Tracking meat on keto?

[Bubby1]

Hi guys. Just a quick question. I bought chicken legs from the grocery store and how the heck am I supposed to track it on my app or st all if there’s no nutrition label on it. Same as if I went to the butcher. W that do you guys do??

[David_Stilley]

Aimee, what app are you using? In Chronometer they have extensive variations in things like Chicken. Skinless breast, Breast with skin, Skin on thighs, Skinless trimmed thighs, etc.

Still sometimes it’s difficult finding exactly what you are going to eat. Another issue is that estimating the fat:protein is tough because of variations in animal husbandry or the way it was cut by a butcher or meat processing plant. Look at bacon for instance where how much you cook it, and the variations in fat:protein are obvious from slice to slice. It’s all just averages with significant variation from one sample to another. This is why I only recommend carb tracking and eating meat and fat to satiety. Tracking apps give you a nebulous calculation of your metabolic needs based on averages of the general population. We are all different. You’re body is smart and with being fat adapted you will learn to eat more or less as your needs vary day to day, not risking overeating or under eating as easily. This also removes the stress of “hitting your macros” that many people seem to force or limit to. Tracking stuff isn’t what you want to do forever, it’s best learning to listen to your body instead. If that doesn’t work you can always try something different. Some people who have eating disorders or emotional eating issues may need to do more if they feel like KETO is all you can eat kind of thing and they can’t sense satiety.

[Bubby1]

Aimee, what app are you using? In Chronometer they have extensive variations in things like Chicken. Skinless breast, Breast with skin, Skin on thighs, Skinless trimmed thighs, etc.

Still sometimes it’s difficult finding exactly what you are going to eat. Another issue is that estimating the fat:protein is tough because of variations in animal husbandry or the way it was cut by a butcher or meat processing plant. Look at bacon for instance where how much you cook it, and the variations in fat:protein are obvious from slice to slice. It’s all just averages with significant variation from one sample to another. This is why I only recommend carb tracking and eating meat and fat to satiety. Tracking apps give you a nebulous calculation of your metabolic needs based on averages of the general population. We are all different. You’re body is smart and with being fat adapted you will learn to eat more or less as your needs vary day to day, not risking overeating or under eating as easily. This also removes the stress of “hitting your macros” that many people seem to force or limit to. Tracking stuff isn’t what you want to do forever, it’s best learning to listen to your body instead. If that doesn’t work you can always try something different. Some people who have eating disorders or emotional eating issues may need to do more if they feel like KETO is all you can eat kind of thing and they can’t sense satiety.

I’m trying to send a photo of my macro app like you did. How the heck do I do that??? Yes its quite full on. I’m with carb manager.

[David_Stilley]

Take a screen shot and save it to your photos. Then upload it.

[David_Stilley]

You can try different search descriptions if you don’t find what you want.

[Bubby1]

[Bubby1]

You can try different search descriptions if you don’t find what you want.

Oh wow, easy. Thankyou. I did end up finding chicken legs too. Had to go premium though. I won’t log stuff forever. It would drive me batty . Just gives me a basic idea.

[David_Stilley]

I always used the free version of Cronometer. It has everything I needed during my tracking days. I only use it to track weight changes now for about three months. It was a useful learning tool and helped me to make better low carb choices. But I fell into following the caloric recommendation and that ended in a stall from not eating enough on average. Also you can set your carbs to net for an easier time on KETO unless you find you need to be tighter control wise. You used a significant part of your carbs on two teaspoons of cream because you’re set to tracking total carbs. Most of us track net.

[Bubby1]

It says I got 4g net carbs for the whole day. All the other food on there didn’t show up in the photo. Yes its friggin confusing as hell when they reckon to lose weight I mist eat under 1434 calories a day. As you can see my whole day is only 946 calories. I lost almost half a pound since yesterday. 2 kg in a week. But yeah, it’s very annoying how the apps all say calories calories calories matter. I ate more protein than fat today as you can see but seriously. If I ate any less protein I would be so hungry. I’m sure I’ll learn what works as I continue with it. At least on the plus side, my tops and pants are a bit baggier. They do have great recipes on this app though I havnt tried any yet. I just changed it to net carbs.

