Cheat snack

bigmouthaj wrote: »

Sorry I ask so many questions. I’m new to this. About once a week I’ll have a sugary snack. Yesterday it was cocoa pebbles and today it’s a milk shake. They were both within my deficit so that’s fine. However I’m worried it’ll hinder my fat loss/muscle growth. I’ve been working out with weights trying to gain muscle. Any thoughts?

It's fine.

Especially if you're new to strength training, there's a potential to gain muscle while losing fat, but it's true that those goals are in tension: You're trying to lose weight (fat) while gaining weight (muscle). That's tricky, so there's an effect on probability.

No matter: At worst, you preserve more of your existing muscle, while losing fat. That's a win. And, if new to strength training, strength gain can be quite fast, even without muscle mass gain. What?!? Yes! Neuromuscular adaptation, better recruiting and using existing muscle fibers, happens even before gaining new muscle fibers. Even some appearance improvements can happen before gaining new muscle fibers. So, you're on a good path!

If you can balance happiness and satiation (feeling full) with nutrition, on your calorie goal, that's the magic point. It can take some experimentation, but you can achieve it. If cocoa pebbles and milkshakes get you there, nothing wrong with that.

Hang in there, keep lifting, keep hitting your calorie goal, and good things are going to happen, with patience and persistence. Go, you!

Asking questions got me to goal. Please ask questions. For every question you ask, there’s a hundred lurkers afraid to ask, so you’re helping the community at large.

Not a cereal fan, but I don’t know if I’d even count Cocoa Pebbles as a sugary treat. It’d be….. breakfast. Not a particularly valuable one in terms of nutrition but certainly nothing to expend worry on, if you’re still in your calorie limits.

I loooove sweets. I build my day around them. Only, they’re replacement sweets now. Fruit, sugar free products.

Breakfast this morning is own-recipe lemon pancakes. Lots of nice protein and, pancakes, dammit!!!! I brush a little Trader Joe’s lemon curd on them and roll them up to eat. It fools my mind into “this is a treat” mode because they are finger food and really are delicious to boot.

Instead of a milk shake, how about a doppelgänger that’s healthy? I’ve been splitting a smoothie with my husband the past few afternoons: Greek yogurt, plain silk cashew milk, a banana, some zero calorie waffle cone syrup, a tsp of instant coffee, a tsp cacao powder, a squirt of vanilla, and about six cups of ice, pulverized til smooth. Its 125 calories apiece for about 5 cups each of smooth creamy joy. No, it’s not a CookOut shake, but it’s very satisfying.

Fruit. I have a bowl of fruit, balsamic, a sprinkle of grape nuts and cottage cheese every afternoon. If you offered me anything else to eat, I’d turn it down these days.

I keep a bag of cherries in the fridge and filch a few several times a day. The one food I don’t log, lol. Cherry season is fleeting and should be enjoyed to the max.

An apple or pear baked in the oven with a sprinkle of cinnamon is low cal and delish.

Dessert is Greek yogurt whipped with sugar free pudding mix. Canned whipped cream has few calories.

Salads get doused in zero calorie Walden Farms Honey Mustard dressing, or a nice blueberry balsamic.

Even my roasted meats are often sweetened with a crust of marmalade and herbs de Provence, vidalia relish, or plum chutney.

Beef jerky! Yum! Especially the sweeter teriyaki variety.

Lovely thick sweet spicy chai tea? Twice a day! (Btw good quality cinnamon goes a long way towards helping sugar cravings. I recommend Frontier brand’s Vietnamese cinnamon.)

I was the Queen of Sugar. I’m still the Queen of Sweets. I just figured out a way to make it work for me.

Your calories will go much, much further if you think outside the box you’ve been in the past umpteen decades.

I like applesauce as a snack