Mapo salad restaurant for post-Pilates protein: Why Starve Diet

Lately, my biggest question after working out is what to eat. It feels like such a waste to exercise hard and immediately eat something too rich, but if I have only a light salad, I’m hungry from the moment I start walking home lol.

There’s a place I often stop by after my Pilates class nearby: Why Starve Diet Gongdeok Main Branch (와이스타브 다이어트 공덕본점).

It’s close to Gongdeok Station, so it’s easy to pop in after a workout. You can eat in or take out, which is why I use it pretty often.

A Protein Box Restaurant Near Gongdeok Station That’s Great for Solo Meals

The restaurant is decorated in white and orange, so it has a bright, casual feel overall. There are tables and bar-style seats too, making it easy to come alone for a quick meal without any fuss.

Order at the Kiosk

You order at the kiosk, and there are honestly far more menu choices than I expected.

At first I thought there would just be a few chicken-breast salads, but there are quite a lot of Protein Box options. You can choose chicken, smoked duck, beef, or salmon as your main, then pair it with Light, pasta, oats, tofu noodles, or cauliflower rice. I loved that dieting doesn’t mean eating the exact same salad every time—you can choose according to what you feel like that day.

The Chicken Light Protein Box Is Perfect After a Workout

My favorite and most frequently ordered item here is their steady seller, the Chicken Light Protein Box! I debated again this time, but ended up taking out the Chicken Light Protein Box with an iced Americano. The Chicken Light Protein Box has 287 kcal and 44 g of protein!

It even comes with a whopping 150 g of chicken breast, yet it is under 300 kcal, so it’s such an easy combination to have after exercising.

When you open the lid, the amount of chicken breast is generous right away. There are several large pieces of steamed chicken breast on top, so it absolutely doesn’t feel like one of those tiny “diet salad” portions. And I like that the chicken breast here isn’t dry.

It’s mild but nicely moist and seasoned, so it tastes good with the vegetables. It doesn’t feel like you’re forcing yourself to chew chicken breast just because you’re dieting lol.

A Varied Vegetable Mix, Including Chickpeas and Green Beans

More than anything, I love the vegetable selection. This isn’t a salad with only a huge bed of lettuce—it has chickpeas, lettuce, green beans, broccoli, bell peppers, black olives, and all sorts of things. Especially chickpeas, which I love! Picking them up one by one, they’re mild and nutty, and so good between bites of chicken breast. The green beans are large too, with a crisp bite that makes the salad much less boring than eating lettuce nonstop.

The broccoli pieces are big too! Eating black olives and bell peppers along the way gives every ingredient a different flavor and texture, so surprisingly, you don’t get tired of a whole box. This is what matters to me when I eat salad: not feeling like I’m “only eating vegetables”! lol. A bite of chicken breast, then broccoli, then a chickpea, a green bean, and an olive one by one. There’s fun in picking at all the different things, so honestly, it feels much more filling than an ordinary chicken-breast salad—like I might burst?

With 150 g of chicken breast, it’s more filling than you might think once you finish it. It’s not the kind of salad where you’re hungry again an hour or two later; it feels like a proper meal without sitting heavily in your stomach. That’s why I especially love it on workout days. And with an iced Americano, it’s seriously perfect!

After Pilates, a whole Chicken Light Protein Box with a cold iced Americano is exactly my favorite kind of “pleasantly full” feeling lol.

It’s not overly filling, but it’s also not like eating a few salad leaves and still being hungry—just right. There’s no uncomfortable feeling that I worked out hard and then ate something too heavy, and I feel like I’ve properly fueled up on protein, so whenever I have Pilates nearby, it’s an automatic go-go.

Next Time: Tofu Noodles, Oats, and a Protein Rice Bowl

Honestly, the hardest part of dieting is when you need to sort out a meal while you’re out, right? At home, you can prepare chicken breast, eggs, vegetables, and whatever else you want, but outside, choosing a menu is harder than you think. Rather than food that is just low in calories, I like a meal that is reasonably filling and gives me plenty of protein, and the Chicken Light Protein Box is exactly my style in that respect.

287 kcal, 44 g of protein, and 150 g of chicken breast. With all those vegetables too, it works as a post-workout meal and never feels burdensome on days when I want a light diet meal. But while looking carefully at the menu this time, I found some other things I want to try next.

I always get Chicken Light, but the Chicken Tofu Noodles looked delicious too. Tofu noodles with chicken breast seem like they would make a more meal-like, filling choice than Light, so I want to try that next time. I’m curious about the Chicken Oats too. On days when I want something more substantial, rather than automatically cutting out carbs just because I worked out, the oat combination seems like it could be good.

On days when I’m a little tired of chicken breast, I’d like to try the Salmon Light too. From the main protein to the base, there are so many choices, and I think that is Why Starve’s strength: even if you visit repeatedly, you can eat a different combination each time. And the Protein Rice Bowl that I saw at the entrance kept catching my eye! It looked less like diet food and more like a hearty rice bowl, so I was curious about that too. There are sides like protein cookies, Greek yogurt, and soup as well, so they seem nice to add depending on how hungry you are that day.

Come to think of it, I’ve been here quite a few times and always ordered only Chicken Light lol. Next time, I need to try the Chicken Tofu Noodles, an oat Protein Box, and the Protein Rice Bowl one by one.

For anyone looking for a salad or diet meal near Gongdeok Station—especially a meal that will properly fuel you with protein after a workout—I recommend it 😍😍 It should also suit people like me who like salads but hate being hungry after eating only leaves. Next time I really am going to try something else… but why do I feel like I’ll end up ordering Chicken Light with an iced Americano again lol?