[Bubby1]

I always used the free version of Cronometer. It has everything I needed during my tracking days. I only use it to track weight changes now for about three months. It was a useful learning tool and helped me to make better low carb choices. But I fell into following the caloric recommendation and that ended in a stall from not eating enough on average. Also you can set your carbs to net for an easier time on KETO unless you find you need to be tighter control wise. You used a significant part of your carbs on two teaspoons of cream because you’re set to tracking total carbs. Most of us track net.

I changed to net. This was my food for the day. Surely that’s not too much protein?

[Bubby1]

I always used the free version of Cronometer. It has everything I needed during my tracking days. I only use it to track weight changes now for about three months. It was a useful learning tool and helped me to make better low carb choices. But I fell into following the caloric recommendation and that ended in a stall from not eating enough on average. Also you can set your carbs to net for an easier time on KETO unless you find you need to be tighter control wise. You used a significant part of your carbs on two teaspoons of cream because you’re set to tracking total carbs. Most of us track net.

I changed it to net carbs and I’m so confused. It says I’m over on them but fine on total carbs. I’ve been trying SO hard to cut out all carbs. I had never heard of net carbs in my life

[Fruno]

Hi guys. Just a quick question. I bought chicken legs from the grocery store and how the heck am I supposed to track it on my app or st all if there’s no nutrition label on it. Same as if I went to the butcher. W that do you guys do??

Don’t use an app You can eat all the meat you want.

I never understood why someone would need an app. After all we’re very different, some people need to stay below 20g carbs to stay in ketosis, other people can eat 50g without problems. IMO it’s much better to get a ketone meter and check your ketone levels from time to time.

when they reckon to lose weight I mist eat under 1434 calories a day

I’m sorry but that’s total bs. You can eat 3000 calories a day and will lose weight if you have weight to lose, if you eat the right stuff. Never, ever trust an app that counts calories or even tries to enforce calorie limits. Just hit “uninstall”. And don’t care too much about a couple of pounds on the scale.

[Bubby1]

Hi guys. Just a quick question. I bought chicken legs from the grocery store and how the heck am I supposed to track it on my app or st all if there’s no nutrition label on it. Same as if I went to the butcher. W that do you guys do??

Don’t use an app You can eat all the meat you want.

I never understood why someone would need an app. After all we’re very different, some people need to stay below 20g carbs to stay in ketosis, other people can eat 50g without problems. IMO it’s much better to get a ketone meter and check your ketone levels from time to time.

when they reckon to lose weight I mist eat under 1434 calories a day

I’m sorry but that’s total bs. You can eat 3000 calories a day and will lose weight if you have weight to lose, if you eat the right stuff. Never, ever trust an app that counts calories or even tries to enforce calorie limits. Just hit “uninstall”. And don’t care too much about a couple of pounds on the scale.

Yes I’m getting sick of it. Stupid thing saying I eat too much protein when I literally don’t eat much at all. And the net carb thing just astounds me. I’ve been keeping my total carbs at like 6 grams a day. The lifestyle is great, the App with all its percentages ect is driving me mad.

[Erevehc]

Aimee - it’s ok if tracking isn’t for you. I tracked a single day my entire Ten ish months on keto so far. I check my blood glucose and ketones once in a while just to make sure I’m doing ok or to get back on track after a slightly higher carb day. I lost all 40 pounds I wanted to. You gotta do whatever is most sustainable for you.

[Bubby1]

I think I’ll just do it until I know what my body needs. It’s just handy counting the carbs. I could always turn the calorie option off. I too should buy a is gone reader but might wait a bit as I’m just two weeks in as of today.

