2767: How to Stay on Track without Cooking or Meal Prepping (DoorDash Diet)

0:00If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, Mind Pump with your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast in history. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode, how to stay on track without cooking or meal prepping. We talk about the DoorDash diet, how you can follow it and still get fit and healthy, build muscle, and burn body fat. Now, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor, Ketone IQ. So you know the studies. Maybe you don't, but let me fill you in. When you're in ketosis, you tend to have better cognitive performance.

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1:21Also this month, we have four maps programs on sale, 50 % off. MAPS Starter, MAPS Transform, MAPS Anabolic, and MAPS Performance, all half off. Go to MAPSFitnessProducts.com and use the code NEWYEAR50 for that discount. All right, real quick, if you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at MindPumpStore.com? I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to MindPumpStore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show. All right, look, it's really hard to stay on track with your diet to get lean, build muscle when you don't cook or meal prep.

2:00But is it impossible? No, it's possible. We're going to talk about it today, how you can stay on track by using food delivery services like DoorDash. Hey. It can happen. We're going to give you some guidelines. Let's go. This is a cool conversation, especially since when we all first got together and started this, I was in the thick of, like, prepping. and I was big like meal prep and weigh everything type of deal. And you were at the same time, we were both getting in really, you were getting in shape for like a photo shoot and stuff. And you weren't a big meal prep, weigh everything, track everything like that, and obviously got in really good shape.

2:39So a lot of people think that you have to do all those things to get in shape, but it's not true. And when I think about my lifestyle today, we probably use DoorDash. I'm ashamed to admit, maybe every day at least once. And if it's not at work, then it's at home one time. And so it's very possible to get in really good shape if you know what you're doing. Yes, you need to know what you're doing. You need to have some parameters and kind of understand. Now, that being said, I do want to be clear. Meal prepping and cooking is the best. That's the best thing you could possibly do. You know what's in your food.

3:17You prepare ahead of time. However, you know, life is not so black and white. And convenience is a real value, you know. And convenience, sometimes you need it. And so you're not going to be perfect with cooking all the time and meal prepping all the time. There aren't going to be a lot of times when you eat out or you need that convenience. And so I think it's important to arm people and prepare them, right, for those times so that you don't suddenly go way off the rails. And I think that's the issue, right? So it's like people who meal prep, if they don't meal prep and cook, they go way off the rails.

3:53They don't really have a good idea of how to make it work without doing that. Or just the average person, I think the average person, especially after COVID, during COVID, services like DoorDash exploded. And although the use of them went down after COVID, it didn't go down to pre-COVID levels. Did it go down? I didn't realize it went down. I thought it's been on a rocket ship ever since. Well, remember, during COVID, that's the only way you could get food was DoorDash. I know that's true because that was actually when it was introduced to me. But I actually was under the impression that it never slowed down.

4:27It went up and then it came down a little bit, but it didn't go down to where it was before. And it's definitely higher. People love them. Yeah, well, the convenience of it. And I think, like, you know, disregarding the fact that you're going to want to, like, go for convenience is unrealistic. Like, so can we navigate through that by making healthier choices within that? There's ways to do that. Well, what you, what you said is, is, is really how this is a pre DoorDash. This is how I used to coach clients is like, you know, the goal was on the weekend to, you know, prep some meals. So you have some of that stuff available, knowing that in reality you would have to probably go out some of the times.

5:07And so part of like, when I was assessing a client, like on our first or first or second an appointment, I would always ask like their, their work schedule and what restaurants were nearby them and everything like that. And so part of my coaching was like, is going, of course, I want you to have your meals ready for you and what we have, you know, tracked and measured and all the things. But I also know there's, there's going to be times when you're going to go down to that restaurant with your coworkers or do that thing. And so I would ask them to tell me what they all were. And then I would help them like, okay, these are the way when you go there, you can still go there and make healthy choices and stay on our plan and stay towards our goal without completely veering off the road.

5:46Yeah. Prepping isn't just prepping your food. It's also preparing yourself for those times when you don't have food prepared. So you know what choices to make. These were conversations I had a lot of with clients that traveled a lot for work. Yeah. That traveled a lot. Yeah. Because that was just impossible. You're in a hotel. You're not prepping your meals. So unrealistic. Totally. And I had quite a few clients, not a ton, but I had quite a few clients uh you know we're in silicon valley so um you know we get we used to get those clients that this is i mean i used to clients that traveled one third of the time they were traveling so like you know you know one week out of every three or four they were gone and it's like how do i make this work you know they were telling me how do i eat healthy so i'm eating out all the time when i'm traveling what does this look like and so i would put together parameters and help them and they got great results they got really i just had to prepare them and get them set up.

