General advice needed


(Stacy) #1

WF 58 yo
61" tall
145 lbs
avg macros (?) I don’t have any idea.

Avg calories: I haven’t been counting but somewhere between 1700-2700 daily

Avg day:
Coffee w/ HWC and 4 equals… (yes, that is 3 carbs ttl) 1-2 8 oz cups daily
Eggbeaters (1 cup) with Bacon (4-5 strips) and sharp cheddar cheese (1/3-1/2 c)
Chicken breast (I know but I HATE dark meat)
plate of melted sharp cheddar cheese and 14 Hormel pepperoni slices.
Russell Stover Sugar Free candies: 4-5 day
8 cans of Diet Dr. Pepper - stopped as of yesterday
3-4 quarts of Crystal Light flavored water.
Magnesium/ - 500mg Potassium supplements

I am having a rough time eating fatty meat… it doesn’t TASTE good to me. But I put a chuck roast in the crock pot and I have some ribeyes that I will eat.


(*Rusty* Instagram: @Rustyk61) #2

Add real Butter! Cook bacon. Then cook in bacon juice…


(Lonnie Hedley) #3

Not sure exactly the point of your post, but assuming you want pointers?

Cut out the equal.
Cut the eggbeaters, use real eggs.
If you don’t like dark meat, add butter to your breast. Or maybe hollandaise. Something to get fat on that breast.
Cut the sugar free candy. Probably sweetened with maltitol which is nearly as bad as sugar.
Good job cutting the diet soda.
Cut the crystal light.
If you need something flavored, I’d go with Zevia or La Croix.

Please disregard if you weren’t lookin for tips.


(Jay AM) #4

You were struggling with low energy and not losing weight?


(TJ Borden) #5

Cut ALL of that for now. You might be able to add some in later, but by continuing to try to keep your sweet tooth satisfied, your system is craving the sugar it thinks is coming along with that sweet flavor and it never comes.

Plus, the candy uses malitol with is pretty nasty shit for most people.

If you can ween yourself off sweet taste for a while,
You might find your palate starts liking fat.


(Stacy) #6

Ok. You just killed my enthusiasm. Whats wrong with eggbeaters? I have been drinking diet soda 8-19 cans a day for 25 years and not one other thing to drink but coffee in moderation. I HATE water and the best I can do is the Crystal light. Whats wrong with Equal? Should i do the erythritol or Splenda or what? I can’t just stop the sweets all at once I love them too much.


(Stacy) #7

Yes. LOW ENERGY - 7 wks of <10 g net carbs and nada. (I cheated one weekend tho) Sorry but I don’t do a lot of posting on forums so I didn’t know what else to write - I just followed your instructions on starting a new topic


(Stacy) #8

8-9 cans…


(Lonnie Hedley) #9

Looking at nutrition of eggbeaters, they are no fat. And the ingredients list is full of junk. Don’t buy any more after this container is empty. Buy real eggs. Don’t NEED to be organic, just real.

Equal is full of fillers. Maltodextrin is higher on the glycemic index than sugar.

Maybe you’re not ready to make some changes in your life that might be beneficial?


(karen) #10

The skin on chicken is a truly yummy source of fat and salt, even if it’s crisped. It also keeps chicken breast from tasting like fibrous dust. And I know I’ll get flak for this, but I’m 61" and 55 yo, and there’s no way on God’s beefy earth I could eat 2700 calories and lose weight, even if it was 100% butter. I’ll get dinged for this too, but vegetables, especially green leafy veggies, are not poisonous. :yum:

A thought: with what you’re eating you’re almost undoubtedly in ketosis. You’re probably not fat adapted yet, but you might be able to manage a fast of 3-4 days. This could really help with sugar cravings and might help you jump start an adjusted eating pattern. It takes a little while to “go savory” but a fast can help.

ETA: you might also want to consider looking at your macros. If you’re eating the same thing every day it wouldn’t be that hard to look it up based on the diet you laid out here. You’ve got quite a lot of protein going on.


#11

One thing I do to up the fat (as I have no problem that I know of with dairy) is add sour cream. If I’m using a lean animal protein, like fish, I’ll coat it with a nice flavorful spicy seasoning, saute/fry in coconut oil, then top it with a gigantic dollop of full-fat sour cream. It’s pretty yummy.


(Stacy) #12

ok. I have tried and failed far too many times doing it the “right” way. It was way to drastic and I got headaches and was so fatigued I could hardly walk to the mailbox.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, someone who cooks. Everything I eat can be prepared in the microwave or doesn’t need to be cooked at all. I did not know about the vegetables and thought I had to cut them out. That makes things more attractive - (yay, an upper)

I don’t care about the nutritional value of eggbeaters. I can put them in a paper bowl and microwave them with cheese. The only thing I am willing to cook is bacon. And that is only because I love it so much and the pre-cooked sucks. I will cook up 6 lbs of it at once and freeze it.

