literally there's if you've ever heard of the franchise stories it's challenging, for sure, 'cause you're like, Hey, wait a minute, there's a Subway literally in the same plaza it feels like. That's across the street from me. Coach Brian Parana (17:18.283) Why are you allowing it here? But I digress. So the biggest thing is we want to focus on if you make this a place that you eat, you can totally do it. A bigger fix is just pack your own sandwich. You can do low-calorie bread, 70 calories, so that's 140 calories. You can get six ounces of protein, put some sauce on it, sprinkle some herbs, maybe a slice of cheese for sure. Then from there we've got having the Coach Brian Parana (17:47.864) tons of vegetables like two peppers or pepper and a tomato and then a piece of fruit, you got a slam dunk everyday lunch that you could do. Now moving into fast five as we wrap up here. Five fast questions. What happened with this tuna fish lawsuit? Well, in 2021, the case allegedly lab testing found in little to no actual tuna DNA in the Subway tuna. Coach Brian Parana (18:14.719) It got dismissed in twenty twenty three at the plaintiff's own request. that doesn't mean is a clean bill of admission or not, but Subway always said that the tuna was real the whole time. So I hope in that time frame that you actually got tuna and not whatever it was. And food manufacturers are tricky for sneaking things in there that you're like, this is is this real food? Number two, what's the one brand swap that saves you the most calories without actually Coach Brian Parana (18:44.779) giving anything up. Well, taking a foot long is certainly a lot, but if we can get swap out for the protein bowl, then you're going to kill like three hundred calories. And the wraps are about three hundred calories too. and that's exactly what I was going to say here. Is the lavash bread worth trying? And Coach Brian Parana (19:9.213) it depends on where it was at. Now they talked about it being re reformulated to drop it down in calories from like three hundred calories to below two hundred. So you'd have to make sure that you just sort of paying attention when you're picking that. But I remember back in the day it was a tr it almost felt like you're getting tricked. I'm gonna have the bread because it's flat and it's not as many calories. That's just unleavened bread. Didn't rise to make a loaf and a sense. Coach Brian Parana (19:38.488) Question four, what's the one condiment question worth asking every time you go in? What's going into the sauce? Oil and mayo based sauces can add over 200 calories of fat to make that food taste better because fat tastes better, and that's why they make fat-based condiments. Number five, what's the fastest way to build a salad order without thinking? Coach Brian Parana (20:5.535) much about it all. We're gonna double the we're gonna do the foot long. Everything goes on to six inches of the sub. Do with a chicken, turkey, ham type. Get that sandwich artist to jam as many vegetables on there. We'll probably skip the cheese because that'll be a hundred calories there. And that will help quite a bit. So if you're standing in front of a sandwich artist this week or next week or whenever you hear this episode Coach Brian Parana (20:32.313) I hope that you take these things into account and run with it. Literally run in and out and on your way to still maintaining a high protein, lower calorie meal, say 500 calories or less with 50 grams of protein would be worthwhile when at Subway. So going through this, I hope that you enjoy this. We had the eating on the go guide. It's at go.brianparana.com [unclear — spoken URL path for the eating on the go guide; confirm the exact slug before publishing]. Coach Brian Parana (21:0.117) Certainly I'll have that in the show notes for you to grab. It breaks down, it's like 25 pages long. It breaks down all sorts of different types of restaurants from fine dining, fast casual, fast food, on the go restaurants. you've got gas stations, travel, all these things there. If you need help implementing, that's thecalltorise.com. That's I've talked extensively about that on this this Driven for Health podcast. Coach Brian Parana (21:27.529) And this is where men do work to get real life transformations. We're not doing shots or peptides or weird fad diets. We're building lifestyles around education and implementation with group support, mostly from me and other guys are in there as well, leading each other to be better. And that's the biggest takeaway that men get from it. They they not only lose weight, but they feel so much more confident, energetic, and story after story. Coach Brian Parana (21:56.917) on the website and throughout this podcast. So check that out. If you know someone who loves Subway, send them this this podcast. Let them hear it too so that they can get better choices to be healthier and be around for you and have more energy when they are around. That's it for this episode of Driven for Health. Thanks so much. Catch you in the next one. I'm gonna tease ya. I'm not gonna tell you what it is. Off we go.