Just another person looking for tips

(DARREN) #1

Hi,
I am from Northern Ireland. I am 47, up until I was 38 I never did any kind of exercise. At 38 I started a P90X regime, after 2 years I then moved into cycling (6000+ miles per year) I did this for 3 yrs, then my Mum fell ill with MND and I stopped all workouts to look after her. 11mths passed and when I eventually started back to cycling I had lost ALL my fitness, this hit my ego badly and I stopped. Then 3 months ago I decided enough is enough and started back at a Gym lifting weights 3 x weekly with 2 x cardio thrown in (cycling or hill walking with my dog) Growing up my Mum always cooked us our evening meals, Sunday dinners etc. We ate a fairly ordinary & plain diet. Being from NI, obviously Potato’s featured in almost every single meal :stuck_out_tongue: That usually was accompanied by Peas, Chicken or Beef, Gravy & maybe a Yorkshire Pudding if she felt like being fancy lol. (Anyone not from UK & NI can google Yorkshire Puddings)
What I am saying is I have a very plain palette. I never even tried Pizza or Chinese until I was 16 and out with mates.

So, now I am back 4 weeks ago and a work mate who was talking to me about the weight lifting side of things mentioned KETO diet to me and I should look it up. I dived in head first making a few mistakes at the start (too much Protein & carbs) 1 week in I then started tracking my foods with Carb Manager and Myfitnespal. This was how I figured out my macros where way off. I am now generally 70/20/10. I would like to get his down too 75/10/5 - BUT, this is kinda why I am here. I am struggling with getting good Fats into my diet, when as I mentioned earlier I am a plain eater. I dont like Nuts, I almost vomited when trying bulletproof coffee adding unsalted butter and coconut oil. I absolutely LOVE coffee (a bit of a snob lol) adding these too it ruined the experience for me, and I dont think thats a good thing to do on a diet. we need foods that we enjoy, not endure…

Below I will give a rough idea of my meals and you guys can correct me or point me in a better direction

Breakfast I usually skip only drinking a Coffee with a splash of whole cream milk in it, No sugar or sweetner added

11am tea break we have a canteen at work who make fresh Scrambled eggs everyday and Bacon. I eat the eggs everyday and then every other day I add in 3 x bacon. Coffee

Lunch (1pm) I always eat one of 2 things
1: 1 x tin of Tuna in oil with chopped spinach, 2 boiled eggs, 1 tbl spoon of full fat Mayo
2: 2 x fried in coconut oil 20% fat Pork burgers with Cheese & 2 fried eggs

I then workout at 6pm
Dinner (7:30pm) I alwas have a smoothie
1 x Large Avacado, 400mls of almond milk (unsweetened) 1 tbl spoon peanut butter (unsweetened) 1 tbl spoon coconut oil, 1 tbl spoon of raw Cacao, 1 tea spoon of Truvia. Then NutiNinja this all into a custard like consistency that I can spoon out of the cup.

This is a representation of my average meals.

I check my urine every few days and I am always in the region of 4.0 - 8.0 I definitely have Ketones in my system. First thing in the morning is usually my lowest reading, sometimes going as low as 1.5

I started this journey at 96.9 kilos, last weekend 4 weeks into keto I was 91.8 kilo.

Anyhow this is kinda my introduction and also my asking for help in how to get more good fats into my meals.

Regards,
Darren

('Jackie P') #2

Hiya Darren, welcome!,:slightly_smiling_face:.
I have just finished a night shift and not terribly coherent! To me, it looks like you are doing real well and I hope you feel better for it!
You will get strong advice and support here.
I just wanted to say hi before I crash out as I have another shift tonight!
See you around!
By the way, my brother and his family live in Dungannon!:grinning:

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #3

Welcome Darren. It looks like you have a lot of good fat already. Are you satisfied and not hungry? What makes you think you need to add more?

Congrats on the weight loss and getting back into fitness.

(DARREN) #4

I find I wake up in the mornings with a Raging Hunger. I make my morning coffee and drive into work and it usually subsides and I make it too 11am tea break OK.

