Weight Loss and Exercise #5

How do you recommend increasing protein? I really struggle with this. I'm not vegetarian but vastly prefer vegetables and fruit. I still eat meat 4-5 times weekly (I'm guessing). I get about 4-8 oz of milk daily and eat at least 1, sometimes 2 servings of cottage cheese and/or Greek yogurt daily.I eat some cheese daily; amount varies. My treat food has 4 g of protein per serving and it's low cal so I eat maybe 3/day. But I still am consistently low on protein and since I'm trying to fight off a diabetes diagnosis I really need more. I just struggle with increasing protein without sending my calories sky-rocketing.

Thanks!

It is a challenge indeed. Some suggestions:

-- Whey protein powder: Amazon.com Nutricost Whey Protein

The package says take 1 scoop a day, but my registered dietitian OK'd my using it twice a day. I do not use it everyday, but I will make it a goal to increase protein.

I normally use it in a smoothie. I put some frozen raspberries into the blender, add 2 tbsp chia seeds, 2 tbsp flax seed that I first grind in a spice grinder, some plain kefir, some plain nut milk (just nuts and water without any additives, from Nuts.com), and a scoop of this powder. It is palatable enough. I wish I could add more raspberries but the dietitian said not to.

I also mix it with farmers' cheese and you can try mixing it with cottage cheese. Maybe not even the whole scoop but half of it. It is worth experimenting with.

-- Milk: switch to Fairlife ultrafiltered milk (advice from an RD). It has more protein than usual milk with half as much sugar and carbs. It tastes just the same. It is more expensive, but the price is worth the nutritional benefit of it.

-- Greek yogurt is high in protein. Icelandic yogurt called Skyr is also high and sometimes even higher. With them, it pays to read the labels at the grocery stores to pick the one with the most protein per serving. There is usually a spread of several grams among brands. Picking the highest protein content brand typically does not result in your consuming any more calories.

-- For my post workout drink, I use Fairlife protein chocolate shake. It has 26 g of protein per serving and is delicious chilled. I buy them in bulk from Amazon. Here is the link: Amazon.com Core Power Protein Shake Chocolate
It is also available in vanilla which I have not tried and in strawberry banana which I have tried and found artificially tasting.

-- Do you not eat eggs at all?

Oh yes, I forgot about eggs. We have 5 chickens so I actually eat eggs fairly frequently. There was a long time I was eating one daily but I've backed off that. I should try to save the calories for that again though.

I had a piece of roast beef for dinner but I threw up tonight so idk. Maybe I'll lose weight from being sick. Not ideal I know though.

Right. Ideal weight loss is when you change the body composition, increasing the muscle mass and the relative proportion of muscle in your total weight.

Oh you should eat eggs from your own hens for sure! And an egg contains 6 g of protein plus all the lutein and choline and other good stuff that is in the yolk. Eggs are precious.

I used to get eggs from local hens, too. Then the hens became too old and stopped laying eggs. The woman from whom I got the eggs last told me to wait until May. They are getting new hens. Hopefully I will be able to go back to getting those eggs from local hens, from an adjacent town.

The hens were different in color and size and so were the eggs: some white, some brown, some large, some small. Some more obtuse in shape and others more pointed. It was fun simply opening the carton to look at what I got.

I am saving cartons from Trader Joe's eggs to deliver them all to that woman who keeps the hens when she finally summons me back. I also regularly open the paper recycling containers at the apartment complex to see if anyone has put a clean carton into recycling, and then I pick those up, too. This way there is no waste: I deliver the cartons, pick up the eggs, and the cycle goes on.

I had a breakfast shake with my meds, a can of Coke, an iced chai latte, and a Healthy Choice grilled chicken and broccoli alfredo meal which only had 190 calories.

I'm not sure on the rest of the day, my stomach is still acting up.

Suddenly I have gained weight. A couple of pounds but it worries me. My hunger pangs stopped a few weeks ago and I have been feeling so thankful but then why this gain?

I will have my second Dexa scan soon, so we will see what the body composition is.

You know, caffeine is like booze - this menu is like having 3 drinks on an empty-ish stomach. It affects people more on an empty stomach. Whats the caffeine count here? You often complain you are queazy when you overdo the caffeine.

Im sorry, i dont mean to be cranky, but i hate to see you sick.

I don't know the caffeine count. The breakfast shake was just to help my meds. The Coke was probably about 38mil of caffeine. I don't know anything about the chai latte except that I ordered it sugar free.