I don’t have a stocked kitchen full of gadgets and spices and stuff. In fact, I am living in an extended stay hotel because I was in the whole Harvey mess.

Maybe I am “not ready to make some changes” in my life that might be beneficial? Really? ( downer) I AM willing to make SOME changes, but you are talking about making radical changes. And no, I am not ready for that.

My thought process is: I keep the carbs down, up the fat, get into ketosis and start feeling motivated and can begin to make more changes.

I am in perfect health. I was a competitive water-skier for 15 years and carry a lot of muscle. I am interested in losing 15 lbs and want the increased energy everyone talks about. I like to exercise but keto has me so wiped out I can’t.

… don’t NEED to be organic… Nothing NEEDS to be organic. Years of studies have shown organic foods confer no benefit outside of meat.

Thank you Karen and Callisto - excellent ideas.

Last questions:
(1)What is the best (read EASIEST) macro tracking app?
(2) I won’t cut out the sweeteners (yet?) : so which am I to choose? Splenda, Equal, Stevia, Erythritol, what?


#13

You are looking for feedback on the items (listed in the original post) that you are consuming, yes? I agree with others that you are not quite hitting a nutrient-dense version of ketogenic eating. If you don’t wish to cook, there are other choices that you can make. Salad and/or greens daily, higher-quality deli meats besides bacon and pepperoni, some cheeses, some nuts and seeds, some raw vegetables (crudité style), frozen microwavable low-carb vegs, etc. If you are getting headaches and fatigue, I suggest purposeful electrolyte maintenance. Chronometer ($2.99) is the best app I’ve used, and liquid stevia is my preferred sweetener when I rarely use it.


(Lonnie Hedley) #14

You do you bro. Good luck.


(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #15

1- eat real eggs.
2- knock off the Russell Stover.
3- good to quit 8 cans of Soda.
4- crystal lite is basically diet soda lite.
5- improve the chicken breast with a sauce that is fatty, like hollandaise, Alfredo, carbonara, olive oil based vinaigrette (homemade).
6- more whole food, less processed food.

Basically in that order.

As to issues above: you can do eggs in the microwave:
https://www.incredibleegg.org/recipe/basic-microwave-scrambled-eggs/

You could eat real dark chocolate instead of Russell Stover. It’s generally less expensive and won’t give you the rumble guts.

Having a flavored beverage is unnecessary, and dumping them outright in favor of water is one of the best things you can do for yourself, assuming you live somewhere with good water or have a water filter.

There are likely jarred alfredo sauces that will work if you don’t want to make such a thing. Read the labels. Basic vinaigrette is three ingredients and a whisk. Olive oil, vinegar, and something to help emulsify, like a drop of mustard.

The food quality is the least important aspect.


#16

I like My Fitness Pal as a tracker. Also, an easy way to add fat if you like cheese and want a snack or something…place a few piles of some grated cheese on a plate (cover it with parchment paper)for 45-90 seconds. Makes yummy fried cheese crisps. Good luck!


(TJ Borden) #17

All you can do is try


(Doug) #18

Great suggestion, LC. :sunglasses:

Haven’t done it in a while, but used to, all the time - that was the only cooking capability we had at work. Don’t even have to end up all that “scrambled,” either - after beating the eggs, pour them into a bowl and they’ll cook to a nice, semi-firm layer that will slide out onto a plate. Great with salt and pepper, or with butter added, or olive oil plus spices, etc.


#19

I’m sure we can all sympathize with how drastic a change this is (for some maybe more than others) and how you have to be ready for it. But, and I say this with love, when I look at the list of foods you bravely posted for us to scrutinize, I suspect your longtime WOE has really hijacked your taste buds in a big way. You might be able to hack the program to get some weight loss, but my fear for you is that it will be very hard to maintain. We all lost, to some degree, our ability to enjoy natural foods as a result of the decades we spent eating a standard diet. But you CAN get it back. So maybe you don’t do it all at once, but I believe you’ll have to do it (in steps, maybe) to get the results you want. Fake food like Egg Beaters concern me, because I believe there’s a lot we don’t know about processed foods and their ingredients yet, and who knows what is in there that has effects we haven’t proven yet and that might stymie your efforts (as well as cause fatigue, your primary issue). An egg, you can trust.


(Alec) #20

Whether you are on keto or not, eating real food has got to be one of the best bits of advice out there.