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Recently, I've been trying to eat in a calorie deficiet, and I'm finding that its really not all that hard. However, as I eat very little throught the day, I know I'm not getting anywhere near to my protien requirements. I'm pretty sure that this is hindering my workout results, and I was hoping that y'all could suggest some recipes that are high in protien, but will allow me to stay in a calorie deficiet. Any suggestions?

Last Edit: 4-Feb-2015 After starting this thread, I was informed that what I am doing is known as a Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF). I am constantly consulting The Oracle (Google) to find out more about this subject and modify the diet plan as approriate. As of right now here is how I am planning on executing the diet: I am still learning more about it as the days go on. Based off of what I have learned so far, I will be trying the following diet/exercise plan: Every day my goal will be to consume 140 G of protein. I will cycle 2 days of nothing but protein shakes and fiber powder. 144G Protein, 10G Fat, 6G Sugar 30G Fiber, 738-ish Calories on a shake day the calorie count will be slightly higher - by how much depends on how you calculate the calories from fiber. This figured incorporates the calories from the 4mg of fish oil I will take. Every 3 days I will have have a big ol' egg white omelet made from 4-ish egg whites with spinach, red peppers, mushrooms and jalapenos. In addition I will eat a whole egg as well as a big plate of fresh spinach or lettuce, red peppers, cucumber, a couple of green olives, and about a big handful of salted mixed nuts. I will also have protein shakes to get my required grams of protein. Every other "food cycle" I will have a little bit of cantaloupe (half a cup-ish) and a banana in addition to the omelet, plate of low-carb veggies, olives, and nuts. I will take a multivitamin twice a day with food or a protein shake and a 2mg fish oil capsule. I will continue to workout as normal - Lift 6 days a week and cycle between running 3 miles and doing sprints (ideally 3 days a week). I have a hard time motivating myself to do cardio, so I often find excuses to not run. I will work on becoming more consistent. Before I lift or run I will take 10G of BCAAs. I will drink tons of water, and lots of tea. FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is the original post which led me down the path to discovering PSMF (Thanks Hazard) Hey everyone! This is the result of something I was mulling over in my head, and then spending about a week reading a bajilliondy different articles on nutrition, fat loss, muscle growth, carbohydrates, fats, etc etc etc.... TLDR version: Perhaps the best body recomposition (lose fat, gain muscle) thing to do is to focus on eating 1 Gram of protein per lb. of body weight per day, and then minimize both fat and carbohydrate intake while lifting heavy things and then putting them back down??? Note: I will be eating egg whites, chicken, beef, fish, and using protein shakes as needed to hit my 1G protein/lb/day goal while drinking copious amounts of water and tea (Earl Grey and Black Currant, both made by Twinings – it’s more to help keep me from boredom snacking than anything else). I am stuck with cafeteria style dining at the moment and cannot make my own food so I will be getting some carbs/fat as well but will limit them to only what I get as a byproduct of eating the aforementioned foods. Once I hit my desired body fat % (basically I want to look like Deadpool) I will add other foods for maintenance. Perhaps I could live off of just meat, but variety is the spice of life so I will be throwing in other food items once I get to a maintenance phase. Other people have a lot to say about why cardio isn’t the best thing for weight loss. Other people have a lot to say about why heavy weight training (4-6-ish reps for 3-ish sets) is best for increasing muscle strength/mass. Other people have a lot to say about why lifting to get gainz is better for fat loss than cardio for the same amount of time. I am a fan boy (not really, I have a mind more open than Olaf’s arms when administering warm hugs) of the aforementioned things… but I am just here to pose the following question and give my best guess as to the answer: SO…. a certain bit of dietary advice had always confused me, specifically the concept of caloric surplus/deficit in relation to muscle growth. Basically I keep reading that I cannot put on muscle if I eat fewer calories than my body needs in a day and you cannot lose fat when in a caloric surplus. The question: Can I lose fat while gaining muscle on a low calorie diet where I eat 1G Protein/Lb Bodyweight/Day and eating as little fat/carbs as possible? My body needs protein to build muscle. So I will eat lots of amino acids (the building blocks of protein). My body also needs energy to carry on all its myriad of functions (including building muscle). My body already has plenty of energy stored as fat. I can understand why I would need more building blocks to make new muscle, but I already have plenty of energy saved up. Why do I need to eat more energy? Why does using up my energy stores (IE the fat) prevent me from putting on muscle? The energy is already there in my body waiting to be used…. The body seems to me to be pretty efficient and does not appear to want to waste things, especially energy. Now, you can literally piss away glucose at times, but I’ve never read anything that shows this happening in significant amounts in healthy individuals. SO – according to conventional wisdom, it is impossible to put on muscle while eating fewer calories than your body needs to meet its daily energy needs. That doesn’t make sense to me. Why you ask? Well… most of us