Struggling to hit protein goal

GrannyMayOz

Hoping someone may be able to come up with a suggestion or two to help me reach my protein goal each day please?

I'm becoming happy with my grasp of Carbs and Fats and am hitting (mostly) the calorie goal that I want as well each day. But almost every day I am short for protein.

Do you think I'm OK for protein as I am? Or if not, how do I get extra protein without blowing the calories out?

My diary should be viewable with the pass key HelpPlease if anyone is able to assist me.

I can't eat beef, lamb, pork steaks, 'exotic meats' (rabbit, goat, kangaroo or who knows what), or most organ meat. I do eat eggs, cheese, fish, prawns (shrimp), chicken, and also bacon or peperoni as long as they are really well cooked/crispy. And all of the cream under 'drinks' is cream in my coffee. I drink either cold, purified water (plenty of it, which I don't bother logging) or coffee with cream.

Many thanks in advance!
May

eatsyork

You really need to hit your protein goals if you are lowering your carbohydrate intake to ketogenic levels. There are a few select parts of your body that NEED glucose. Since you aren't eating it your body will manufacture it from protein through gluconeogenesis. If you don't eat enough protein your body will break down your muscle tissue for the protein substrate to make the glucose. The less muscle you have the less calories you burn which is counter productive.

To get the protein in you could get a protein powder. Most have 20 - 30 grams per scoop. Whey protein or egg protein are among the most easily absorbed and widely available.

sljohnson1207

Stats, please? Height, weight, activity level. I am wondering why your protein goal is 120 g. That seems pretty high to me, but I don't know anything about you.

GrannyMayOz

eatsyork wrote: »

You really need to hit your protein goals if you are lowering your carbohydrate intake to ketogenic levels. There are a few select parts of your body that NEED glucose. Since you aren't eating it your body will manufacture it from protein through gluconeogenesis. If you don't eat enough protein your body will break down your muscle tissue for the protein substrate to make the glucose. The less muscle you have the less calories you burn which is counter productive.

To get the protein in you could get a protein powder. Most have 20 - 30 grams per scoop. Whey protein or egg protein are among the most easily absorbed and widely available.

Thank you eatsyork, that's really helpful and I will do my best - soon!

GrannyMayOz

sljohnson1207 wrote: »

Stats, please? Height, weight, activity level. I am wondering why your protein goal is 120 g. That seems pretty high to me, but I don't know anything about you.

I'm 58, female. Been overweight ever since the age of 11 to one degree or another. Hit 'goal weight' a few times through tight calorie restriction but it never lasted, of course

I'm 5' 5" tall and weigh 87 kgs which is 191 lbs. For exercise, usually 3 times a week, I either walk long distances (at least an hour at a good pace) or go on the treadmill for 30 minutes alternating jogging with walking. I play music and walk one song, then jog the next, etc etc. Either way I burn between 800 and 1500 calories a week with those.

I would be very happy if I didn't need to reach that much protein, it seems a lot to me too, but I got it from the Keto Calculator on reddit so I'm guessing it's not too far wrong.

sweetteadrinker2

That seems high to me as a protein goal, regardless of calculator, you're active for sure but not really doing a ton for muscles. If You want a premade shake premier protein is pretty tasty.

GrannyMayOz

sweetteadrinker2 wrote: »

That seems high to me as a protein goal, regardless of calculator, you're active for sure but not really doing a ton for muscles. If You want a premade shake premier protein is pretty tasty.

Thank you sweetteadrinker. I'm really hoping it's a higher goal than I actually need and I can reduce it a bit. I'm making between 60 and 80 grams most days without trouble,

I'm in Australia so I'll have to ask around about premade protein shakes, I haven't heard of those before. I do have some protein powder, it's just what to mix it with. I'm guessing almond milk at this stage without research

sbom1

GrannyMayOz wrote: »

Hoping someone may be able to come up with a suggestion or two to help me reach my protein goal each day please?

