You can play around with free http://cronometer.com I HATE entering food but have always weighed anyway for carb counts on vegetables. Now I enter everything as I'm following Marty Kendall stuff and it's a useful tool - Don't need to use if for ever but great for spot check. Do it for a week or two. As I have plenty of fat to lose I'm experimenting with cutting out most fat from my diet - Still get plenty for getting the nutritional benefit from it I think tho.

Agree with Ken and J - keep going high fat for a bit to see if you get the full feeling an hour after eating. If not, after some time, try dialing the fat back and adding lean protein (just swapping some sausage patties for a chicken breast might work in the morning - stuff like that)

Here's your food you mentioned for a day above, using my settings (macros) for forget that. Click on graphic below (34%pro, 64%fat):

http://downhaul.com/lowcarb/2021misc/kp33-food.png

When you say kcal what is that is that just another word for calories? So if eat 1500 calories a day what is that in kcal?

I watched some Ted Naiman videos about eating more protein and I decided to follow some of his recommendations. I've incorporated egg white protein after my workouts (extra 24g protein...Jay Robb egg protein powder in unsweetened coconut milk & water mix) and I really think that additional protein is helping. Of course there are other ways to get extra protein, but this sure works for me right now. For a period of time I think I was too focused on getting a 60% or higher fat level, but that was somewhat at the expense of getting lower protein level. Now I don't avoid fat, but I'm more focused on a better/higher level of protein. Not a lot...but more than I was getting before.

Yes and no.

There is a "calorie" and then there is a "Calorie".

1 Calorie = 1000 calories = 1 kcal

Both are measures of energy. A calorie (also known as a "small calorie") is the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 °C (as a specific temperature and pressure, and several different definitions have existed). Today, the standardized definition is that 1 calorie is exactly equal to 4.184 joules.

This is a small amount of energy compared to the energy content of food, so a second definition of the calorie (also known as a "large calorie" or as a "dietary calorie") arose which is the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1 °C. This is technically one thousand small calories, or 1 kcal. To distinguish the two when we just want to use the word "calorie", the large calorie is capitalized while the small calories isn't. That's fine when you are writing or reading something -- even then there can be confusion because maybe it is capitalized due to grammar rules and not because it is a large calorie -- but gets lost when something is being spoken. That's why I use kcal or kilocalorie as my preferred way of expressing it.

To give an idea of how much energy living things consume, the energy released by a standard "stick of dynamite" is 1 MJ (one million joules). This is 239 kcal. A normal Hershey's chocolate bar is 220 kcal, so eating a candy bar is consuming the energy equivalent of a stick of dynamite. If you expend 2400 kcal a day, then you are expending, on a daily basis, the equivalent of ten sticks of dynamite.

To take that even further, a pound of fat has roughly 3500 kcal of energy stored in it, which is equivalent to nearly 15 sticks of dynamite or nearly eight pounds of TNT (7.7 lb). If someone is 200 lb overweight (we'll assume that all of that weight is excess fat at 3500 kcal/lb), then the energy in their excess fat is 2.9 GJ (nearly three billion joules of energy) and is equivalent to the energy of 0.7 metric tons of TNT, which is about 1500 lb of this high explosive, which is a 3/4 ton pickup truck loaded to capacity. It is also approaching the scale of the smallest nuclear explosives ever developed (intended for civil engineering demolition work).

Mother nature is very good at packing lots of energy into small spaces, but it is hard to release that energy very quickly. Man, on the other hand, has a hard time packing any where near the same energy into the same small space, but is very good at putting it into a form that can be released very quickly.

Wow way to scientific so it easier terms do I just cut my calories based on what a label says nothing on a label says kcal. So if I’m taking in 1500 calories a day based on the labels of the food I’m eating try to cut down to 1200 for example?

Sorry. I get that way.

Yes. Use the calorie content on the labels (which is ALWAYS in kcal -- notice that the labels say "Calories" and not "calories", though often at the bottom they say that the info is based on a 2000 calorie a day diet, and this is not correct, but even engineers are usually sloppy with units and this is a pretty fine distinction) and control the total calorie content over the course of the day.

You might start off by just logging everything you eat and then counting up what the total calories works out to be. To do this, you have to be able to know how much you eat and what the calories (and fat, protein, carbs, fiber -- known as the "macro" content, for "macronutrients") are for it. The simplest way to do this is to just limit yourself, for a couple weeks, to food that has nutrition labels and is in easy to identify units.

The next step up is to weigh your food and, where necessary, look up the nutritional content online, which is pretty easy to do these days. You can get a halfway decent food scale for about $15 in lots of places. They don't tend to be terribly accurate, but they are accurate enough. There are also numerous sites where you can enter your food and select from a huge list of available food choices and it will track not only the macros, but also lots of micronutrients from a very large database of foods. But you still have to know how much food you are consuming, which brings it back to either pre-portioned packaging or weighing. The more you can rely on package weights, the better, because these tend to be very close. Manufactures don't want to give you free product, but they get in big trouble if they are caught not giving you everything they say they are, so they go to pretty great lengths to give you exactly what you are paying for.

You can split the difference here. If you buy a pack of steak that totals, say, 1.54 lb on the label and split it into four roughly equal portions, then call each one 0.35 lb and call it good. If you make sure that YOU eat the entire package, even if it is over several days, then the average will work out just fine.