[Shinita]

Chicken legs are easy. I eat mutton now. After I cut some of the big amount of fat off. Not the vaguest idea about its fat content I can’t track if I eat like this. I still try but the numbers aren’t reliable if I eat much meat. I have a bit similar problem with pork chuck. I eat the fatty parts and my SO eats the leaner parts (and of course, two chunks of chuck isn’t the same anyway).
Oh well I am curious but it’s not like my tracking has much effect on my weight. I still need to eat little enough calories to lose (it’s proven on my original style of keto), my body isn’t magical or wasteful (and it loves this state but I don’t and I am right) but I do that with eating satiating food AND not eating not satiating food. I don’t need to worry about carbs in carnivore, my protein will be high anyway so tracking isn’t required. I am just very curious and now tracking is super simple anyway, I eat almost the same few items every day.
But tracking isn’t nice. It’s even pretty bad for many. It’s way better to find a good woe where you automatically eat well. I am tend to overeat, it’s very strong in my life. No tracking helps as I eat when I am hungry but lowering my carbs did. Eventually.

Many food items are tricky. I saw many people worrying about chicken with or without skin, what if there’s a fatty meat piece and some of the fat gets out… It’s quite insane to me at that point, definitely not nice and healthy. Well, measuring 19 times for a vegetable soup wasn’t a healthy thing either… And it was one little dish in a single meal… I got some interesting data sometimes and learned a few things about my satiation and eating abilities. Sometimes it’s useful to see the impressive macros of some little snack. Sometimes we are worrying about protein. Or carbs, I almost always was just below my ketosis carb limit. Tracking has its use but it’s best if one has a woe where it’s not needed at all. I think it’s most useful in the very beginning, to see if you eat enough or something. Then you eat similarly or trust your body and hopefully it will be fine.

It’s a complex topic and different people has different opinions of it, of course.

[kingfisher]

I’m sorry but that’s total bs. You can eat 3000 calories a day and will lose weight if you have weight to lose, if you eat the right stuff. Never, ever trust an app that counts calories or even tries to enforce calorie limits. Just hit “uninstall”. And don’t care too much about a couple of pounds on the scale.

I was away at a music event for nearly a week and ate around 5000-7000kcal per day and was lighter the morning after coming home than I was the morning I left to go there. I ate mainly meat and sour cream the whole time.
Last year I ate less and put on 1kg per day there.
ps; I don’t track, just check BG, scales and how my clothes fit to make sure I’m still on track.

[PaulL]

It says I got 4g net carbs for the whole day. All the other food on there didn’t show up in the photo. Yes its friggin confusing as hell when they reckon to lose weight I mist eat under 1434 calories a day.

I often think that tracking is more trouble than it’s worth, especially if you are using an app intended to be used on the standard American diet.

For a well-formulated ketogenic diet, the basics are easy to achieve: keep your carbohydrate intake low, under 20 g/day; eat between 1.0 and 2.0 g of protein a day per kilogram of lean body mass (an ounce of pretty much any meat contains more or less 7 g of protein); and satisfy your hunger with fat. Most people eat the right amount of protein without even thinking about it, so the only real challenge is keeping carb intake low enough so that our insulin level stays low and all the good things can happen.

On a ketogenic diet we worry more about too few calories than we do about too many. Even though insulin is low, and the body is free to metabolise stored fat, it will still hang on to stored fat if it thinks there is a famine going on. And the signal of famine is reduced calories. An abundance of calories convinces the body that it’s safe to let go of its reserves, and the way to make sure we eat enough food is to eat to satisfy our hunger. In other words, we don’t eat until we’re hungry, we eat until our hunger is satisfied, and when we stop being hungry, we stop eating. This works in a low-carb way of eating, because low insulin allows the body’s hunger and satiety hormones to work properly again, so that our appetite becomes a reliable guide to how much to eat. Just as the body reduces the metabolic rate to compensate for restricted calories, it increases the metabolic rate to compensate for the abundance that comes from eating to satiety.