6:36No, this was a fun episode to put together because we were talking about all the things because every one of us has trained clients like this and every one of us had clients that also ate out. And so you had these kind of general rules that we all use. And so sitting down and making a list of like, if you kind of stay within these parameters that we go over, you'll be really successful even if you're somebody who door dashes or eats out on a regular basis. Totally. So the first thing is to prioritize protein. I always say this a lot on the podcast, But this is really important when you eat out.

7:06Like there's a lot of options, especially with DoorDash now that you can basically have almost anything delivered to you. So when you're looking at your meals or options, look at the ones that are really protein-centric. Now, what do I mean by that? For women, you're looking for 30 grams of protein. For men, closer to 50. That's what you're aiming for. And so oftentimes what this looks like is a protein-centric meal with added double meat or extra protein. Just going to say, one of the things that I'd have to teach my clients is that some of these favorite restaurants that are on the list that we had put together was like Chipotle, for example.

7:43And the standard protein size that most restaurants, unless you're at like a steak place, right, that's serving a full eight-ounce or six-ounce steak, for the most part, most serve four ounces. Yep. Four ounces is kind of the standard protein serving. Which is how many grams of protein? Yeah. 20? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, double meat needs to be, and I, I, both men and women, I would say that because, you know, even the women, 20, 40 grams of protein is not like an overly crazy aggressive. So it's like, get in the habit of when you order out at these places from DoorDash, that one of the first things you do is you, you double the meat.

8:18Now I understand that that makes it a little bit more expensive, but if we're going to make that choice and you're going to eat out and stay, stay on the path of hitting your protein, hitting your macro goals, it becomes essential that you double the meat in these things. Yes. Now why, why the extra protein? Like, why is that so important? Uh, well, number one, it's satiety producing. Uh, so of all the, of the three macronutrients, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, proteins produce more satiety. They produce more fullness. So you're less likely to overeat when you eat a high protein meal versus one that's a much lower protein, especially if you eat the protein first.

8:52Um, and this is especially true in the first few years of really targeting this. So this effect, this satiety effect, is really powerful in the first few years of you trying to clean up your diet. It has a pretty profound effect. It also tends to stabilize blood sugar, which blood sugar spikes and drops can cause changes in behaviors, right? They can make you crave certain things or just not feel so good, which means we tend to reach out for things that are more like comfort food. So aim for protein. When you're looking at the choices and you're looking at the different meals, like, okay, this one has a lot of protein.

9:27That's going to be one of the choices. It'll also naturally kind of manage the additional starchy carbs that tend to come in these DoorDash meals. For example, one of my favorite places to DoorDash from is like this Mediterranean kebab or Greek place, right? That does chicken kebabs. And it comes with fries. That's just part of the dish. Now, when I order double the meat, so four of these kebabs, I eat all that and I never finish the French fries because I eat it last. And so just that strategy alone, doubling the meat, eating it first, even if the meal comes with these kind of starchy carbohydrates, it's a lot easier to resist that versus if I would only order the four ounces of meat that it normally comes with the standard amount, that's not enough to satiate me.

10:13Then I I end up eating the French fries. So then I over consume on calories and eat more carbohydrates than I do protein. Right. Next up, overestimate the calories that you're consuming, mainly because they use oils in cooking and they'll give you estimates. So you can look up the calorie count of a burrito or a kebab dish or something else. And whatever that says, add 15 to 20%. It's going to make things safe for you. And I'm going to be honest with you. in the times I have measured food that I've ordered, they tend to give me less protein than they say and more of everything else. And then the oils that they add, it's like, this is not necessarily adding up.

10:51So for like, if you're looking at the calculations and it's a tablespoon of oil, you can pretty much guarantee there's at least 50 % more or double the amount of oil in the cooking process. Yeah, no, this has actually been 20 to 25 % for me. I just think that you get somebody who's heavy handed when they put the rice or the beans in like, for example, like a Chipotle bowl, And by the way, every restaurant is law. They have to post their macros, the nutrition facts. Some of them make it really easy to find on their menus or places like that. But a quick Google search, and you can find out exactly what those calories are.

11:28And then whatever the calories are, I typically add at least 20 % to those calories, especially when the goal is maintenance or losing body fat. If we're on the gain, I normally am the other way. If you're someone who's using DoorDash and you're trying to gain, I'll take the calories for what they say because we're trying to increase calories. But most people that are trying to stick to a diet and do this, they're trying to. And local restaurants oftentimes won't have calorie counts. Small, non-chain type restaurants overestimate. So when you get your dish and you look at it in front of you and you're like, well, it looks like a cup or this, add a little extra when you do your calculations.

