Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2767: How to Stay on Track without Cooking or Meal Prepping (DoorDash Diet)

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

How to Stay on Track without Cooking or Meal Prepping (DoorDash Diet) It's possible to get in shape if you know what you are doing. (1:52) Meal prepping is best, but CONVENIENCE is a real value. (3:10) General Rules on How to Stay on Track without Cooking or Meal Prepping. (6:35) #1 – Prioritize protein. (7:00) #2 – Overestimate the calories. (10:18) #3 – Avoid fried foods, sugar, and carb-centric meals. (12:09) #4 – Put sauces on the side. (16:29) #5 – Think about order AHEAD of time. (18:06) #6 – GOOD options. (19:48) #7 – Mind Pump DoorDash Diet Guide! (21:49) Related Links/Products Mentioned Unlock sharper focus and support long-term brain health with Ketone-IQ—clean brain fuel for deep work, mental clarity, and sustained energy with no crash. Get 30% off your subscription, plus a free gift with your second shipment at https://ketone.com/MINDPUMP January Promotion: Code NEWYEAR50 at checkout for 50% off the following programs: MAPS Starter, Transform, Anabolic, and Performance! Mind Pump Store Mind Pump # 2450: The Smartest Way to Use Protein to Burn Fat & Build Muscle FREE MP DoorDash Guide Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources   

If 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 DeStefano, 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 Door Dash diet, how you can follow it and still get fit and help. healthy, build muscle and burn body fat. Now, this episode is brought to you by a sponsor,

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if you love us like we love you, why not show it by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at Mind Pump Store.com. I'm talking right now, hit pause, head on over to Mind PumpStore.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, but 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 real years,

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. So a lot of people think that you have to do all those things to get in shape and it's not true. And when I think about my lifestyle today, we probably use DoorDash, you know, I'm ashamed to admit, maybe every day, you know, 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 a 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, like meal prepping and cooking is the best. Like, that's the best thing you could possibly be. You know what's in your food. Yeah.

You 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.

They 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. You know, 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 was it's been on a rocket ship ever seen. Remember, during COVID, that's the only way you could get food was DoorDash.

I know, 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. It 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 go for convenience is unrealistic. So can we navigate through that by making healthier choices within that?

There's ways to do that. Well, what you said is really how this is a pre-door dash. 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. And so part of like when I was assessing a client, like on our first or first or second appointment, I would always ask like there, 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. Yeah, 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.

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. I had a ton, but I had quite a few clients.

You know, we're in Silicon Valley. So, you know, we used to get those clients. I mean, I used to clients that traveled one third of the time they were traveling. So like, 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 cell? 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 great. I just had to prepare them and get them set up. No, this was a fun episode to put together because we were talking about all the things. Because every one of us is 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, you know, 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.

Like 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.

I was just going to say, you know, one of the things that I'd have to teach my clients is that, you know, some of these favorite restaurants that are on the list that we had put together was like, you know, Chipotle, for example. and 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, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, double meat needs to be, and I, both men and women, I'd say that. Because, you know, even the women, 40 grams of protein is not like 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 double the meat.

Now, 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 on the path of hitting your protein take, hitting your macro goals, it becomes essential that you double the meat in these things. Yes. Now, why the extra protein? Like, why is that so important? Well, number one, it's satiety producing. 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 much lower protein, especially if you eat the protein first. 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, that'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 Kabab or Greek place. right, that does chicken kebabs. And it comes with fries. That's just part of the dish. Now, when I order, you know, double the meat. So for 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 them out. That's not enough to satiate me. Then I end up eating the French fries. So then I overconsume 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 and cooking. And they'll give you estimates. So you can look up the calorie count of a burrito or a

kebab, you know, 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. and 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. You know, so for like, you know,

if you're looking at the calculations and it's a tablespoon of oil, you can pretty much guarantee there's, you know, at least 50% more or double the amount of oil in the cooking process. Yeah, no, this is always, this has actually been 20 to 25% for me. I just think that they, they're,

you get somebody who's heavy handed when they put the rice or the beans and like, for example, like a Chipotle bowl, like you and by the way every restaurant right is is law they have to like they have to post their the macros right the nutrition facts so you might some of them make it really easy to find like on their menus or place like that but a quick Google search and you can find out exactly what those calories are 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

them the other way right if you're someone who's using DoorDash and you're trying to gain I always, 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. You know, small non-chain type restaurants, overestimate, you know. 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. You know, add a little extra when you do your calculations. That'll typically keep you within the margin of error so that you're not overconsuming.

