Getting Calories UP!!

[HeyCE]

I seem to be having a problem getting my calories up to correct levels. I should be around 2180 but hover between 900 to 1600 or so. I am so full!! I am posting a journal, and have found a few tips and things I haven't done yet (like get olive oil and USE it), cooking with butter, using real whipped cream instead of the imitation kind, using real mayo, and salad dressings (yeah!!!), but am wondering if anyone has any other easy ways to keep up those calories.

It is still, after not quite one week, so bizarre and fascinating to me how this works--and I know it works as I've lost 6 lbs. in one week. WOW.

Thanks!!

:D

[Karen]

The same discussion was going on just hours ago in this thread right here. (http://forum.lowcarber.org/t28670.html)

Fat is the answer!

Karen

[LC Sponge]

Hi HeyCE

Congrats on your loss so far! 6 pounds in one week is ACE.

Yes, it's a real change in mind set isn't it? Whooda ever thunk it?

"They" have been lying to us for years. Eating fat doesn't make you fat.

[Natrushka]

Carolyn, 1600 calories isnt horrible but 900 calories is. Knowing what you need to do and doing it are often two different things, I know all to well. You've lost 6 lbs and that's great - you want to make sure now that you do not jeopardize that by consistently eating below your basal metabolic rate. Eating too little will still result in some weight loss, but it will not be fat for the most part. Your body will start canabalizing its lean muscle which will in turn lower your metabolism making further losses more and more difficult.

Go out and get that olive oil and stock up on real mayo and butter. If there is a deli counter in your grocery store pick up some chicken wings - they are wonderful for snacks and are a good source of protein and fat.

Nat

[Janet89048]

Hi Carolyn! :wave:

Six pounds! Great! :thup: I remember going to the meat department at the grocery store when I lived in CA and asking for 7 lbs of fat (they just gave it to me.no charge). It didn't seem like much in my mind, but when he brought out that pile of fat, I was impressed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep up the good work! ;)

You mentioned calories in your first entry. I'm in the Induction part....day 2....and have not read about how to figure how many calories I need each day. Right now I'm hanging out in Induction Land and loving it! :cool:

We'll be chatting again, I'm sure..........bye for now :wave:
:roll:

[HeyCE]

Karen, I'll go check out that link.

Everyone else, thanks for more tips and suggestions. I am making hamburgers in a minute with a side salad and will gleefully add cheese and real salad dressing to the salad. I am obviously still getting used to thinking the right way. Today marks one week on this plan! And without any real trouble except for the struggle to get near enough to the kitchen while running around on the weekend! It is just so bizarre to not be hungry all the time. Really bizarre but I like it.

Okay I'm off to read that thread, Karen. Thanks!

[HeyCE]

Janet, you'll love this plan. The explanation for how the calories and fat and protein and carb percentages work is something I am not versed well enough in to explain but I know Karen and Nat can. My notes are at work but I use www.fitday.com which was suggested here to help figure out all the percentages and calories. I should be hitting 2100 or so calories a day, proteins around 28-30%, fat around 70%, carbs no more than 5%--egads there is something else. protein, carbs, calories and fats. That's it. Plus all the water--I drink at least 80 ozs. a day and often more. Diet drinks are now the treat, not the main source of liquid. So much to learn! I got the books too but really, the best explanations come from the folks here. It is confusing but as you muddle through it makes SO MUCH SENSE!!!

Do you have a journal started?

:wave:

[Janet89048]

Yes, Carolyn.........I have started a journal. But, alas, I think I've blown Induction Day 2! I had 2 Polish dogs and some pork rinds!!!!!!!!!! Forgot that I could only eat what was on the Induction List. So now I guess I have to start over! :confused: :(
Oh, well! That's how I learn, I guess. I noticed that you said you were going to have real salad dressing with your hamburger.......is that ok on the Induction? Or are you one week into the weight loss part.......past your Induction?