I've had some Green Giant smash in the bag potatos too today. They are fresh potatoes you heat in the microwave then you smash the bag with oven mits so you have fresh mashed potatoes.

Those potatoes sound good! A good antidote!

I did not know about smash potatoes. Gotta try them.

Just spent an hour on the mini bike. You guys are keeping me going, even if im not every day. Sometimes i am too tired from a previous hard workout. Like this past week i saw that i sleep an extra 2 hours in the morning one day. But i do find myself saying, i dont really have an excuse for not doing it tonight, so lets do it!

The pedal resistance is FINALLY starting to feel like it will need an increase. I was starting to worry it might never feel that way. I had gotten it to the max before, but then who knows what happened. I disappeared.

way to go, pedaling for a whole hour!

Just got up to pee, and i feel pretty good, like i have advanced from debilitated to almost able to stand erect.

I got weighed at the doctors today and just like the scale at my house the scale stayed the same since I last was there 2 weeks ago. My doctor says wellbutrin is a lifelong thing and theres no time line on it. He said it could take a good year though to see legit progress. It will only be 2 weeks tommorow since I've started it.

I haven't eaten much today and I yakked again 45 minutes ago so who knows what the scale will say in the morning.

Isnt welbutrin what they give to help stop smoking? Maybe it works like the topamax where it eases the craving. Cuz i thought there was an association with topamax and reduction in alcohol craving.

So its not like it works like ozempic, where (as i experienced it) it really does turn off the food noise in your brain, by doing something to your digestive system's hormones. I would think welbutrin acts more on brain receptors? Idk. Now im curious but i gotta go pee.

Its an anti depressant and one of the side effects is losing a lot of weight.

"Per google" a steady decrease after 8 weeks.

Its the only antidepressant that doesnt cause people to gain weight.

I had to run and grab my inhaler

I ordered a box of mixed salad. Some calorie free dressing. Nuts. Cheese. Prosciutto. And some Atkin meals. I'm hoping this helps me out.

My stomach is still kinda funky and I saw on the news today a stomach bug is going around. So maybe I just have a stomach bug.

I have heard that calorie free dressings can be full of highly objectionable ingredients. Can you just mix olive oil and red wine or balsamic vinegar on your own instead? You can add herbs to thr mix. This will have good fat and nothing objectionable.

Otherwise, everything you ordered looks good.

I went to the gym wearing a mask. Since I have had an upper respiratory virus for over 10 days, I shouldn't be contagious anymore.

-20 mins of recumbent elliptical on a low level, with bursts of "chest press" where you move the arms only against resistance, not moving the legs

- 60 mins or foam rolling and stretching class. My 2nd time taking this class. The first time, rolling the quads hurt so much that I could understand how other tolerated it. The teacher said it would get better, muscles would get looser and it wouldn't hurt so badly. She was right.

Followed by 10 mins in the sauna + 10 mins in the steam room.

I did full meal planning for the week on Sunday, and trying to stick to the plan, because weight loss for me has always been tied to managing my diet/nutrition. The scale is actually responding too, although I know it's just a little bit of normalizing, but I also know from past experience that this is how it comes down.

I've told myself it's okay until I hit my next milestone (which is only 7lbs away) to not have to do any intense exercise. Guidelines/recommendations are to get 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise daily. I'm doing that naturally through training my dogs and then I make up for whatever minutes I'm short with these "walk at home" videos on Youtube. It's like power walking/aerobic videos that aren't hard but it gets your heart rate up to meet that moderate intensity. I also make sure to get my daily 10k steps in.

I'm doing this until I get these 7lbs off because I'm on this cusp of where it hurts to do more, but by the time I hit this milestone, my body should be feeling better about higher intensity.

So it's just 3 goals:

Daily calorie intake under 1800
Hit 10k steps
Meet 30 minutes of moderate intensity per day

I had asked the healthy balance teachers (at the class I was taking) if there is any difference if it's an average of 30 minutes each day for the week or if you need to do it each day. They said that an average is fine, meaning you could do 3 days an hour each, and that would suffice. And I haven't had time to actually do a literature search to see if the difference in negligible or not, but I feel like there might actually be a big difference between averaging it versus hitting the 30 minutes daily.

I was kind of hungry this morning but I'm ok now. All I ate was a bunch of low carb good enough in protein stuff. Currently I am at 1,130 calories, 76 carbs, and 58 grams of protein.