Struggling with fat portion

(Azeem) #1

Hi All,

Age : 36
Height : 6ft 2
Weight : 125kg
25-30% Body fat

I’ve struggled with my weight all my life and have tried so many different diets but keep failing, I attempted a low carb diet about 10 years ago and I managed to drop down to 95kg but then plateaued. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t losing any further weight and went back to my normal ways and gained more weight.

I want to keep it simple and do it right. I’ve been reading through the forums and it has been very informative.

Keep carbs below 20g - I know how to reduce this and which foods I cant eat.
protein - 124g - meat YUM
FAT - 160g - How on earth am I going to measure this??

FAT has always been hard for me to understand, what’s the portion size for fat? 2 table spoons per meal will be enough?
I get so confused with FAT.

My typical day will consist of the below. even though I have only had meal 2 today and I am feeling full.

Meal 1 - Breakfast - Cheese omelet (3eggs)
Meal 2 - Lunch - Chicken Shawrma with mayo
Meal 3 - Dinner - Chicken Breast with cheese and more mayo

any help how I manage my fat consumption will be much appreciated.

z1m

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

If you’re not interested in measuring and weighing food portions, then you have to accept the reality that your macros are only going to be approximate at best. There are many folks on the forum who manage well enough doing so. If you’re willing to make the extra effort, you can build a spreadsheet, make a list, or use an online calculator to track food portions more precisely. So, you have choices. Using an online calculator is probably the easiest option. Many folks here use various calculators and can advise. I use a spreadsheet.

A couple of initial observations from what you posted. Chicken is very lean meat, mayo is high in PUFAs and many cheeses have lots of carbs. Instead of chicken I suggest beef, much fattier. Instead of mayo I suggest butter, cream cheese, whipping cream, MCT oil, even lard or tallow.

Read labels on cheeses very carefully. Cheese can range from zero carbs to loads of carbs. Many zero carb cheeses are high in protein and low in fat. Some high in fat and low in protein. Again, read labels carefully.

Eggs are wonderful food. They contain some carbs, so keep track. They also contain more protein than fat, so you need to add fat. This is fairly easily done be frying in butter, poaching in butter or since you appear to like omelets using a zero carb high fat cheese, like x-tra old cheddar. Again, read labels carefully, some cheddars have a lot more protein than others. Generally, hard cheeses have more protein and soft cheeses more fat. If you can find it locally, Boursin Bouquet of Basil is great zero carb, high fat low protein, soft cheese. A box of this stuff (150 grams) is a keto meal in itself.

Best wishes.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #3

Macros are approximate, even in the best case. Given your estimated lean mass, your protein intake is fine, though you could go as high as 130 g (525 g of meat), as long as you keep your carb intake low (we recommend an upper limit of 20 g/day). Fat is not a concern, if you eat to satiety, in other words, to satisfy your hunger. Fat has the least effect on insulin secretion of the three macronutrients (carbohydrate, protein, and fat), so it is a good source of energy to replace the energy lost from cutting carbohydrate. We cut carbohydrate precisely because it has the greatest effect on insulin, the hormone that causes the body to store fat (among its many other tasks).

If you can bring yourself to eat beef, it is a good source of protein and fat. At the very least, do not buy skinless chicken. Cook with butter or lard, and avoid the industrial seed oils (soybean, safflower, sunflower, canola, etc.), because of their high percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Yes, ω-3 and ω-6 fatty acids are essential to our diet, but we only need small quantities, and the ω-6 fatty acids cause systemic inflammation when ingested in quantity.

If you eat to satiety, you need not calculate macros (except to avoid exceeding your carb limit). Most people have an instinct for how much protein they need, and fad need be eaten only in the amount that satisfies hunger. As your insulin level drops, your appetite will become a good guide to how much food to eat, so that you can metabolise both the fat in your food and any excess stored fat your body may wish to shed. Cutting calories can be self-defeating, because the metabolism drops to compensate. When we eat enough food (or even a bit more than that), the metabolism rises to compensate, and most of that metabolism will come from fatty acids. Which is what you want.

