Another Review my menu.....

[Clueless1]

It's another review my menu. It's pretty bland, but I choose items that are affordable. I'm struggling to loose weight and i'm certain it's my diet that's doing it.

Old menu - 4 meals a day

1 - 2 fried eggs no oil/butter 2-3 slices of bacon

2 - 1 can of tuna, 1 can of salmon, 1 can of green beans, 2 hot dogs (120 cals, 3 net carbs each) 1 oz of peanuts (170 cals, 5 net carbs) and bunch of mayo

3 - 1 turkey burger patty (160 cals, 1 net carb) 2 hot dogs and 2 oz of peanuts and some mayo

4 - 1 turkey burger patty and protien shake with water (120 cals, 2 net carbs)

I know hot dogs are bad, but being 8 hot dogs for .58 cents i thought i could live with it. and the peanuts, i love peanuts too much to not have them. Starting this yesterday, i've decided to re-do my menu.

meal 1 - replace bacon with turkey bacon
meal 2 and 3 - minus hot dogs and mayo and peanuts.

I looked into replacing the hot dogs with Beef liver (4, 6 oz slices for $1.50) and switching the mayo to light mayo. And i haven't found anything to replace the peanuts. Any ideas ? i'm a bit more hungry since i'm missing some fat in my diet.

thanks

[Elizellen]

One tool that helps me plan my menus is www.fitday.com, where I can log everyhting and see how the ratios of fat/protein/carbs work out.

Induction ratios need to be about the 65%/30%/5% levels.

As you have found, cutting down on the fat makes us feel more hungry, so keep your fat intake up!

I cant see any veggies!! We are supposed to get over half of our carbs from our veggies, and we eat 3 cups of them from the allowed list of induction foods.

And drop the peanuts - they are not on the induciton list and in fact aren't added till the later rungs of OWL!!

I dont know how hungry you have been, so have no idea if the amounts of food you have been eating are right for your body, but as long as you are eating when hungry and only till you are no longer hungry and not carrying on eating your planned menu just because you have planned it I am sure you will be fine.

Oh - 'organ meat' is limited to up to 4 ounces a day on the allowed foods list.

BTW why change the fullfat mayo for lowfat? Usually they add sugar to make the lowfat stuff taste OK

I hope this helped.

[Clueless1]

I thought the book said you are allowed up to 1 cup of string beans per day. I've just been eating 1 can of it.

My current fitday ratio is 40/55/5 at 1300 cals minus the protien shake. (120 cals, 2 grams of fat and 2 net carbs)

I wanted to cut down my fat content to help speed up the results and maybe my body just needs to adjust to the reduction of fat it's getting.

And i feel guilty for eating peanuts of all this time, and just finally been able to remove it from my diet.

I'm sure it's a adjustment phase, but i've been eating every 3 hrs whether i'm hungry or not. i'm trying to figure out how to squeeze in a 5th meal somewhere.

Well I wanted to switch mayo because i thought i would make more "losses" by trading the high calories and fat for the 1/3 of fat and calories but only 1 gram of carbs. Not sure if my logic was sound in that. But i think i'm going to see if i can just cut it out completely.

4oz ? i thought it was 6. well i'll just trim some off and go from there.

Thanks Liz

[Rubysugar]

I think you should really give Dr. Atkins' program a try before you tweak it. Go by what the book says. I have found I stall out when I DON'T eat enough fat and it is a "must" that you eat your vegetables everyday. And only eat when you are hungry. Go ahead and give chapter 11 another read.
You can do this! Once you get the hang of it the pounds will just jump right off of ya!
Take some time to read the stickies at the top of the induction forum. I found them incredibley helpful when I first started!!

[Desertthorn]

I wanted to cut down my fat content to help speed up the results and maybe my body just needs to adjust to the reduction of fat it's getting.

Best way to stop losing weight.

[Elizellen]

Sorry I missed the beans - you are right you can have one cup of those, so you need to choose 2 cups from the 2-cup list of vegetables to get your full quota in.
You said

My current fitday ratio is 40/55/5 at 1300 cals minus the protien shake. (120 cals, 2 grams of fat and 2 net carbs)

I wanted to cut down my fat content to help speed up the results and maybe my body just needs to adjust to the reduction of fat it's getting.

No - you dont want to drop your fat ratio - in fact you need to increase it! Atkins is a high fat/medium protein/low carb way of eating.

On induction we aim for 65% fat/30% protein/5% carbs.

By deciding to do a lowcarb/lowish fat/highish protein plan you are risking overeating your protein, which will result in your body converting any protein it does not need into sugars and then into fat!!

When I discovered www.fitday.com and could see what my ratios were I found that by following the advice in DANDR for the previous six months that I had been on induction and eating according to the allowed list of foods my ratios worked out at around the 65/30/5 mark!

You also said

i've been eating every 3 hrs whether i'm hungry or not. i'm trying to figure out how to squeeze in a 5th meal somewhere.

I think you have misunderstood rule one of induction where Dr Atkins says

1. Eat either three regular-size meals a day or four or five smaller meals. Do not skip meals or go more than six waking hours without eating.

So if you are not hungry dont eat unless it has been 6 hours since you last ate, and then eat a small amount of fat/protein/carbs to make sure your blood sugar levels stay on an even keel. Something like a meat/cheese rollup or two, or a couple of devilled eggs is enough.

I tend to eat 3 meals a day rather than have more meals, but I do have a 'legal' snack available in case I feel hungry outside my normal meal times and find that some days I dont eat a snack, and others I need a couple of snacks to get me through!

Many of us have problems recognising 'hungry' and 'no longer hungry' signals from our brains, so it takes us a while to get the hang of this!!