Thanks for answering my "postcards"....it really means a lot! :)

Bye for now :wave:

[HeyCE]

Janet,

I've been eating sausage all week long and lost 6 pounds in the first week so I wouldn't fret. Pork rinds are no problem either. I have stayed under 20 grams the entire week even with the sausage :). And remember (I am echoing some of the others here) one moment of eating something "bad" will not ruin the plan! Just drink an extra glass or so of water for penance and carry on! :D

[Janet89048]

Hi Carolyn! :wave:

Thank you for your message.........but I have a question. Since I'm only supposed to eat what's on the Induction list, do I still have to count grams of carbs? :confused:

I know there's no *stupid* questions, but I'm feeling a little *stupid* right now! :( I'm so glad that all of you are so patient and helpful!

Feeling full........... :p

[girthy]

karen..i know the key to this lifestyle is keeping cals up as well as fat and protein, but when I was in the gym the other day, a trainer said the best wat to lose weight is the expend more cals then you take in, can you explain the basis behind why we lose weight by taking in so many cals and fat? I was thinking of doing low-fat low carb, but maybe now I won't. I need some info...
thanks! Girthy

[wbahn]

You definitely don't want to do low-fat and low-carb. That is one of the classic mistakes made (or attempted) by so many beginners.

Think of it this way:

Your body can either burn glucose or it can burn ketones. By and large just one or the other at any given time. It can also burn protein indirectly by first converting it to glucose.

So...

You want to keep the carbs low enough to prevent providing a ready source of glucose.

You want to keep your protein high enough so that your body's need for amino acids and such are met without having to cannibalize your own muscle but you don't want to eat so much protein that you start converting some to glucose.

If you satisfy only the above two conditions your body will be calorie starved and start going into a starvation mode and begin using your lean muscle to meet its energy needs.

So you want to eat enough fat so that your body recognizes that you are not starving.

As long as you are in this mode (ketosis or nearly so) you will not have the insulin necessary to store your dietary fat as body fat, so the dietary fat is burned as fuel (at a pretty inefficient rate of about 50%) with the balance being made up by body fat which, do to the low insulin levels, can exit the fat cells readily.

As for the energy in versus energy out debate, the first thing that must be understood is that the only major constraint that is imposed on the process by the fundamental laws of physics is that you CAN NOT put on muscle or fat weight without consuming AT LEAST that many calories of food and that if you expend more calories than you consume, over time, you WILL lose weight. Between those two bounds there are a LOT of other possibilities that do not violate the Principle of the Conservation of Energy.

It is not a violation of the laws of physics to think of a pill that would "melt" fat off so that you could consume 4000 calories a day and lose ten pounds of fat a day. All it would mean is that something is exiting your body that still has a LOT of potential energy in it. This doesn't mean that such a pill exists or ever will exists - it may well be impossible biologically for something like this to work.

One thing that a lot of the "calorie is a calorie" folks overlook is the body's metabolic responses to both the type and the quantity of the calories.

Think about a person that has a very stable weight year after year. Does this mean that this person is somehow eating exactly the number of calories they are consuming? If this were true, it would mean that their average daily intake was stable to within just a few calories - and that's an absurd conclusion. Your calorie intake varies dramatically day to day - give or take about 1000 calories about the overall average. It makes a lot more sense that their body adjusts their metabolism and the fraction of calories that are extracted from the food stream in response to changes in diet - both short term and long term.

So now we can refute the "Special K" diet that has received so much play time in the media over the last few months. According to this rather well orchestrated marketting campaign, if you eat a bowl of Special K instead of your normal breakfast you can expect to lose 10 pounds a year without changing anything else. They imply that it is something special about that particular serial but in the more in depth interviews or news snippets they reveal that this is based solely on the assumption that a bowl of Special K is going to have 100 calories fewer than your "normal" breakfast. Do the math - if their basic assumption is correct then this works out to ten pounds a year. But their basic assumption is faulty - not to mention that it is also dependent on the assumption that your average calorie intake is somehow magically matched to your energy expenditures down to the 1 calorie level.

On average, for people near their ideal weight, the body expels about 10% of the absorbable calories it takes in without absorbing them - some people are a lot higher. For most people that's about 200 calories. So if your body needs more calories it can get some of them by simply absorbing some more. After that, it simply reduces the number of calories that are being burned solely for heat and after that it slows your metabolism a bit.

It's pretty astonishing when you think about it - the same people that go on and on about how the differences between simple and complex carbohydrates are so critical and how the differences between HDL and LDL are so critical can't even entertain the notion that the body responds to calories very differently based on source and quantity.