I am experimenting now with protein shakes for weight loss.
Protein intake - Abt 1.5 gr/ kg per my lean body weight (approximately).
The idea is to replace meals with ~120 cal protein shake, thus reducing daily calories.
Adding ascorbic acid (vit C) as well, cause I do not consume enough fresh fruits and veggies.
I eat hard (normal) food twice a day when I work and once a day on free days, always striving to be low carbs.
I also have ~3 shakes a day - morning, after work, evening.
The problem is I am sometimes a carb addict (carbs should be listed as legitimate DRUGS) and cheating obviously fail my diet.
I am a drug addict who should be kept locked away from carbs. If I start eating, I canāt stop untill I feel satisfied
Does anyone have experience with protein shakes as meal substitute and cutting?
Avoiding carbs is a fine strategyā¦ if youāre planning to never eat carbs again.
Not a great plan if you intend to eat carbs again at some point in the future.
Youāre better off addressing the cause of your lack of compliance, and replacing whatever junk carbs youāre eating with cleaner carbs.
I struggle to eat enough rice to fill 600g carb quota, but i could do that easily if it were pasta or chips.
Ill plug The Body Fat Solution by Tom Venuto for addressing your relationship with food.
P.S how much fat are you eating daily if youāre low carb and only 1.5g/kg protein?
If the only reason someone lost weight is because they stopped eating a certain food groupā¦
What do you think is likely to happen if they reintroduce that same food group?
The most effective diet is the one that can be adopted as a lifestyle. Itās for this reason, and this reason only, that Intermittent Fasting is one of the most successful dieting tools. Easy to adopt during the diet, and easy to stick to once youāve lost the weight.
Itās why most people who went Keto for dieting regain all the weight when they stop dietingā¦ They never learned how to eat carbs appropriately.
I donāt think anything will happen for a day or two, but I believe the body will start using it as an energy source eventually over time if the trainee keeps eating enough of them.
Any way that doesnāt make you fat.
Carbs arenāt the problem. The overeating of them - is.
Back to the point: if you only lost weight because you eliminated the food group you have no control over - you will regain the weight when you reintroduce the problem food groupā¦ because you never learned to eat them in moderation or accordingly to your goals.
By addressing the overconsumption of said food group, you:
lose weight
keep the weight off
But it takes more work.
The alternative is to not address the problem, lose the weight, then regain the weight, and youāre right back to where you started from. Itās arguably less work if you look at it through this lens.
My point is that someone can lose weight with carnivore and then experience losing weight while eating carbs.
No matter what method they choose, if they want the body they desire, they wonāt eat like an idiot.
Maybe someone couldāve removed carbs because they felt they wouldnāt be missing out by not eating healthy complex carbs: fruits, oatmeal, rice, veggies, and other stuff.
@emosms , first, MAJOR blast from the past, crazy to see you around again. Second: I totally embody what youāre going for here. Iām not a carb addict, but I have definitely cut them out of my life and itās been all for the better. I think a shake based approach combined with animal foods is an excellent strategy to get what youāre going after here.
A 120 calorie protein shake isnāt what Iād consider to be a meal replacement. When I employ a shake (technically, itās a pudding, as I mix just a splash of hot water in it so I can eat it rather than drink it), itās 2 scoops of Metabolic Drive, which is about 240 calories. 3 of those a day is only 720 calories: still VERY light in caloric load, with ample room for solid food to fill the gaps.
Using animal foods to fill those gaps will go a long way in keeping you satiated without the blood sugar spike/rollercoaster youāll tend to experience with a carb based approach. What youāre effectively doing is employing a protein sparing modified fast between solid meals. I like to do this by having the protein in the morning (post training), a second serving mid morning, one around noon, and then have my meal in the evening. Itās satisfying eating one BIG meal at that time. I will then have protein in the evening before bed.
Sure, they could have. But OP did not state that; he said:
so I donāt think your line of questioning is relevant tbh. Youāre arguing for the outliers who already have dietary compliance.
Most people who are trying to restrict ALL carbs, particularly if their intent is just to lose weight, especially if they say itās because they cannot control their intake of said carbsā¦ just need to learn how to eat them in moderation.
Because when they reintroduce them, they never trained their moderation muscle, they only trained their restriction muscle.
A metaphor:
An alcoholic who cannot control his consumption of liqour goes completely clean.
Does he risk dabbling with an occasional drink afterwards, or does he know he has to stay 100% clean because he will go too hard on the sauce?
Iāve only seen the absolute restriction method work.
