High Fat diet

danaberge

and bc no one has mentioned it yet - search for the sexypants thread and READ IT. i'm pretty sure there is a link to a setting macros thread in there as well. READ that too.

I have stumbled across the sexypants thread.. and will re-read. I will also loook for the macros thread. I'm eating a lot of veggies (which is the main ingredient) in most (if not all) of the dinners I eat.

I also to try to eat a salad every day. This is where the natural dressing happens and high fat with olive oil. However, I find that the real thing is just so much better than the fat free and light italian that I can't deny myself. This is long-term for me. Not a diet. It a new way of life.

StaciMarie1974

Amen!

Personally I can do 2% cheese in recipes/salads. I'm good with most 'light' varieties of things like mayo, dressing. Not too big on most fat free options. And most fat-free options have higher sugar, so you really have to look at the big picture.

Lately I've been on a blue cheese kick. Blue cheese crumbled over spinach, maybe some tomatoes and cucumbers, and a little bit of Italian dressing: YUM.

I eat a decent amount. Just feel like I'm making fairly better choices overall. And avoiding mindless eating, which is never particularly useful.

This is long-term for me. Not a diet. It a new way of life.

sympha01

The talk about eating too many carbs or your carb-to-fat ratio is crankery / extremism / zealotry. If you haven't personally chosen a low-carb plan or been told by a doctor you have a specific medical condition requiring you to go low-carb, it's perfectly safe to ignore it.

Also, <1500 calories per day is NOT eating too much to lose weight, especially given that your profile suggests your goal is to lose quite a lot of weight over the long term, so your BMR and TDEE are likely quite high. Frankly, suggesting you should eat less is craziness. I eat 1900 per day, been at this over a year, and metabolic slowdown be damned but I STILL lose 2 lbs a week -- though I do exercise quite a bit. If you're measuring your portions accurately and logging faithfully your target is not too high. (With the caveat that people who don't measure their portions properly may very well be eating more than they think -- it's easy to do -- and might as well target less for a cushion).

Regarding what you're eating. It looks to me like your fat intake was fine until the last few days. It's a ::little:: higher than the conventional advice generally suggests, and again that conventional advice suggests that less of your fat should be coming from full-fat dairy because cheese and half-and-half have higher amounts of saturated fat. There's some recent research questioning whether saturated fat is really bad for you, but I think that research raises (good) questions rather than comes down firmly proving that you can eat butter by the stick etc. without consequence. You could make some changes by eating a bit less cheese (note that I'm not saying "stop eating cheese." Cheese is delicious and good for you in moderation. Eat it! Just less maybe). Judging by your diary you're not a "clean eating" zealot so I'll also suggest nonfat creamer instead of half and half. The creamer alone would make a big difference in bringing that marginal extra fat down (half and half is contributing 10 grams of fat to your diet every day, which is like 12% of your fat total. That's a lot. ) and would help you with saturated fat. Do that and seriously? Bang, you're done.

Ultimately calories matter more than macros. And while you'll want to get good nutrition -- particularly while eating at a deficit -- you'll know best what kind of food makes your body feel good; everybody is different. I'm of a generation that was trained to avoid fats religiously, and I had to LEARN that eating a little more fat made my body feel better. It's very easy for me, when I'm dieting, to make the mistake of eating way too little fat, and that makes me feel like crap. For me, getting 25-30% of my calories from fat seems to be the sweet spot, which turns out to be in line with the conventional medical wisdom.

But if you are finding that being more active is "making you crave" fat, you might want to question that. Intense exercise -- for most people -- is more likely to cause carb cravings because exercise tends to burn away your body's very limited carb stores really fast. For many other people -- including myself -- exercise makes their bodies demand MOAR PROTEINS instead. When I started exercising more I learned upon experimentation that adding more protein to my diet made me feel tons better (less muscle soreness, more endurance, general better sense of wellbeing). I've never actually heard of exercising making someone specifically crave fats -- is it possible it just makes you HONGRY and you happen to like fatty foods so that's what you put in your mouth first? Because if that's the case you might just want to make an effort to explore new foods that are a bit healthier and better at helping you meet your nutritional goals than pirate's booty and corn chips. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of indulgences like that, but you might want to get your overall nutrition lined up first.

One of the weirdly great things about long-term dieting for me was learning to experiment. I ended up discovering foods I'd never tried before but learned to love (why, hello, roasted chickpeas!). There are a lot of tips floating around the forums for snacks that are high in protein and/or fiber, that are extremely satiating, good for post-workout, whatever.

danaberge

The talk about eating too many carbs or your carb-to-fat ratio is crankery / extremism / zealotry. If you haven't personally chosen a low-carb plan or been told by a doctor you have a specific medical condition requiring you to go low-carb, it's perfectly safe to ignore it.