As far as the Macro’s are concerned I am a bit of an OCD with most things in life that I am interested in. I want to get Fat adapted as soon as possible. When I am asking about how to get more good fats into my diet, I am slo asking if there are other foods I might consider
For instance I have Never eaten an Avocado in 47 years of my life, until 4 weeks ago. They are rotten, BUT if I mix it up like I mentioned above with the choc custard idea. it works for me. This is why I mentioned I am a plain eater. I realy struggle with foods that I have never tasted before because I have been brought up eating plain foods. I am simply after suggestions and ideas.

I will say this though… I started writing this Opening post yesterday before I went on my workout. I have been working out now for 3 months (starting to see nice gains & bumps in the right places :muscle: But since the first 2 months where based on a carb heavy diet, I always found that if I didn’t eat 2 x banana’s or some sort of high carb before my workout I would be running out of energy half way through it.

Since changing to Keto 4 weeks ago, I was finding that I was almost worse than when on carbs. BUT… Last night I had MASSES of ENERGY. Also remember what I said above, I eat my lunch at 1pm I workout at 6pm, so I am slightly fasted by this stage of the day. I felt like I BEASTED my workout. I rep’d more I also used heavier dumbbells that usual on my chest pressing and in seated back rows I pulled and extra 10 kilo (wasn’t until I checked my sheet that I track my lifting on that I had picked the wrong weight :stuck_out_tongue:)

Tonight is my cardio, it is a lovely evening so I will try a fasted Cycle of 30 miles. The past 3 weeks I have done the same cardio, but those times I have Bonked and run out of energy (legs dead). I will see how I go tonight, fingers crossed I get the same energy I had last night.

(Carl Keller) #5

Hello Darren.

What stands out to me is the lack of protein in your dinner:

I would be pretty hungry the next morning too. The amount of fat in that meal seems ok but without protein along with that fat, satiety is harder to reach and keeping hunger at bay is also more difficult. Including a moderate amount of protein might have a much more lasting effect on your hunger.

What works for me is a meal featuring a nice fatty meat like a ribeye, some ribs, chicken thighs or pork chops. My body responds best when I eat real food that I can sink my teeth into.

(Marianne) #6

Hi Darren,

Just be careful of the mercury in canned tuna. I think the recommended guideline is like no more than one or two cans a week.

Oh, Mr. Bear, if you’re hungry, you should eat! (No need to deprive yourself, and it’s delicious, too!) :blush:

Eat the bacon every day - delicious and you need the fat.

Lastly, and then I’ll stop… I started out tracking macros for about a month, but then kind of let that fall by the wayside. If you stick around and read a lot of posts from folks here, you may find you don’t necessarily need to track/meet macros. It was so freeing to me. Just make sure you eat enough fat, eat to where you don’t feel hungry, eat when you are hungry, and don’t count calories.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #7

It sounds like you’re getting there, with the new found endurance during a work out. Cardio might treat you differently than resistance training so I’m interested to hear how it goes.

Some suggestions for getting fat in plain things:
Chicken with skin on, fatty cuts of meat, cooking in bacon drippings, bacon, eggs, butter, full fat dressing on a salad (or make your own), olives, heavy cream, nuts (but carbs can add up quickly), sausages (or meat preparations where fat is ground into the thing. Seriously, though, read the labels carefully).

One thing I noticed is you’re essentially having four meals a day if you are putting cream in your coffee. I might try either having that coffee black and waiting until tea time OR if you’re hungry in the morning (like I am) eat a breakfast and let your next meal be the afternoon meal. That would bring you down to three times a day and you’d get longer in between each meal.

(DARREN) #8

Thanks for all the great information :grinning: Some great tips…

So, last night I did my cycle. Same route as the previous week. As it is a weeknight its not very long, only 24 miles. I never ate any food since my 1pm lunch, all I did was make up my drink with water, a squeeze of lemon and some Pink salt.

I seemed to have enough energy, and this time my legs held out and felt strong in the last 3 miles (which is a steady 7deg uphill). I knocked 4 mins off the time. Now some of this I felt might have been the wind direction being kinder to me this week, but overall I was happy that my legs never gave up like they did the week before. Saturday will be my next usual day for cardio, the weather looks like it might be fine so I will try a longer cycle of around 40-50 miles this time.