12:04That'll typically keep you within the margin of error. so that you're not over consuming. Now there's definitely things you should probably avoid because they're so high in calories. Fried foods is a big one. Anything that's fried, you can add a ton of calories to it. Like if you have 50 grams of chicken in front of you, but it's fried chicken, you can add a thousand calories to it. The batter and the oil. Totally. I'll never forget, I'm on my either first or second year as a personal trainer. It's early in my career. and fast food restaurants are still a part of my diet. And I remember this is when we first get introduced to like a Calorie King book.

12:46Yeah. Okay, so Calorie King. Before the tracker. Yeah, this is before any of that stuff comes out. Every trainer had that book. And I'm just now really starting to track my food. And something I had done previously consistently for at least a year or so at that was when I was hungry and I was on the go, I chose KFC because of high - Chicken. I was going to assume that has to be, I figured it has to be better than a McDonald's Big Mac for sure. And I'll never forget pulling up the macros on that. Big Mac had more protein, less calories. Yes. And I was like so blown away by how low the grams of protein is, how high the calories and saturated fat was.

13:25And it's like maybe everybody who's listening right now is like, duh, or whatever. It was like, hey, 20 something, 25 years ago, when not everybody was privy to the macros, I just assumed that the chicken would be that way. So I imagine if I thought that, there's probably a lot of people that at one point thought that too. And so, yeah, stay away from fried stuff. I'm not a big fan of sandwich places like togos and these big bread, small amount of meat. Yeah, you get a ton of carbs. Those are carb-centric meals. Those are carb-centric. Burrito wraps, things like that. So you're far better off avoiding these carb-centric type of meals.

13:59Yeah, when you're looking at the meal, go for one carb, not two. So you might get a dish. You mentioned the Mediterranean place. I'll order from there too. They'll throw fries in and pita bread. You got two carbs in there. So avoid one of them. Okay, one of those I'm not going to eat. So when you're looking at the dish, if it's a carb-centric meal, probably avoid it. Carbs, you can do without them. They're not essential. Proteins are essential. Fats are essential. Fats are easy to get. Proteins, not so easy to get. Protein has the effects of things like building muscle. there's a fat burning effect that comes from it it's very satiety producing so when you're looking at the meal like fried out carb centric out the other thing is sugar if you're door dashing sugary treats I mean it's funny I have to say this but some people are you know probably not a good idea and there's a lot of things you can door dash that are sugar filled dishes I'm going to say it's a terrible idea there's no probably not good yeah there's avoid the the bakeries the sweets the treats the things like that um but going back to the value going back to what your your point because i the the pushback i always get when i talk about this is like oh my god the double the meat thing is so expensive and it's like the reason why so many of these meals are carb centric is because it's cheap it's cheap to give you lots of rice pasta breads and things like that and so it's it's uh it's these fast food places it's an easy way to give you calories in bulk without giving you the thing that's really valuable to you.

15:30The thing that's really valuable to you is the meat, is the protein. And so, yeah, you pay for what you get. You're going to pay a little bit more to get double that meat and let go some of those carbohydrates. And so just know that. I mean, and again, I'm always pushing my client to make your meal. You want to save money. You want the best bang for your buck, then prep your meals and do that. But the reality is you're not going to be able to do that all the time. So when you do go that route, it's double the meat, avoid all those carbohydrates. And when you're looking at the dish. Like I said, avoid the sugars and avoid liquid calories.

16:00Liquid calories are a waste of time. Now, of course, there's value and sometimes enjoying yourself and all that stuff. But if you're getting a meal and you're doing what we're saying, it's protein heavy. There's maybe one carb in there. Now you're throwing in a large soda. Well, cool. You just added 300 calories of just sugar to your diet. Juices, same thing. I know juices, it's natural. It's just tons of sugar, tons of calories avoid the drinks if you want extra calories you're better off getting extra protein right and along those lines it makes me think of all the sauces too so put all the sauces on the side on the side or not at all right so one of my surprise favorite dishes to go that's fast food that i i found this when i was when i was bodybuilding was uh actually pan express you can get grilled chicken and hold the teriyaki sauce and and steamed white rice and it's cheap and you can get a ton of it and even the double meat.

16:53And you can dip it in the teriyaki a little bit. You end up consuming one third of the total sauce. Right, right, or drizzle it over until it's lightly. It's not coated and drowned in there. And so, yes, so that was a go-to dish. And when we talk about, like, reasonably priced of all the things, it's probably one of the cheaper places that you get. Now, I understand the audience that's listening that knows that we're pro-organic and grass-fed, like, of course. I know. Yeah, I know that's. These crunchy hippies. I know. I understand that. Rolling the grave right now. But this episode is not geared for that person.