There is uncertainty here. When you buy a dozen eggs, the nutrition info is for an "average" egg of that size. The actual size of each egg varies and also the nutritional content of two eggs the exact same size also varies. This is true for just about everything. Also, manufacturers round the numbers to the nearest gram for most of the macros and to the nearest five kcal for the calories. The smaller the serving size, the more error this represents. But your numbers don't have to be exact, just reasonably close, to give you the information you are looking for.

Once you know how many calories a day you are consuming, on average, and if this amount is keeping your weight steady, then a decent place to start (and it's only a start) is to reduce it by roughly 100 kcal/day for each pound you want to lose a month, being sure not to get carried away. The closer you are to goal, the slower you want to lose the weight. If you want to lose 2 lb/wk, then shoot for a reduction of 800 kcal/day and stick to it for a minimum of a month and see what happens (the CICO model would actually call for more like a 933 kcal/day deficit, but you're just trying to get in the ballpark). Make adjustments from there.

The human body is a LOT more complex than either calories-in-versus-calories-out or control-the-carbs-and-ignore-everything-else and this is FAR from an exact science. You have to be patient and let nature take its course. The goal is to chart a path that lets you make more-or-less steady progress in the long run -- and there WILL be significant variations in the short term -- by making deliberate changes, giving it enough time to see the results, then make deliberating adjustments to try to move things in the direction you want to go. You also have to accept that there's a limit on how fast you can make progress. You didn't get where you are overnight and it will take time to get where you want to be. Give it the time that it takes.

It’s good info thanks.

Ok so here is where I’m at so far today

Breakfast 5 eggs, 1 sausage, 3 bacon, I piece of ham which is less than I normally have in total.

Lunch...1 can of sardines in hot sauce and a hard boiled egg

Dinner will be a salad with iceberg lettuce, black olives, grape tomatoes, cucumber, and Italian dressing that’s is only 1 carb and 0 sugars and 2 or 3 chicken thighs.

What you all think? Thanks again

On a side note I don’t get email notifications when people reply not sure why I have instant notifications set and no they are not going to spam or junk.

Kp33 - Go to Thread Tools top right and select "Subscribe to This Thread." That will get you notifications.

As for your meal for today, it looks like a low carb higher protein bunch o' foods. Your breakfast is quite large, and if you're hungry at that time (you don't list when you eat breakfast) that's fine. However, if by chance you're not hungry early in the morning and simply eating 3 meals a day, then don't eat your first meal until you are hungry. Also, are you hungry enough for 5 eggs, 1 sausage, 3 bacons, and 1 piece of ham or are you eating this quantity out of habit? Doesn't matter what you ate before. Over time, that will change.

As others have mentioned, be patient, and it will work for you as long as you are staying consistent and not consuming sauces, dressings, and other flavor enhancers with "hidden" ingredients. I review (to this day) the detailed ingredients of everything I consume. Most of my foods don't list ingredients, they are just labelled "beef" or "pork" or "chicken" or "salmon" or "asparagus" or "lettuce," in other words, whole foods with salt or olive oil or sometimes butter as flavorings. This is a journey, and the best thing you can do now is to learn about yourself and enjoy the journey. Good luck.

I am subscribed when I went to the tools it asked if I want to unsubscribe.

As far as that breakfast I’m hungry when I eat it and wolf it down don’t force anything. Never eat to just eat I eat when I’m hungry.

In my experience ham, bacon and sausage have carbs aka sugar added. Perhaps drop those all those items for two weeks.

Keto breakfast alternatives to eggs and bacon are the rage. Recipes pop up on my YouTube feed.

In my house, I encourage eating dinner for breakfast and that method worked to get my children off the SAD breakfast.

Fats. Generally, 30-40 grams a day works. Going very low may backfire. Breakfast seems very heavy in fats, then focusing on chicken seems too lean. Perhaps shift some of dietary fat from "breakfast" to dinner. Trialing any changes is the true test to find what works for you.

You will find what works for you.

Thanks for the input...according to the label and ingredients there is no sugar in the ham and no carbs, no sugar in the sausage and 1 carb per patty, the bacon has 1 carb and 1 sugar for every 2 pieces and I have already cut back from 6 pieces to two. I get what your saying though thanks.

I agree with pretty much everything everyone else has suggested so far, but I personally would further emphasise the value of patience here. It's only been a week. For most people it tends to take a few weeks for your body to begin to properly adjust to your new way of eating. You also say you're "back" on low carb, implying you've done it before, and so things may take a little longer again as this time around won't come as such a surprise to the body as it did the first time around. Hang in there!

The other thought I have with regard to eating to hunger, is I wonder what else you do with your day around your meals? Eating to satiety is generally fine by me, but there are situations where I can forget about my hunger if my mind is suitably occupied with something at work, or it can be drowned for a while with a glass of water instead, as thirst and hunger can sometimes feel similar to each other. Is there anything you can change about the rest of your day so that thoughts of eating don't come to mind so easily?

One thing I learned early on (when I started back in March 2018) was IF (intermittent fasting), which I immediately incorporated with DANDR (Dr. Atkins induction), and eventually TRE (time-restricted eating) - learning it's not only what you eat, but also importantly when you eat.

Also know that even with maintaining weight, the benefits you're achieving may not show on the scale or tape ( elimination of fatty liver, reduction in visceral fat around your mid section / organs, reduction of insulin resistance, to name a few).