The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[cspa522]

I'm fairly new to the plan, I've been on it for only two weeks. My meals, most days consist of the following:

7:30am - shake
10:00am - bar
12:30pm - soup and some soy crisps (but I don't always have soy crisps, only if I'm particularly hungry that day)
3:00pm - shake
6:00pm - usually a salad with some ff shred cheese, ff dressing, and baked, diced chicken. Sometimes I'll have a little bit of hard-boiled egg with it.
10pm - shake or oatmeal

I think maybe I'm having too many carbs and/or too much protein?

[Sarya]

It's hard to say if you are having too many carbs without knowing what shakes, what bars, what's on your salad, etc. FF cheese adds carbs as does dressing.

Can you work out a nutritional breakdown for your l&g? Some people don't worry about this, but if you are concerned then you should try to keep your entire L&G under 300 calories and 10g of carbs. The plan was designed with those figures in mind.

Daily caloric intake is supposed to be between 800-1000 calories. Daily TOTAL (not net) carb intake is supposed to be between 80-85g. The nutritionist always says carb:protein should be a 1:1 ratio but I've never seen that occur in real life. At least not for me.

Having both a bar and soy crisps in the same day may also send you over the carb line. And the soups range between 13 and 19g carbs.

The important things to restrict on the diet are carbs and calories. The carbs are restricted so that you enter a mild ketosis state which switches what your body is burning for fuel. The calories are restricted because obviously we want to take in less calories than we burn in a day

[cspa522]

I usually keep track of everything I eat on Fitday.com. And according to it, my carbs are fine. Yesterday I had 89 grams of carbs, actually. My diet consisted of:

-Cappuccino
-Caramel Nut Bar
-Chicken Noodle Soup
-Soy Crisps (I usually don't eat a whole bag at once, instead I'll spread it out to get me through the day).
-Vanilla shake
-Cobb salad w/1/4 c. shredded cheese & ff ranch dressing
-Grilled chicken on the salad
-Some egg and carrot on the salad (though I picked around them best I could)
-Vanilla shake with diet root beer

For the last week I've been around 88 carbs, average. My calories have all been great, so maybe that's where I'm failing. Thanks! I didn't know what the numbers were for this kind of stuff. That's been a big help!

I think I'll try to only eat a bar every other day. That will probably help. Thanks again!

[DogMa]

Why do you think you're "failing"? You just joined the forum a little over a week ago; when did you start the program?

[Sarya]

Dogma does have a good question.. why do you think you are failing? You don't seem to be from what you say. Your carbs are just above 85, and you are losing weight. If that stops working for you then by all means start restricting the carbs, but now? It's only been two weeks give it a good month to see. The reason why I asked is because you were concerned, but if you are losing weight and your carbs aren't something high (I've heard of people getting up to like 120g easily) then I don't see why you should seek to change what you are doing. Give your body time to acclimate to the diet then see what happens.

You don't have far to go; your choices seem sound, just watch your portion sizes. You don't say it up there but remember your lean and green portion sizes. This is one of the important lessons because portion sizes are out of control nowadays, and it's important we learn healthy amounts.

Lean is especially hard with a mix of proteins like that. 1/4c of cheese is equivalent to about 1.75oz of chicken so if you didn't eat the egg (or if it was just a small sprinkling) then 5.25oz of chicken.

The salad should be 2cups of greens with a half cup of raw veggies.

Just remember if the portion sizes are larger ask for a box and pack up the extra right away; if the portion sizes are too small get a side dish to compensate. Some places make tiny mounds of salads covered with a ton of addins so you have to get a side of veggies to compensate, ya know?

But really you sound like you are doing fine.

[cspa522]

I didn't really mean "failing" because five pounds is still five pounds down, not up! Bad choice of words. I just didn't realize how many carbs I was having so I'll be watching that from now on. Thanks to everyone!