Low Carb, So How Much Protein and Fat?

Ape X

Hi everyone.

I hate to have to admit this, but I'm a morbidly obese man. I've recently started a new eating regime, tracking my daily calories on MyFitnessPal.com and it's been going quite well (down 6 kilos in 3 weeks!).

Part of my plan is to try and cut down on carbs, so I've eliminated spuds, bread, pasta etc from my diet. My question though, is which should I be eating more of to compensate; protein or fat? I'm getting my protein currently from eggs, fish, chicken and lean red meat. My fat intake is mostly coming from nuts, Greek yoghurt, olive oil, butter and the eggs.

So is there a ratio of fat : protein I should be going for, or does it not matter so long as I'm eating healthy whole foods 95% of the time?

FYI, I'm 37, male, 1.9m tall, and weight 154kg. Thank you very much for any feedback!

ApeXaviour

is which should I be eating more of to compensate; protein or fat?

The general answer here is protein, especially for your goals. Though I would set an absolute upper limit of ~250g per day for you.

So is there a ratio of fat : protein I should be going for, or does it not matter so long as I'm eating healthy whole foods 95% of the time?

Once you're getting a minimum of both the ratio doesn't matter so much. As I said in general higher protein tends to lead to more successful fat-loss. Your fat sources seem good by the way.

johnfaul

The first few things i would reccommend would be;
1 - cut out all fizzy drinks, sweets, desserts, butter, pastries treats, takeaways etc
2 - drink lots of water
3 - eat more salads e.g with an avocado or some olive oil no heavy dressings
Try this and I can guarantee the weight will fall off.
I wouldnt reccommend a low carb diet starting off try this first.

Ape X

ApeXaviour wrote: »

The general answer here is protein, especially for your goals. Though I would set an absolute upper limit of ~250g per day for you.

Once you're getting a minimum of both the ratio doesn't matter so much. As I said in general higher protein tends to lead to more successful fat-loss. Your fat sources seem good by the way.

Thanks ApeXaviour. First off, I wasn't trying to rip off your user name

Secondly, I'll have to re-evaluate my diet. I'm eating protein at every meal, but according to MFP I'm only getting on average 120-130g of protein a day. Will see what I can change so as to add more protein without adding more calories.

Jose1

Well done mate!

http://www.the-gi-diet.org/lowgifoods/

Hope this helps;)

vard

Ape X wrote: »

Hi everyone.

I hate to have to admit this, but I'm a morbidly obese man. I've recently started a new eating regime, tracking my daily calories on MyFitnessPal.com and it's been going quite well (down 6 kilos in 3 weeks!).

Part of my plan is to try and cut down on carbs, so I've eliminated spuds, bread, pasta etc from my diet. My question though, is which sho uld I be eating more of to compensate; protein or fat? I'm getting my protein currently from eggs, fish, chicken and lean red meat. My fat intake is mostly coming from nuts, Greek yoghurt, olive oil, butter and the eggs.

So is there a ratio of fat : protein I should be going for, or does it not matter so long as I'm eating healthy whole foods 95% of the time?

FYI, I'm 37, male, 1.9m tall, and weight 154kg. Thank you very much for any feedback!

Fair play. Hope all continues to go well for you.

If you are counting calories wisely you don't need to cut carbs at all - although it might be easier to maintain a high protein diet, I grant you.

Myfitnesspal do a very good app for counting, in case you have an applicable smartphone. I'd recommend it.

How are you exercising out of interest? Walking / running, etc.

ApeXaviour

Ape X wrote: »

Secondly, I'll have to re-evaluate my diet. I'm eating protein at every meal, but according to MFP I'm only getting on average 120-130g of protein a day. Will see what I can change so as to add more protein without adding more calories.

That's not terrible. What's your average calorie deficit? Actually what's your total daily caloric intake out of interest?

For most people, the higher deficit you're running the more protein you should be getting (to keep feeling full and to maintain as much lean body mass as possible)... but if you push that towards its limit it starts to become a bit stupid in terms of macro ratios and hence food choices. Let's say hypothetically you were pushing it down to an extreme 1000kcals per day, you'd want to be eating almost pure protein... tuna, chicken breast, it's not a fun diet. Going up to 1500 kcals you don't need quite as much protein, 150-200 g is adequate, and everything starts tasting nicer.