This morning I have woken up feeling absolutely terrible. Not only do I feel hungry, but its to the point of feeling nauseous. I litteraly feel like crap today… I am not sure if I have caught a bug or if its maybe a touch of Keto flu?

Picking up on what someone mentioned yesterday about having a Raging Hunger in the mornings, I added a little extra Protein into my diet. I tracked my Macro’s to get an idea of how it worked out

TOTAL calories was 2900
the Macro’s where - 2% Carbs - 68% Fat - 29% Protein

TOTAL grams was - 48g Carbs - 248g Fat - 153g Protein

My cycling app told me I used up 1540 Calories during the ride. could the reason I feel like crap today, be that I took too much out of my body 2900 cals minus the 1500 burned up on the cycle. I am not sure. I guess its trial & error

TIA
Darren

(Alec) #9

My suggestions:

I would stop the smoothie habit and eat solid real food: eg steak with veg

That’s nothing. I was 21 before I ate any non-British food (and that includes McDonalds!!). When I discovered curries it was like a whole new world opened up!!

Too right! Avocados are just plain disgusting. Don’t eat them if you don’t want to.

My suggestion is to not get hung up on the fat/protein balance. Just keep carbs as low as you can, and eat meat/eggs and a small amount of veg until you stop being hungry.

If all else fails, eat bacon!

(DARREN) #10

Talking about Bacon.

The reason I mentioned that I only eat Bacon every-other day is because all the reports we read and articles on TV report bacon and highly processed meats being very bad for our long term health if eaten on a regular basis.

Being from Northern Ireland I am very partial to a piece of Bacon in my Ulster Fry. but I only eat Fry’s maybe once a fortnight :stuck_out_tongue: Now my Fy’s are no longer going to have Potato bread or Soda farls :sob:

How can eating bacon EVERY day be good for your long term health??? Is there any studies done on Keto vs Other kinds of fueling your body i.e Vegan, Vegetarian, etc
There is no way I could ever eat vegan or vegy anyway, so those are non starters for me personally.

On a positive note. I have found a guy a few miles from my home who can supply me with fresh Free Range Eggs. He even took me round the back of his house to show me all the chickens walking around the big field he had out the back.

(Carl Keller) #11

Lack of sodium is usually the cause of keto “flu”. When we restrict carbs and our insulin stays low, we excrete sodium at a greater rate than we are used to. Try 2+ teaspoons of sodium over the course of your day. I salt my food to taste and I toss a pinch under my tongue several times a day. You can also try a pinch in your coffee, tea or even in some bone broth.

(Alec) #12

I don’t believe the nonsense reports about how dangerous bacon is, but you should make your own mind up on the worthiness of these reports. If you use the search function on this site you should be able to see some studies on this issue and some knowledgeable folks opinions on those.

(Jane- Old Inky Crone) #13

I cannot eat anything with the chemicals that are in processed bacon. It makes me really sick. I only eat uncured, no sugar added bacon. Is there anywhere you can obtain uncured bacon? It is pretty easy to find in the states, I don’t know about over there, but you might check into it.

(hottie turned hag) #14

So’s ya mom

Neck tattoo no. 3

(DARREN) #15

WARNING X RATED PICTURE BELOW

So this is what todays Lunch looks like :slight_smile: And last nights dinner was the same, only I added 2 lovely runny fried in bacon fat Free Range eggs. I have found a little house a few miles from my home who sells eggs from his home. Not only are they cheaper than the Supermarkets, they are fresh. ther eis something nice about seeing an Egg thats not perfectly clean, all the exact same size and same colour. These egs are a wee bit dirty, all different sizes and colours. and the Yokes where an amazing yellowy orange. :ok_hand:

Also, someone suggested eating more Protein to fill me up more so I dont have the raging Hunger in the mornings. After eating 300g of bacon last night at 7pm, I woke this morning with no hunger :raised_hands::raised_hands:

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(hottie turned hag) #16

lmaoooo :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

(Marianne) #17

Crying emoji!!!

Eat - please! And don’t count calories in or out.

(Marianne) #18

It was an ingenious ploy to get us to read his post!

:laughing: