I have just started keto and I’m having difficulty with my macros. I find I’m getting 10 to 20 mgs more protein than I should be and not enough fats. How do I fix this? What foods can I have that are higher in fat but lower in proteins?
Any other advice for this newbie would be greatly appreciated.
Hello and welcome!
Pork Belly, Sausage, Bacon, Butter, Coconut Oil, [Lily’s] Baking Chocolate (sweetened w/ Erythritol). I also use different nut butters … but only the ones that you can grind yourself at the store, or ones where it just just the nuts/salt (which usually means you have to stir the oil back in as there is nothing to keep it from separating). You can also search the recipes section (or the web) for “Fat Bombs”
These are just a few off the top of my head.
Buttered cheese is yummy. Don’t cook with vegetable oil—use lard, tallow, bacon drippings, butter, or coconut oil. Buy fattier cuts of meat, get your chicken with the skin on. A pork picnic (shoulder joint) comes with a thick layer of fat, which both bastes the meat while roasting and tastes yummy on your plate. Eat organ meats; they have a much higher fat content. If you can afford oxtail (it used to be dead cheap before it was discovered), it makes a very tasty soup/stew. Duck and goose also have a lot of fat.
The good thing about protein is that for most, more or less is not such a big deal. The main fear about too much protein (as long as you are keto with the carbs) is supply-driven gluconeogenesis (making glucose out of protein because you ate it) BUT it seems to have been significantly discredited (i.e. it is probably demand driven - you only make it if you need it) so you probably don’t need to worry if you do go over in your protein. It is also one of the top newbie issues since we are so brainwashed into preferring lean meats, etc.
The high-fat staples are bacon, fatty cuts of meat (ribeye beef, pork chops (untrimmed, etc.)), chicken thighs with skin on, 80/20 ground beef, sausages (cooked and uncooked - though look for hidden carbs), cheese, eggs, nuts (e.g. macadamias, almonds, walnuts, pecans) and then the things you cook the meats in - butter/ghee/EVOO/CoconutOil/bacon grease/tallow/lard/etc. Having fatty sauces made with cheese or butter are also good for adding the fat. I make a buffalo sauce that is half hot sauce/half butter. Mayo (full fat) helps. As does putting whipped cream with a little sweetener (home-made not from a can) on things like jello or berries etc. Or mix it with some cocoa powder for a simple, high fat mousse. As a last resort you could make fat bombs (lots of recipes online) if you really can’t get the fat in your food. Once I planned out my ingredients to increase the fat, I didn’t need to supplement.
TLDR - don’t worry too much about protein and try to eat fattier foods to avoid extra fat supplementation
ALSO - there are several threads going on right now like these - searching the forums will get you lots of answers quickly.