Spring Break is just around the corner, but it is not too late to start slimming down for the beach.

Local restaurant Potbelly Sandwich Works hopes to assist students in their bid for a slimmer body. The eatery decided to retain a “Skinny” menu for customers who wanted to watch their figures.

Ray Olivieri, the general manager of Potbelly, said the Skinny sandwiches his company offered had less bread than the regular and big size sandwiches.

There are three items listed on the menu as “Skinny.” However, customers are also free to get any sandwich on the menu as a Skinny sandwich.

“You’re getting the same portion of meat, just less bread,” Olivieri said.

Gina Hill, an associate professor of nutritional sciences, said the key to healthy dieting was balancing the number of calories consumed.

“No one’s ever going to fault you for eating a large portion of leafy green vegetables,” she said.

Selecting smaller portions of foods was good, but it also depended on which kinds of foods someone was eating, Hill said.

Hill said students should try to eat greener foods because they generally contained fewer calories.

MyPlate, a new program issued by the government to reinforce a healthy diet, could be used in order to help students monitor themselves, Hill said.

According to MyPlate’s standards, students should aim for half of their plate to be fruits and vegetables. About a quarter of the plate should be grains and a quarter dedicated to lean protein.

Hill said students should also monitor how much bread they consume.

“There’s nothing wrong with bread. It’s just that you want the portion sizes overall,” she said.
Potbelly, also, has added the feature of nutritional facts for each of its sandwiches. Its menu shows the ingredients of the sandwich, as well as how many calories customers would consume if they selected that sandwich.

Olivieri said he believed nutritional facts of menu items are a feature the government might enforce in the future. He said his company was ahead of the game.

Junior English major Callie McDermott said she went to Potbelly about three times a week. During that time she said she had not ordered a Skinny sandwich based on its nutritional value. She said she buys the Skinny Pair, one of the Skinny sandwiches on the menu, and sometimes the soup of the day.

McDermott said she did not base her decisions of food off the caloric count but said she believed the feature was a useful tool for those who did want to eat healthy. 

Freshman early childhood education major Katie Biggers said she acknowledged the menu’s nutritional facts every once in a while. She said she enjoyed ordering the Skinny sandwich because it was lighter and had fewer calories. She said in her usual meal she looked for something that was filling and healthy. To her, Potbelly’s Skinny sandwich got the job done.