I'm becoming happy with my grasp of Carbs and Fats and am hitting (mostly) the calorie goal that I want as well each day. But almost every day I am short for protein.

Do you think I'm OK for protein as I am? Or if not, how do I get extra protein without blowing the calories out?

My diary should be viewable with the pass key HelpPlease if anyone is able to assist me.

I can't eat beef, lamb, pork steaks, 'exotic meats' (rabbit, goat, kangaroo or who knows what), or most organ meat. I do eat eggs, cheese, fish, prawns (shrimp), chicken, and also bacon or peperoni as long as they are really well cooked/crispy. And all of the cream under 'drinks' is cream in my coffee. I drink either cold, purified water (plenty of it, which I don't bother logging) or coffee with cream.

Many thanks in advance!
May

How about some extra egg whites thrown in with regular scrambled eggs? I think there is about 5 grams protein in a 3 TBSP serving of EggBeaters liquid Egg Whites (or whatever you have there in Australia)

GrannyMayOz

sbom1 wrote: »

How about some extra egg whites thrown in with regular scrambled eggs? I think there is about 5 grams protein in a 3 TBSP serving of EggBeaters liquid Egg Whites (or whatever you have there in Australia)

Oh, that's an idea sbom, thank you. I've seen boxes of frozen egg whites at the supermarket, I'll investigate those and make sure they haven't had any extra ingredients added.

eatsyork

I punched your info into a calculator just for fun and it suggested 100 g protein, 20 g carbs, 124 g fat at 1600 cals (25/5/70 ratios).

april731

I've been reading a lot about protein and ketogenic diets and rethinking how much I actually need. If you read Jimmy Moore's blog (the guy who co-wrote Keto Clarity), he actually reduced his protein during his year-long "n=1" experiment - the recap is here: carbsmart.com/my-5-low-carb-mistakes-and-how-nutritional-ketosis-rescued-me.html

Interestingly, excess protein is one of the causes of weight loss stalls. I've cut my protein down to 60-70g (from 100+; I'm 5'3"), the scale started moving again and I've been gaining lean mass, per my Aria scale body fat trend, so I'm thinking that I was probably a little high on the protein before even though I was within the range for all of the keto calculators I've checked.

Fat4Fuel2

I agree. 120g of protein is high for Keto. Try YouTube Stephanie Keto Person. She has some good information. I aim to eat 80% fat, 15% protein, 5% carbs. This comes to maybe 55g of protein a day. I'm 5'3", 25 years old, and I work out a lot.

eatsyork

I think Jimmy Moore is great. I enjoy his podcasts and he has had fantastic results in his weight loss. I was a little concerned about his crusade against gluconeogenisis when he came out with it, though. 12% protein is low even for someone not following a ketogenic diet. When you consider that you need some glucose and you aren't eating any then you obviously need to get it from additional protein. Your body can produce a very small amount from glycerol from fat but not generally enough. 10 - 15% might work for some people depending on activity level but I worry about the long term sustainability. What can sustain us and what is optimal is not always the same. From my non-scientific observations many of the people who advocate 10 - 15% protein are not models of high fitness. Many people who advocate 25 - 30% are ripped to shreds.

april731

That's interesting, eatsyork; I love learning about this stuff! I do think you can go overboard at either extreme. 60-70g is 20-25% of my calories and most days I go over that a little bit; I think I've found my "sweet spot," for now at least. I was in a weight loss plateau at 100g protein, and it was when I dropped the protein a bit and focused more on adding fat calories that the weight loss started again. But I think much of this is trial and error to find what works best for each individual.

GrannyMayOz

Thank you all so much for your very helpful input, and your time and caring too!