#4

You don’t actually need to measure anything. Or maybe it’s good for you in your individual case, why knows but it’s not required on keto, many people enjoy they don’t need that.

I don’t have targets or limits at all. My fat wildly varies on keto and it’s fine. I am curious and like data and sometimes it’s even helpful so I track, I just don’t limit or try to reach numbers (protein will be high anyway and carbs low enough, carnivore is especially good at that and I do that now).
I eat the food I like. I am lucky as it gives me good numbers, I rarely eat more than twice as much protein as I probably need… But many of us handle high protein well. Mine isn’t insanely high, I would hate that waste and potential problems, just somewhat more than my need, many people have this.

How to measure fat? Well, I eat fatty protein. I can’t measure it. I guess something and it must be somewhat close to reality but what if it’s off a bit? Nothing happens. Even you have target macros, they are a bit random, not your Specific Needs, you don’t know those and those are ranges anyway, not single fixed numbers. There is a big wriggle room.
Even if you aren’t a savage like me who ate between 54 and 254g fat on keto days while thinking them just fine days (my way fewer carnivore days were more like 80-160g). Even my quite typical days aren’t very similar macro wise and of course not, I am no robot and bad with eating the same every day. Very, very bad.

How to achieve a higher fat/protein ratio… Well, you do one aproach: lots of (?) added fat.
I avoid added fats for reasons so I need quite fatty protein sources even for my usual 65% fat. I refuse eating much fattier than that now but I will need to add fattier things when I will eat much more. But not everyone can eat super fatty right away especially without carbs. If more protein is way more comfortable and you feel right, do that and if you disagree with high-protein, train yourself to be happy with fattier meat or something (I train myself slowly in the cases when a sudden change feels bad so it’s unrealistic).

There are tricks. Eggs are fatty but still feel not so fatty so I can eat fattier meats with them than alone. Boiled eggs with some super fatty meat or some fatty sauce, scrambled eggs with fatty meat…
If I want to add fat, it’s easiest to eat cream or sour cream (beware, lactose).

But there are zillion options, probably several ones for most of us, almost no matter how choosy or restricted our eating is. A fat-hating lean meat lover probably has it very hard, let’s hope they never need keto or able to change. Oh yeah, we can change A LOT. Sometimes surprisingly quickly. I experienced it.
Some (probably many) ketoers bring their carbs with carbs and low-fat mindset into their keto, it’s very strange to see their menu… You are already way better :wink: Most of us aren’t so good in the beginning but with some determined effort, we can make it work.

Btw I have no idea about portions. I don’t even believe in them. I easily sit down and eat 130g fat and it’s all good.

#5

I don’t see fats as something to manage directly.

I see keto as simply “Minimal carbs. Adequate proteins. Fats as needed (for satiety).”

After guesstimating the macros, it’s important to note that the proteins macro is a lower limit, while the fats and carbs macros are upper limits.

So, two priorities:

  • You need to keep carbs low to stay in ketosis.
  • You need to make sure you get enough proteins. Your body needs them. Being significantly low on them over an extended period can cause the body to get it elsewhere. That may mean break-down of muscle tissue. Not good.

After that, ideally, it should be hunger that determines how many fats and additional proteins (and thus calories) that you need to be eating, if only because leaving yourself hungry all the time means keto won’t be sustainable. You don’t need to eat all of the fats macro if you’re not hungry, because the body can make up the difference with stored body fat.

But. Hunger is not habitual eating. Hunger is not emotional eating. Hunger is not mindless eating. Hunger is not recreational eating. Hunger should be eating to satisfy the body’s need for fuel and raw materials for its functions.

(Robin) #6

I just made a special trip to a store across town to try that Boursin Cheese. Oh my lord! I also got the garlic and herb version. Game changer, both of them.

Did I really just make matters WORSE?