Oh by the way, my favourite high protein diet meal is taco salad. Tesco 95% lean mince, fried and add taco seasoning (I'd make up 1.5kg of it at a time and refridgerate). Bed of leaves on a big plate (baby spinach usually for me), about 200g of your cooked mince, spoon or two of salsa, pickled sliced jalapenos, spoon or two of yoghurt. Depending on your goals:flavour ratio you can crush a taco shell on top and/or grate some half-fat cheddar.

Another delicious thing my flatmate does that's a bit easier. Tenderloin pork (or pork steak, looks like this, vacuum packed long cylindrical lump of boneless meat), it's a very tender and stupidly lean cut of pork, leaner than chicken breast, and quite a decent price. Cut it in two and rub in salt and thyme. 170 degrees in the oven for 50 minutes. Delicious stuff, but doesn't store in the fridge well... it's passable the next day but not nearly as mouth-watering as fresh out of the oven... so you'd either share it or what my flatmate does is have it as his main meal (~600g of meat before cooking... about 120g protein). He does IF (intermittent fasting), only has two meals a day so his meals are gigantic.


.

traco

Ape X, well done on getting so far. Heres a few things that might help.

Cut your daily carbs to around 100g per day, you will feel like crap for several days when you do this but soldier through. Calculate your protein intake based on 1g per lb of lean body mass and then get the balance of your daily calorie needs from good fats.

You can alter the targets for myfitnesspal by logging into the website and customising settings, it's will let you do a % breakdown but you'll be able to get it close enough to match the grams of carbs, protein and fat that you need.

I've linked a post below that I put up. It has a spreadsheet in it where you can mess around with the figures to calculate what you need to hit your goals. Take the long term approach and stick with it. Think of it as a lifestyle change and not a diet. Don't get hung up on the scales, the mirror and setting up a log of your body measurements will mean much more in the long term.

Best of luck

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=77984740

Ape X

Jose1 wrote: »

Well done mate!

http://www.the-gi-diet.org/lowgifoods/

Hope this helps;)

It does, thanks!

vard wrote: »

Myfitnesspal do a very good app for counting, in case you have an applicable smartphone. I'd recommend it.

How are you exercising out of interest? Walking / running, etc.

Yeah, using the app on my Android. Very handy indeed! At the moment, exercise consists of 45 mins brisk walking every other day. When I lose a bit more, I'd like to have a go at the C25K program. On alternate days, I'm doing a simple bodyweight routine, as outlined here. Needless to say, starting at my weight, the push ups and pull ups are heavily assisted (no pun intended). These are temporary of course, and will be changed/replaced as the fat drops and my fitness grows

ApeXaviour wrote: »

That's not terrible. What's your average calorie deficit? Actually what's your total daily caloric intake out of interest?

For most people, the higher deficit you're running the more protein you should be getting (to keep feeling full and to maintain as much lean body mass as possible)... but if you push that towards its limit it starts to become a bit stupid in terms of macro ratios and hence food choices. Let's say hypothetically you were pushing it down to an extreme 1000kcals per day, you'd want to be eating almost pure protein... tuna, chicken breast, it's not a fun diet. Going up to 1500 kcals you don't need quite as much protein, 150-200 g is adequate, and everything starts tasting nicer.

Oh by the way, my favourite high protein diet meal is taco salad. Tesco 95% lean mince, fried and add taco seasoning (I'd make up 1.5kg of it at a time and refridgerate). Bed of leaves on a big plate (baby spinach usually for me), about 200g of your cooked mince, spoon or two of salsa, pickled sliced jalapenos, spoon or two of yoghurt. Depending on your goals:flavour ratio you can crush a taco shell on top and/or grate some half-fat cheddar.

Another delicious thing my flatmate does that's a bit easier. Tenderloin pork (or pork steak, looks like this, vacuum packed long cylindrical lump of boneless meat), it's a very tender and stupidly lean cut of pork, leaner than chicken breast, and quite a decent price. Cut it in two and rub in salt and thyme. 170 degrees in the oven for 50 minutes. Delicious stuff, but doesn't store in the fridge well... it's passable the next day but not nearly as mouth-watering as fresh out of the oven... so you'd either share it or what my flatmate does is have it as his main meal (~600g of meat before cooking... about 120g protein). He does IF (intermittent fasting), only has two meals a day so his meals are gigantic.