Also, <1500 calories per day is NOT eating too much to lose weight, especially given that your profile suggests your goal is to lose quite a lot of weight over the long term, so your BMR and TDEE are likely quite high. Frankly, suggesting you should eat less is craziness. I eat 1900 per day, been at this over a year, and metabolic slowdown be damned but I STILL lose 2 lbs a week -- though I do exercise quite a bit. If you're measuring your portions accurately and logging faithfully your target is not too high. (With the caveat that people who don't measure their portions properly may very well be eating more than they think -- it's easy to do -- and might as well target less for a cushion).

Regarding what you're eating. It looks to me like your fat intake was fine until the last few days. It's a ::little:: higher than the conventional advice generally suggests, and again that conventional advice suggests that less of your fat should be coming from full-fat dairy because cheese and half-and-half have higher amounts of saturated fat. There's some recent research questioning whether saturated fat is really bad for you, but I think that research raises (good) questions rather than comes down firmly proving that you can eat butter by the stick etc. without consequence. You could make some changes by eating a bit less cheese (note that I'm not saying "stop eating cheese." Cheese is delicious and good for you in moderation. Eat it! Just less maybe). Judging by your diary you're not a "clean eating" zealot so I'll also suggest nonfat creamer instead of half and half. The creamer alone would make a big difference in bringing that marginal extra fat down (half and half is contributing 10 grams of fat to your diet every day, which is like 12% of your fat total. That's a lot. ) and would help you with saturated fat. Do that and seriously? Bang, you're done.

Ultimately calories matter more than macros. And while you'll want to get good nutrition -- particularly while eating at a deficit -- you'll know best what kind of food makes your body feel good; everybody is different. I'm of a generation that was trained to avoid fats religiously, and I had to LEARN that eating a little more fat made my body feel better. It's very easy for me, when I'm dieting, to make the mistake of eating way too little fat, and that makes me feel like crap. For me, getting 25-30% of my calories from fat seems to be the sweet spot, which turns out to be in line with the conventional medical wisdom.

But if you are finding that being more active is "making you crave" fat, you might want to question that. Intense exercise -- for most people -- is more likely to cause carb cravings because exercise tends to burn away your body's very limited carb stores really fast. For many other people -- including myself -- exercise makes their bodies demand MOAR PROTEINS instead. When I started exercising more I learned upon experimentation that adding more protein to my diet made me feel tons better (less muscle soreness, more endurance, general better sense of wellbeing). I've never actually heard of exercising making someone specifically crave fats -- is it possible it just makes you HONGRY and you happen to like fatty foods so that's what you put in your mouth first? Because if that's the case you might just want to make an effort to explore new foods that are a bit healthier and better at helping you meet your nutritional goals than pirate's booty and corn chips. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of indulgences like that, but you might want to get your overall nutrition lined up first.

One of the weirdly great things about long-term dieting for me was learning to experiment. I ended up discovering foods I'd never tried before but learned to love (why, hello, roasted chickpeas!). There are a lot of tips floating around the forums for snacks that are high in protein and/or fiber, that are extremely satiating, good for post-workout, whatever.

I have been working on over all nutrition. I eat quest bars for breakfast which have tons of fiber and protein for the morning. Then I do indulge and am not perfect (far from it) nutritionally.
I am specifically craving cheese.
So instead of going crazy for regular pizza I have been grill zucchini or eggplant on the grill and adding cheese and sauce and feeling very full.

I need to get back to baking/grilling and sauteing chicken... but I was chickened out after a few months of that.

Thanks for your reply!!

mactaffy84

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The point being pretty much everyone who is losing weight is getting a lot of fat in their diet :-)
[/quote]

Ummm, no. You don't have to have a lot of fat in your diet to lose weight.

AliceDark

Everyone has a different macro ratio that suits their body and lifestyle the best. Carbs aren't the devil, just like fat's not the devil (even though in the 80s, everyone thought fat was awful and all you saw everywhere was low-fat this and fat-free that). You can try 40/30/30 to see if it works for you, but you don't have to. Stick with 50/30/20 if that's been working! My point is, feel free to play around with your macros and figure out what works for you.

