Low carb and sugar, high protein meals!

Nothing wrong with carbs or sugar in moderation. Boneless skinless chicken breast or other lean meat. Eggs. Salad. Veggies. Sheet tray bakes with protein and veggies of your choice. Greek yogurts.

Sugar is VERY hard to keep low when you are actually tracking it! I learned that awhile back when I was trying to do low sugar. It is in so many things - things you wouldn't even expect!
1 easy way to cut down sugar is to read the labels. Seriously. 1 serving of something like a marinara sauce can have as much to 9 grams of sugar per serving. Same with sauces, dressings, things like that. The ketchup in my fridge has 4 gms per 1 tablespoon. That is nuts!

My go-to breakfast is 2 eggs, whatever veggie on hand, and a piece of toast. I am not a huge sweet-for-breakfast person, so I don't have much fruit that time of day, so my breakfast is high protein and decent carb. But I am picky and do not like a lot of things and am able to eat things over and over without getting too bored.

They are getting harder to find now, but the Body for Life recipes are great for high protein, low carb and sugar recipes. They have a turkey meatloaf that is awesome!!

BF: eggs and avocado or spinach, light(no sugar added) or greek yogurt and berries
Lunch: salad greens, tomato, cucumber with protein(chicken, lunch meat,cottage cheese, etc)
Dinner: meat, veg(cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, squash, onion, peppers, etc)

vlw80 wrote: »

Sugar is VERY hard to keep low when you are actually tracking it! I learned that awhile back when I was trying to do low sugar. It is in so many things - things you wouldn't even expect!
1 easy way to cut down sugar is to read the labels. Seriously. 1 serving of something like a marinara sauce can have as much to 9 grams of sugar per serving. Same with sauces, dressings, things like that. The ketchup in my fridge has 4 gms per 1 tablespoon. That is nuts!

My go-to breakfast is 2 eggs, whatever veggie on hand, and a piece of toast. I am not a huge sweet-for-breakfast person, so I don't have much fruit that time of day, so my breakfast is high protein and decent carb. But I am picky and do not like a lot of things and am able to eat things over and over without getting too bored.

They are getting harder to find now, but the Body for Life recipes are great for high protein, low carb and sugar recipes. They have a turkey meatloaf that is awesome!!

Most nutritional authorities are going to draw a distinction between added sugar and inherent sugar. MFP tracks all types in one total. It's added sugars that mainstream nutritional authorities suggest we limit.

Yes, read labels.

My ketchup has 1g sugar, zero added. (It's from the tomatoes.) My brand of marinara has 6g sugar, zero added (mostly the tomatoes, maybe some from onions). Heck, plain skim milk has 12g of sugar, zero added . . . the cow put it in there.

If someone has a relevant health condition (such as diabetes), then managing total carbs/sugars may matter (there's some nuance). For those without a relevant health condition, it may be of concern if eating so much carbs/sugar that it drives out needed protein or fats, since we need a certain minimum of those latter two.

Other than that, though, there's no great worry IMO if over the MFP sugar goal. I was over the MFP default sugar goal pretty much every day during weight loss, while eating well under 10g added sugars most day (but getting adequate protein and fats). I lost weight at a good clip, my high blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides went down pretty rapidly, etc. Even some added sugar is not the devil, in the context of good overall nutrition and appropriate calories.

For an otherwise generally healthy person, even an overweight one, getting good overall nutrition is more about making sure the good things are in one's eating (protein; fats; plenty of varied, colorful veggies/fruits), less about driving out theoretically bad ones; and about cutting calories enough to lose weight, but not so far that nutrition suffers (we need minimum grams of protein/fats, not just minimum percentages).

I keep it really simple, choose my protein, choose a variety of non-starchy veg and some seasoning, dressing or sauce and just go with that.

I do meal prep for lunches - this week is pork meatball, eggplant and zucchini curry. I winged it but basically pork mince mixed with various spices, rolled into balls and browned, then taken out of the pan, browned a whole chopped onion, some garlic, then mixed through some curry powder, added in chopped eggplant and zucchini (and the last of the mushrooms, just to use them up), a tin of chopped tomatoes and a cup of passata, added back the meatballs, covered and cooked until the veg was cooked.