@eatsyork – yes, those were the figures I came out with too. Yet since I’ve adjusted my food to that (and increased my salt ‘as per instructions’) I’ve put *on* weight, and my stomach is fatter. I measure my stomach ‘at rest’/ as well as pulled in to prevent cheating there When I was eating higher fat and higher calories with 50g to 60g protein I was losing. It’s a bit tricky to find the magic formula isn’t it? Early days for me yet, but obviously it would be lovely to be losing even a little. I am now only half a kilo (1 lb) under my starting weight 15 days ago, yet I’d been down 2 kgs (4½ lbs). I’m not giving up. I enjoy stats and thinking games, but I sure hope I find the answer soon “What can sustain us and what is optimal is not always the same´ Very wise words eatsyork! And “From my non-scientific observations many of the people who advocate 10 - 15% protein are not models of high fitness. Many people who advocate 25 - 30% are ripped to shreds.” Oh heck, I didn’t want to know that

@april731 – thank you so much for that link and the information. I’ll read that this evening after my husband goes to work. Maybe I do have quite low needs for protein, I’m older (58) after all. I’ve always been very strong and gain muscle easily but have neglected strength training in the past year. Maybe it’s time to ramp that back up again, as I keep intending to If I can ask, April, how much weight do you need to lose? Maybe we, April and May, can compare our data on our Carb, Fat, Protein intakes and our results? If you would like to. Maybe post on this thread at the end of each day and report our weight/measurements if and when we take them? I weigh daily for the sake of scientific enquiry, and measure my tummy once a week, but I’m beyond menopause so there are no fluctuations involved for me.

@sshepro – I had been aiming for various goals as I read different information over this past 15 days. I’d started aiming for 80g but then upped it to 100g. I have only once reached 100g, more often getting to 60 or 70g. It’s since I’ve been aiming higher that the weight loss stalled and has now turned into weight gain so yup, I think I’m going to drop that goal and stick with the higher fat. I was enjoying the fat until I discovered a few days ago that I’m supposed to watch calorie intake as well and I was losing weight then. *Sigh* Why is nothing black and white? LOL I have come across Stephanie Person, she’s incredible ‘full stop’ (or ‘period’ in American) but I was stunned when she gave her age!

eatsyork

Yeah, for sure it's very individual. I wish there was one answer for everybody but I love that we can all get together on this forum and share ideas and experiences. Hopefully we'll all figure out what works best for us

fatchimom

Hey guys! I'm really new at this so please tell me where the formula comes from? I've just been doing my own thing and trying to do what I thought was best, but really not losing. I feel good and I don't have any weird cravings. Even going out is fairly easy for me. Suggestions?

GrannyMayOz

Thanks eatsyork, I totally agree. And I just saw the list of acronyms in another thread. Maybe I'm just suffering from PISS (Post-Induction Stall Syndrome). Laughing about that should see me through for a week or so

fatchimom wrote: »

Hey guys! I'm really new at this so please tell me where the formula comes from? I've just been doing my own thing and trying to do what I thought was best, but really not losing. I feel good and I don't have any weird cravings. Even going out is fairly easy for me. Suggestions?

I went to http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com and filled in all the little boxes to get my results. I found it really interesting, and it's good to base my goals on something 'official'. I lost almost 2 kgs (4 or 5 lbs) but have gone back up 1.5 kgs which is a bit disappointing. My stomach measurement has gone back up also. However, as you say, I feel good and that has to be worth something. It's Day 16 for me.

melyndavaz

I can't recall where I read it, but I know it was one of the Swedish keto sights, that women losing weight should stick to as close to 60g of protein a day. Going over 60 is supposed to lower the rate of weight loss.

GrannyMayOz

melyndavaz wrote: »

I can't recall where I read it, but I know it was one of the Swedish keto sights, that women losing weight should stick to as close to 60g of protein a day. Going over 60 is supposed to lower the rate of weight loss.

That's really helpful and encouraging Melyndavaz because I surely don't seem cut out for higher than that *and* I'm not losing weight. I'll reduce my target and see how I go. Thank you!