RAWR_ImaDinosaur

I will say this, to the "it's not for me right now" sentiment. I totally understand that and I get where your coming from. But I will say that I started keto my freshman year of college when I was (and still am) on a meal plan in an incredibly lackluster dining hall. You would be surprised how easy it is once you just commit to it. That said, a lot of little things will help you. Cutting out diet coke for one, is huge. Diet flavored sparkling water is really great and super cheap at walmart. Switching from iceberg lettuce to a darker leafy green as others have mentioned . Just a few things to keep in mind

sympha01

I am specifically craving cheese.
So instead of going crazy for regular pizza I have been grill zucchini or eggplant on the grill and adding cheese and sauce and feeling very full.

Your cheese craving may not be a craving for fat, but a craving for protein. (I sometimes use cheese to bring my protein levels up a bit). Your diet is rather lower in protein than you typically see among people on long-term calorie restricted diets. Overall if there were one thing about your nutritional plan I'd suggest changing it would be to shift some of your calories from fat to protein. Eating more protein may soothe the craving beast.

Just my two cents. Again, everyone is different. I thought it was worth pointing out because a year ago I ate like you did and thought I was getting PLENTY of protein, and kind of learned through experimentation that NO, more protein made me feel AWESOME as well as less hungry / run down.

sympha01

The point being pretty much everyone who is losing weight is getting a lot of fat in their diet :-)

Ummm, no. You don't have to have a lot of fat in your diet to lose weight.

Ummm no, he maybe shouldn't have used the phrase "in diet" because that ::should:: mean "ingested," but if you read his whole comment carefully I think what he meant is that everyone who is losing weight is METABOLIZING a lot of fat -- from their bodies. Which is *mostly* true with the exception of absurdly lean malnourished/starving/anorexic people.

SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish

I'm not trying to do paleo or any other carb cycle or anything like that. I have considered it and feel the it is unattainable (RIGHT NOW) not to say that I would not give these a try in the future.

I read a little bit about ketosis... and i'm not aiming for that either. I guess - from someone on basic "healthy" lifestyle - having a high fat diet is okay???

I should be eating cheese and olive oil? It's not going to kill me???

This is better than fast food!! I'm not ready to give up bread - there - I admit it. I'm just not going to right now.

Yup, better than fast food, and your deficit is good, what the other poster said about lowering calories is really nonsense and would probably make you lose too fast and binge later after feeling deprived a while. You also cannot recommend calorie amounts without knowing height, and I assume you are already set to losing 2lbs per week and have entered your stats correctly and know that you are sometimes going over which does slow progress...which actually strengthens the idea you should not lower your calories at all, if you have problems controlling now, you would have more then. People will all advocate their favorite ways to eat to lose, it doesn't mean its what you have to do. Taking suggestions adding other vegetables in is good, ignore the rest if it doesn't suit you.

If you have no medical condition to prohibit it, cheese and olive oil is not only not going to kill you, but the olive oil can even be beneficial, as long as its all fit in to your calorie goal.

Just like the diet advice, you do not need to take any specific macro percent advice there is no one "right" set, what you have it at is fine, but protein increase can be beneficial if you start to do lifting, and to preserve muscle mass in theory. However, your numbers for protein are all adequate for the days I looked at (unless you are very tall with a lot of muscle).

Really the only strongly supported thing to change (knowing what little I see about you) would be to increase vegetables. Knocking out breads/carbs as much as possible can be useful as a calorie reduction strategy (unless you have a condition), I use it for that sometimes myself, but if you don't want to, don't. I would not touch Splenda myself, but the health risk is not high, and you probably have to eat a ton to have any ill effect in many years (if any), so its up to you, if it makes the difference of you being able to lose weight to not losing weight without it, its definitely worth using since the risks of being obese are huge.

It actually looks like you are doing pretty good on everything, and losing weight, just keep up the good work and think about adding a few veg, take the rest with a grain of salt!

danaberge

I am specifically craving cheese.
So instead of going crazy for regular pizza I have been grill zucchini or eggplant on the grill and adding cheese and sauce and feeling very full.

Your cheese craving may not be a craving for fat, but a craving for protein. (I sometimes use cheese to bring my protein levels up a bit). Your diet is rather lower in protein than you typically see among people on long-term calorie restricted diets. Overall if there were one thing about your nutritional plan I'd suggest changing it would be to shift some of your calories from fat to protein. Eating more protein may soothe the craving beast.

Just my two cents. Again, everyone is different. I thought it was worth pointing out because a year ago I ate like you did and thought I was getting PLENTY of protein, and kind of learned through experimentation that NO, more protein made me feel AWESOME as well as less hungry / run down.

I am going to be doing this. I have a grill at work now - so instead of my grilled eggplant sandwiches with bread i'm going to be grilling chicken. I hope it makes the difference. Thank you all for the advice!!