My daily menu - a little help please
 

Hello everyone.

I'm a new member of this lovely community and I've introduced myself in the new members part of this forum, so I won't bug you too much with those details. I was hoping some of you with a bit of experience could review my daily menu and let me know if there's anything I should remove/add or adjust.

Here's what I ate within the last two days...

Monday:

3 eggs over hard and 3 slices of bacon
1 large coffee with cream and 2 packs of splenda
20 almonds
3 cups of cooked red cabbage with 1 cup of lean beef (olive oil, salt, pepper, dehydrated vegetable spice)
1 can of tuna in olive oil
1 hard boiled egg
1/2 cup of baked broccoli with garlic spice and salt
1/2 cup of pasta sauce with ground turkey (no sugar in pasta sauce)
atkins low carb bar

about 1.5L of water

no exercise

Tuesday:

3 hard boiled eggs
1 large coffee with cream and 2 packs of splenda
20 almonds (2 snacks)
1 medium baked chicken breast with pesto rub, salt and pepper
2 cups of oven baked broccoli (olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic spice)
1 can of diet pepsi
1L of water
3 cans of carbonated water
2 cups of pasta sauce with ground turkey (no sugar in pasta sauce) and some Parmesan cheese
another boiled egg and half chicken breast in the middle of the night when I got cravings for "bad" stuff like pasta and bread LOL

exercise : 30 min of cardio - elliptical

I'm down 3 pounds since Monday morning, so I guess I am doing something right. As you can see, I can eat the same thing over and over again, it doesn't bother me. And I am a broccoli junkie, so I could literary eat broccoli in every meal. Any suggestions or ideas are very much appreciated. :wave:

Also no problem eating the same thing here...I make large 9 x 13 casseroles and repeat for lunch and dinner for days. I think your menu looks fine as is...with these few suggestions if you want to up your game.

First, ditch the Atkins Bar...The Atkins sub-forum here has many threads, including the first sticky on induction foods, why they do not work for many people. If you need bars for travel/work, there are better quality ones like Quest, but real food is best. Pack HB eggs, meat roll-ups, etc. Count Total carbs not net.

Dr. Westman allows some artificial sweetners to start, but over time, removing the diet pepsi may help you control sugar cravings better. The taste of sweet can be a trigger. https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto/sweeteners If you dont overdo them and they don't trigger thoughts of brownies, some is fine ;)

If you can keep those 20 Almonds in control and count the carbs they have, that is also fine. The Duke diet does not have any nuts because the average mortal has a tendency to overeat them :lol: and most items over the basic template may cause some to overeat, but it sounds for now you are doing great.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/m-e-l-di...-rapid-fat-loss

Broccoli...Roast in Bacon fat with bacon pieces...anything else is fluff :lol:
Though, take that back, with Summer coming up, Kristie Sullivan makes a mean cold Broccoli Salad. It has cheese and Bacon. Super simple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ug6Uq3Cz0

Looks good and sustainable from here. Are you tracking?

Thank you both. I've used the Atkins bar once, it's just a treat every once in a blue moon when I feel like I have to have something sweet. The plan is not to have them on a regular basis. Same with the diet Pepsi and any other diet drinks, I know they are not good for you, so I will slowly remove that from my diet. At this point I figured if that will help me go through the day without eating a jar of Nutella (yup, my sweet tooth is a BIG problem LOL), then so be it. But, I agree with you 100%. And thanks for the links, I will try that broccoli salad for sure. Bacon is always delicious :-D

WereBear - I am tracking my food intake on my blackberry, if that's what you meant? I see your stats (for both you and Janet) and they look impressive! Man, I hope I can have the same success as you. Baby steps, though....

Yes! I like the Carb Manager app on my iPad. But however you do it, DO IT.

I find that it gives me all kinds of great information about where my carb levels and so forth are really at: it's a way of not letting things slide :lol:

Will do. I track every single bit at this point.
BTW does anyone have any experience with those keto sticks/strips? Do they work and are they useful? I've read about them, but not sure if I should use them? What do you think?

Never used them. I understand small things can affect them, and once you body adapts to keto, they aren't that accurate, anyway.

There are those who find them motivational though.

Keto sticks are good motivation at the start... watching the scale drop can be motivation enough to stick to plan. While they do work, you may not need them right now. ANd in the future, when keto adapted, the ketones dont pee out enough to register on the keto sticks. Also once package is opened, the freshness itme is limited to 6 month.

Can be fun and rewarding to see the color change!

As long as you keep chugging along all looks good. Otherwise, The pasta sauces usually have more carbs than seems possible. Because the tomato juice is cooked down and concentrated into a thick sauce. Canned tomato products vary widely in the number of carbs per 1/4 cup.

Good luck!!

Ah, OK, no sticks then. Waste of time and money.
And thank you for the pasta sauce info, I was a bit worried about that.

If your ever want to study up on Ketone strips, http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2017/0...ng-ketones.html
but better to keep keto simple.

Good to see someone eating enough. Some people are stuck in the low-fat mentality of starving the fat off. One fellow a while back was eating enough to maintain an 8 year old boy. I mentioned he wasn't eating much and he thought that was a virtue. But with LC it doesn't work like that.

This is very important. Eat low carb meals to satiety, eliminate snacks, and take some time not eating anything between meals. If you're eating clean and correctly and timing your meals appropriately, calorie counting is counterproductive.

This is one thing that you really have to compare by reading each can or jar to get a reality check of the number of carbs and especially the sugar grams (added and natural) in many of them.
I tend to go with diced tomatoes because it seems to be the lowest in carbs, depending the brand.

Thanks everybody. So, I stepped this morning on the scale and my weight is back to where it was 3 days ago - 3 lbs more than yesterday. I hope this is just a swing and it will go down again, but, oh man... And I was eating clean and no cheats yesterday (and since Sunday)...

Don’t worry about it. This is not a linear process, it is an up and down one.

This can be handled one of two ways. I skipped weighing myself entirely, and relied on pants. My hips is where most of my fat shows up, anyway; if you are an apple-shape who is a male, the belly is going to show the most change, likely.

Others commit to weighing every day, but chart it or use a spreadsheet: that way you will see it bouncing around, but also see the downward trend.