At the moment, I'm eating about 2400 calories per day (approx), so not sure where that leaves me in terms of protein requirements? Being on relatively low carb, is it fat or protein that would supply my energy needs?

Thanks for the taco recipe - LOVE Mexican food. Funnily enough, I bought some fresh spinach today. And yeah, pork steak is a favourite too. Have a few recipes knocking around here somewhere that I must dig up!

Thanks for all the replies by the way. I know there's a thanks system here on boards.ie, but I don't seem to have it - I'm guessing it has something to do with post count, in which case, I'll retroactively thank ye all

Edit: Sorry traco, I was taking an age to post, so missed your addition. I'll check out that spreadsheet now, cheers! I've done a bit of reading over at Mark's Daily Apple, so think I understand some of the concepts of eating "primal". One question though; how would I calculate my lean body mass? Would I have to get my BF percentage measured first?

And thanks again everyone for all the positive comments!

traco

No problem, I'm 6'4" so have a little on you in height and was 119kgs when I started, 18.75 stone. I got an initial bodyfat, 31%, from an online calculator, to be honest they are fairly rubbish but as a starting point its worth getting some sort of starting figure to calculate your lean mass.

Once you start to loose weight the online calculators become less valuable and if you start by taking body measurements, waist, stomach, hips, chest, thighs, biceps, calfs etc and log every 2 to 4 weeks you will see the results for real in tersm of your body changing which is more important than a number for the masses.

I've linked one below, make sure you hit your protein intake, set your carb target and get the balance in fats.

http://www.calculator.net/body-fat-calculator.html

Ape X

traco wrote: »

No problem, I'm 6'4" so have a little on you in height and was 119kgs when I started, 18.75 stone. I got an initial bodyfat, 31%, from an online calculator, to be honest they are fairly rubbish but as a starting point its worth getting some sort of starting figure to calculate your lean mass.

Once you start to loose weight the online calculators become less valuable and if you start by taking body measurements, waist, stomach, hips, chest, thighs, biceps, calfs etc and log every 2 to 4 weeks you will see the results for real in tersm of your body changing which is more important than a number for the masses.

I've linked one below, make sure you hit your protein intake, set your carb target and get the balance in fats.

http://www.calculator.net/body-fat-calculator.html

Thanks for that traco. I'm happy with the ratios I've set up now on MFP. If memory serves, the site will ask me if I want to change goals every time I lose ten pounds as well, so hopefully that will keep things progressing at a steady reasonable rate.

Thanks again everyone!

BurnsBrent

Morning meal is regarded as the most crucial meal of all the meals. Preferably, it should consist of certain foods low in fat plus containing more healthy proteins. Your protein absorption will need to keep on the whole day. The gastrointestinal system creates aminos by simply breaking the proteins, and additionally the body makes use of them to restore the muscle tissue and additionally cells, while keeping all of our body organs hydrated. Athletes are specially taking good care of the proteins along with the quantities these people ingest. It is because proteins assist them to grow powerful muscle tissues. For bodybuilders, some sort of high-protein morning meal is crucial.



Possibly the most effective protein source are eggs. The actual proteins included in chicken eggs are quite important since they fit in with the group of complete proteins. The particular proteins within eggs are afterward broken into aminos. The entire egg yolk is as well rather significant mainly because of the proteins, how much protein per day to lose weight[/URL], fats and also HDL cholesterol contained in it. We feel you actually don’t need to have any sort of recipes on how to prepare chicken eggs, since everybody is able to make a good omelet or perhaps boil eggs.


Mod note: 1st post and link to an external mag seems like a shill which breahces charter here, please read the charter, thanks

vard

It all comes down to what works best for you. Trial and error; find out what that is.

I don't tend to count carbs. All I count is calories - I allow myself as many carbs as I like while simply aiming to get a decent amount of protein in. Mid-week I aim to keep calories in check and avoid unnecessary sugars wherever possible, then come the weekend - or twice per week - I allow myself two days where I do and eat whatever I like. Very often that happens to be ice-cream or some other treat, and less often it might include a heavy night out drinking.

This is what works for me. At the moment I'm probably the most lean I've been in the past year.