have huge energy reserves, I.E. fat. Fat is where your body stores the *VAST* amount of its energy. Sure, the body can breakdown muscle (NOTE ON THIS: I have not found any information on exactly when this happens. Since this would seem like a last-ditch sort of thing, I imagine that the body will tap into its fat before eating away at the muscle for energy in significant amounts. I have also heard that consumption of protein and exercise can stave this off, which is why I would want to keep up with the whole 1 G of protein per pound of body weight per day thing. If anyone can point me in the direction of some good information on when muscle cannibalization occurs, I would like it). There seem to be limits on how much muscle a person can put on. Our ability to put on fat appear to be limitless (people can weigh over 1,000 pounds). Our body obviously likes to, and will, easily use fat as an energy storage depot (really more like energy storage medium, but storage depot rolls off the tongue (fingers?) so well….). With this said, just because I don’t consume as many calories in a day as my body needs for all of its various functions does not mean that I do not have energy available. You can live off of your fat stores for a hot minute (here is a link to a report on an obese man whom fasted for a year under the care of a doctor http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.short). Glucose is not an “essential nutrient†meaning that you do not have to consume glucose to live. You need glucose to live, but your body can produce it in sufficient amounts to live without you having to eat extra (google gluconeogenesis for more info – there isn’t a whole lot unfortunately). Supposedly you can make 150 G of glucose a day (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/a-metabolic-paradigm-shift-fat-carbs-human-body-metabolism/#axzz1za02xNxp – Go to the paragraph “So How Much Glucose Do You Really Need?†near the bottom. He doesn’t cite the source for this, and I have not been able to find any research backing it up myself. If someone can find something supporting/rejecting this number, *please* send me a link ). Anyways, unless you are doing some hardcore crossfit thing, doing some crazy bicycling thing, etc etc etc your body will keep up with whatever you are trying to do (Note: This isn’t a fault of gluconeogenesis… People can eat carbz for dayz and still run into these issues with extreme feats of humaning). If you are worried it can’t, then eat a little carbs right before/during the event as needed just to get you through. Your body only has about a teaspoon-ish of glucose floating around in the blood (this is closely regulated by the body) and can store about about 400 grams of glycogen (glycogen gets converted into glucose) in the muscles (I imagine this number varies a bit from person to person based on muscle mass) and about 100 grams of glycogen in the liver (again, probably varies a bit from person to person, but I imagine the biggest variance in individuals come from muscle stores of glycogen). http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/body-store-excess-calories-9627.html (not a direct link to the study which was conducted by Iowa State, a thousand pardons…). There are certain parts of your body which like glucose… the brain, for example, *needs* glucose (even when adapted to using ketones, it still needs 50% of its energy to come from glucose (UGH – Of course I cannot find a source for this now… Fear not though citizen I read it on the internet, so it must be true.. For cereal though, again, if anyone can find anything supporting/rejecting this, feel free to let me know! ) I think our blood glucose levels are pretty much just for the brain, but that is simply a guess with nothing to support it other than observations and my little bit of knowledge of how the body works… With that said, there are parts of your body that like ketones (cardiac muscle). A lot of your cells can use either glucose or ketones for energy once they become “adapted†(which supposedly takes a couple of weeks. I am not even gonna lie – I am getting burned out at the moment with googling things… If someone thinks that my aforementioned statement is wrong then at that point I will go verify it’s rightness or discover is wrongness). SO…. This is a little all over the place, but I think it’s a great starting point for a discussion…. Low Carb…. Low Fat…. Why not both?? https://literatastrophe.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/screen-shot-2012-11-08-at-6-08-31-pm.png As I stated before, I cannot get as low fat or low carb as I would like in my current situation, but I will start implementing this as of today (2-Feb-2015) and post pictures, weight, and tape measurements of different body parts (sorry, I do not have calipers yet… :\) as well as a log of what I eat everyday (with super guesstimated portions). Oh – a note on ketoacidosis… This is a disease state present in diabeetus-ified individuals…. IE their body forgot how to insulin properly. Supposedly insulin helps regulate ketones (this is argued a lot by science-ey people (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/749914). Protein stimulates insulin release (http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/72/1/96.full). So, I should not go into ketoacidosis since my body knows how to insulin. However, I will keep an eye out for signs of ketoacidosis (unfortunately I do not have the capability to run labs on myself). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will post weekly updates. When I take pictures they are done with relaxed muscles, full exhaled breath. For the measurements: They are done with muscles relaxed, the fixed end of the tape measure (a plastic tape measure intended for use by a tailor) will remained pinned in place against my body while the free end is pulled tight. I close my eyes and let the free end slip through my fingers until it is barely snug against my body. I will re tighten and let it go loose 3 times before opening my eyes and taking note of the measurement. I purposefully keep things in 8ths. When doing measurements on the torso I do it with a fully exhaled breath, and take 3 measurements (everything is so squishy I have a hard time getting accurate results, so I don't want to rely on just one measurement). Here are the exact locations I measure: Neck - Widest point (over the peak of the adam's apple) Chest - Just under the nipples Bicep - Widest point (no landmark) Forearm - Widest point (no landmark) Waist - Narrowest point (which happens to be my last rib) Belly - Widest point of my pooch (which is just below my belly button) Butt - Widest point (I kind of figure out through trial and error where this this, there is no specific landmark) Upper Thigh (this is the widest point of the fatty area of my thigh. No landmark) Mid Thigh (this is the widest point of the muscular area of my thigh. No landmark) Calf (This is the widest point of my calf. No landmark) I do more exercises than just the ones listed... for sake of not having too much info here I will only post a few lifts. I will fill out a more comprehensive log at a later date and link it to this post. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2-Feb-2015 - (NOTE: I know this was not ideal but I took all of these measurements just before dinner. In the future I will do them first thing in the morning when I wake up) Weight - 141.9 pounds Neck - 15" | 14 7/8" | 15" Chest - 33 2/8" | 33 1/8" | 32 7/8" Bicep - 11 7/8" Forearm - 9 7/8" Waist - 29 2/8" | 29 3/8 " | 29 3/8" Belly - 32 7/8" | 33" | 32 6/8" Butt - 24" Upper Thigh - 40.5"" Mid Thigh - 43" Calf - 14 3/8" http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/gallery/image/9974-2feb15-front/ http://rebellion.nerdfitness.com/index.php?/gallery/image/9975-2feb15-side/ Deadlift: 150lbs 8r 3 Set (working on form) CHANGE: N/A Pullup: (On assist machine): -35lbs 7, 5, 4 Reps CHANGE: N/A Dumbbell Bench Press: 65lbs 4 reps, 65lbs 3 reps, 60 lbs 4 reps CHANGE: N/A Dip: 25lbs 5 reps for 3 sets CHANGE: N/A Squat (butt to calves): 135lbs 5 reps, 135lbs 7 reps, 135lbs 6 reps CHANGE: N/A Standing Shoulder Dumbbell Press: N/A CHANGE: N/A +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I am reading Level Up Your Life and I'm ready to start changing my habits little by little. I wish I could do it all at once and start eating better and exercising and stick to a rigorous plan but I know I cannot. I liked Staci's email with her precooked/prepared chicken thighs, sweet potatoes and veggies but I have such a hard time eating foods that are on the dry side like that. I prefer to have a sauce on my food to make it easier to go down and also more flavorful. However, it seems all the sauces that I really like are full of sugar and calories. (ie: ranch dressing, honey mustard, buffalo sauce, etc.) I've thought about just drizzling the food in extra virgin olive oil but I'm not sure if that would give me the taste I'd need to stick to the plan of eating healthier. Does anyone have any suggestions for some healthier sauces? I realize that I may just have to learn to enjoy drier foods but to start with I want to make this as painless as possible to curb my habit of just grabbing something quick and unhealthy. Thank you in advance everyone!

Hello everyone! As my last challenge was pretty positive, I want to continue on this good trend! For the next few months, I will be following a new guide, who will be my inspiration. Every month, depending on the situation or the obligations of work, health, etc. I will design a month-long challenge, who will be integral part of this longer time challenge. I don't exactly know how long it will last - maybe until the end of the year? Or until I am happy with the results. But without further ado, please all welcome our guide! Ryeowook! This is Ryeowook. Ryeowook is a Boy (I get the question often). He used to be 90+ kg when he was young, and then he decided he wanted to become a superstar in the body-conscious country of Korea, and he's now... less than 60kg! (He's also adorable, but that's a different story .) Ryeowook went through a serious change in his diet and his activity level, but my understanding is that he lost the weight little by little, without surgery and he's been 60kg for several years - no yoyo for Wookie! He subsequently joined the group Super Junior and he became a superstar! He actually just released his first solo mini-album! This is why he is my inspiration. MONTH 1 - Maintaining diet and exercise on the go! Travelling is often required for idols - and crazy schedules require a bit of creativity and flexibility to maintain good habits. This month, since I will be travelling for 3 out of 4 weeks, I'll focus on building habits outside of my house and keeping good habits. I am currently building out my goals and will post more about them later. Stay tuned! Welcome to our challenge! We will do great!

This is a super low calorie soup and it turned out so yummy! It makes 4 servings Ingredients 2 chopped carrots 1 onion chopped 1 chopped leek 1 tin chopped tomatoes 1tsp tomato puree 1 litre vegetable stock 80g dried pasta 40g frozen peas Splash of Worcestershire sauce In a large saucepan fry the carrots, onion and leek, then add the tin of tomatoes, puree, stock and frozen peas. Bring to the boil then add the dried pasta shapes and simmer for a further 15 minutes It's suitable for freezing, so I have three portions in my freezer for the rest of the week Nutritional Info 106 calories 0.8g fat 3.1g fibre 3.9g protein 94.2% vitamin A