Yeah. 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 get to 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, I'm 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. Yeah.

So calorie king. Before the tracker. Yeah, this is before any of that stuff comes out. Everybody trainer had that book. And I'm just now really starting to track my food. And something I had done previously for 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. Chicken. Yeah. I 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 the... How low the grams of proteins, how high the calories and saturated fat was in the... And it's like, maybe everybody who's listening right now is like, duh, or whatever. I 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 meal. Yeah, when you're looking at the meal, go for one carb, not two. So you might get a dish. You know, you mention the Mediterranean, place. I'll order from there too. They'll throw fries in and pita bread. You got two carbs in there. Yeah. 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. Why, carbs are you can do without them. They're

not essential. Proteins 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 it, you're looking at it. So when you're looking at it, 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, you know, and there's a lot of things you could doordash that are, that are sugar-filled dishes.

I'm going to say it's a terrible idea. There's no probably not good. Don't see any value to that. Yeah, there's, avoid the, the bakeries, the sweets, the treats, the things like that. But going back to the value, going back to what your point, because the pushback I 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 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. The thing that's really valuable to you is the meat. 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 time. So when you do the meat, avoid all those carbohydrates. And, you know, when you're looking at the dish, like I said, avoid the sugars and avoid liquid calories. Liquid calories are a waste of time. 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. Juses, 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 found this when I was when I was bodybuilding was actually Panxpress. You can get grilled chicken and hold the terriaki sauce and steamed white rice. And it's cheap and you can get a ton of it and even the double meat. And you can dip it in the terriarchy a little bit.

You end up consuming one third of the total sauce. Or drizzle it over to it's lightly. It's not coated and drowned in there. And so, yes. So that was what a go-to dish. And when we talk about like reasonably price of all the things, it's probably one of the cheaper places. Now I understand the audience is listening that knows that we're pro-organic and grass-fed,

like, of course. I know. Yeah, I know that's. Crunchy hippies. I know. I understand that that, but this episode is not geared for that person. It's not geared to like, this is the ultimate health place. This is, I'm trying to help a client who I know is going to order out that is going,

that's right. Occasionally. and that is a better choice than driving through and getting, listen, going to Panxpress and getting Terriaki chicken bowl with white rice is a better choice than them going to Togo's and getting a sandwich.

And they just don't, they wouldn't understand that because in their head they would think, oh my God, Pandexpress, that's a terrible place. Oh, Tocos, 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. And so just making people aware of that. But yeah, nothing beats your grass-fed beef for your chicken breast that you made at home. But if we're eating out, this is the way to go. That's right. Also, you know, 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 we'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 it boy that's a that's a game of willpower

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 this isn't that hard it literally to takes the hour. 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 door dash distance for them, that they can order from. And it's literally just mentally preparing yourself that, hey, I 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. you know, that you kind of always pick from. Yes. Your 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. I 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 pokey bowls right up there with burrito balls. Poke bowls are great. Yeah, pokey 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. 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, this is a surprise good one. You can go to a lot of these big places like in and out and you can, what is it, protein style? Yeah, that's cool. 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 that throw 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. Yep. And it tastes great. It's a regular thing that we do all the time. Yep. And anything meat-centric, of course, you know, steakhouses oftentimes will deliver.

So if money isn't a big issue, you know, or yourself a steak and a potato and you got your 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. You could doordash yourself some cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, some tuna fish, some Greek yogurt, some fruit.

Like, 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. That'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 mpdor-dash.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. 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 Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com.

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