17:22It's not geared to like this is the ultimate health place. I'm trying to help a client who I know is going to order out that is going occasionally. And that is a better choice than driving through and getting it. Listen, going to Panda Express and getting teriyaki chicken bowl with white rice is a better choice than them going to Togo's and getting a sandwich. And they wouldn't understand that because in their head they would think, oh, my God, Panda Express, that's a terrible place. Oh, Togo's, it's a sandwich. It's healthy. It's got a lot of vegetables and stuff on it. Yeah, it's got four ounces of meat on a large Subway sandwich that's mostly bread and sauces and other stuff.

17:57And so just making people aware of that. But yeah, nothing beats your grass-fed beef or your chicken breast that you made at home. But if we're eating out, this is the way to go. That's right. Also, think about it ahead of time. One of the enemies to eating healthy is suddenly having to pick a place when you're hungry and you're running out of time. So think about it ahead of time. So you're going to work. You don't bring any meals with you. You got a little bit of time to think about it. Go on your app or whatever. Look around and take a little bit of time making a good educated choice. You don't want to look.

18:30We've all gone grocery shopping when we're hungry. Oh, terrible. It's always a terrible idea. Like you're at your weakest and you're around food. Like you're not going to pick good things. Or if you do, boy, that's a game of willpower. That's crazy discipline. Yeah, so think about it ahead of time or even the day before. That's even better. Like, you know, you're going to be somewhere, you're ordering food or whatever, maybe the day before, look ahead of time. And you're just preparing yourself. You're making the decisions ahead of time. So it's not this like last minute decision. To me, this isn't that hard.

18:58It literally takes you. Most people go to the same spot for work every day. There's a similar two or three restaurants within the vicinity, whether it's walking or driving distance or a door dash distance for them that they can order from. And it's literally just mentally preparing yourself that, hey, listen to what the guys are saying on the episode. I'm going to order from that place and do that thing tomorrow because I didn't get a chance to prep my meal. And it's literally that simple. I'm glad you said the other thing too, Adam, is that have your top three or four that you kind of always pick from.

19:32Your top three or four either genres or your top three or four restaurants that are kind of your fallbacks. And they'll come in handy when you need them because you know, like, oh, I typically can get this. and I can get that and this will always work for me. Because again, you're more prepared when you have those. Good options. Here's some good options. I love Mediterranean places. That's actually body. I tell people it's bodybuilder food. It literally is. It's chicken on a stick. Oftentimes they have rice and maybe they'll have a salad. So Mediterranean places are some of my favorite. You can double the protein, hit 50 grams, no problem.

20:05I like burrito bowls. I like burrito bowls a lot, especially if you take out the sour cream and the cheese If you're looking to cut down calories, a little bit of guac in there, salsa, rice, beans, meat, double meat. You got yourself a good dish. I'd put Poke Bowls right up there with burrito bowls. Poke Bowls are great. Yeah, Poke Bowls, burrito bowls are staple go-to. Again, too, you can control all the sauces and all the things that are on there. And so you can get a very high protein and mostly rice type of dish. And so that's one of them I go to. Lettuce wrap burgers. Lettuce wrap burgers are great.

20:34Yeah, that's my go-to. And even though the meat itself is high in fat because you're not getting fries and you're not getting bread, It's actually not bad. Oftentimes you get 40, 50 grams of protein and you're under 500 calories. This is a surprise good one. You can go to a lot of these big places like In-N-Out and you can, what is it, protein styles? Yeah, that's what you're saying. And it's wrapped like that and you double up the meat and you're talking 50, 60 grams of protein. And it's good. One of our things is to throw it in a bowl and just kind of chop up the lettuce and stuff with it. And it may turn it into like this kind of salad meat bowl.

21:09Yep. and tastes great. It's a regular thing that we do all the time. Yep, and anything meat-centric, of course. Steakhouses oftentimes will deliver. So if money isn't a big issue, you can order yourself a steak and a potato and you're set. And here's one other thing, too. For those of you that want to save money, want to eat healthy, DoorDash also delivers from grocery stores. Yeah. You can also DoorDash from a grocery store. You could DoorDash yourself some cottage cheese. Greek yogurt. Some tuna fish, some Greek yogurt. Yeah. some fruit. Like it's, it's really easy. And anything you'll find in a grocery store, you could DoorDash to yourself if you want to save money and have a very healthy dish.

21:48So it's one of my favorites. By the way, we created a free guide that goes into depth. So it's called the DoorDash diet guide. And in this guide, we break it all down. We give you all the guidelines. We give you our favorite restaurants. We give you meal options. It's all in there. If you want to cut, if you want to bulk, whatever your goal is, it's totally free. You go to mpdoordash.com and get it. Again, it's a free guide we created just for you. You can also find us on Instagram. We'll see you. It's at Mind Pump Media. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Super Bundle at mindpumpmedia.com.

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