Dropping the metaphor:
Luckily, carbs are less addictive than alcohol, and consumption of said carbs does not lead to worse decision making. Both are used as coping mechanisms, and usually in excess when they are used in this manner.
Moderation is a skill to be learned. A damn difficult one, but without learning it - individuals are stuck with food group restriction diets, and these are hard to comply with long-term.
They wonāt be stuck if they want it badly enough.
They can learn moderation if they want it badly enough.
An elimination diet can also be the first step to learning moderation as well. Canāt go wrong with having a diet baseline of high protein and it also keeps you satiated.
Once the baseline and better habits are established, they can slowly start introducing complex carbs.
I will say, the notion that moderation is a necessary skillset is not something I agree with. Iāve heard it discussed many times that some people are moderators and some people are abstainers. Much like introverts and extroverts: itās not āwrongā to be one or the other: itās simply what you are. And much like introverts and extroverts: you have to apply the right approach for the right individual.
Abstainers THRIVE with ārestrictiveā diets. Iām a natural abstainer, and when I tried to moderate, I was absolutely miserable, because all I WANTED to eat was meat, and I had to keep telling myself every day I had āenoughā, and I was trying to fill that void with all sorts of science fiction foods that were āmeat likeā and not meat. I was killing myself that way. When I gave myself the freedom to eat ONLY meat, thatās what it was: freedom.
But you tell a moderator they can eat ONLY meat? They lose their minds! āWhat about my oatmeal!? What about my oranges?! What about my sweet potatoes!?ā I could legit NEVER eat those things again and die happy so long as I always have my beef ribs. Other people would blow their brains out if they had to live in a world without ice cream.
The issue comes when we try to force the wrong approach on the wrong person. Similar to how I never count calories or macros: I KNOW Iām obsessive, and I WILL obsess over those details once I startā¦so I donāt. Brian Alsruhe is the same way. Weāve both found success with that approach. Other people will lose their MINDS if they DONāT know EXACTLY how much they are eating at any given time. Different strokes.
We see this with training styles too. And learning styles. And leisure styles. Humans are interesting.
I only take issue with this because it talks about people as if they are incapable of changing the way they act.
I used to be an āintrovertāā¦ back when I had poor social skills. Now Iām not socially uncalibrated and I also seemingly like to talk to people more. Huh.
*There is some data out there to support the correlation between being introverted and having poor social skills.
I think the same thing applies to the abstainers vs moderators conversation.
I will always say that the best diet is the one you can comply with, and that heavily relates to the abstainers vs moderators conversationā¦
But if a trainee able to stick to any diet even when itās hard to comply with, then the best diet is probably something different than whatever they are currently doing.
Back to the point: Unless OP is willing to give up carbs for the rest of his life, he is going to have to learn moderation, which was my point this whole time.
Most people cannot, or will not, adhere to a food group restriction diet after theyāve lost the weight.
I agree with everything you said, I just believe that this is the harder road to travel.
I believe the best diet is the one you can comply with - even after youāve lost the weight.
Itās hard to play a game you have not practiced for. For this reason, Iāll argue that finding a lifestyle change is more effective than finding a diet.
I am keeping weight, but I cannot loseā¦
Otherwise the best is if u can control the carbs according to your energy expenditure and goals, keeping your glycogen filled.
But I cannot do that. I cannot count calories and measure every bit of macronutrient for the regular meals.
When I was doing that I ended up eating almost the same every day, so I know how much it is.
I can easily measure scoops of protein and leave the 1-2 regular meals free-floating.
Just generally avoiding carb dense ingredients (bread/ pastry/ potatoes/ rice) or keep them to a minimum.
And mostly the sweet stuff/ desserts, where my addiction fully shines.
But even if I keep sweets away, sometimes I binged on plain bread and it was the most delicious experience, the crown of the meal, much more desired than meat or whatever else
p.s. that was one of the reasons I consider protein powder more seriously. I may say I am fed up with meet and I barely meet 1 gr/ kg bodyweight from meat. Especially now that it is pretty hot in my home countryā¦
Related and explaining pretty well how to construct meals by macronutrients.
Also an approach for a ācarb loadā to keep u up.
But I canāt and donāt want to measure macronutrients - just want to keep adequate protein, feel satiated and induce deficitā¦
I am careful with nuts, so not that easy to overeat with fats.
But it seems that I cheat just enough on a weekly basis, so I keep weight and lose none.
The discomfort of the calorie deficit (it SUCKS) makes me overeat just enough to keep ballanceā¦
Not counting ANY calories and quantities, the f*cking body knows exactly how much to binge to keep homeostasis ā¦
