Just starting can use some advice

[Tracy Kay]

Hi, I could use some advice about eating paleo. I am a 35 yo female who is about 50 pounds overweight. (5'3" 185lbs) I have been a CFer for about two and a half months - I am currently on a break, so far a week, from training due to a hamstring and wrist issue - body is trying to tell me something! I have lost about 15 pounds during this time (yes, I was up to almost 200lbs and no I have not had a baby recently - 12 years ago). Anyway as a result of the CF website I have heard about paleo eating and intermittent fasting. So I started doing some research. Two days ago, I switched to a 19 hour fast followed by a 5 hour eating period. So far no issues. This is the third day!

OK, that was the background, I noticed one the IF board that it says that while one can get results with IFing even if crap is consumed, but that much better results are gained with paleo/clean eating. So I have been all over the internet searching paleo and again back to the PM boards.

Let me first start with my constraints. I am deployed (please don't ask how a woman who is 50 pounds overweight stays in the military - we all know it happens). So I eat in a facility where foods are prepared and I have no control over the sourcing. So the issues of grain fed v. grass fed and organic, etc. are things I cannot concern myself with right now.

With the things I have to work with: a salad bar with bell peppers galore (red, green, yellow), romaine lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, tuna, dill relish, etc. There is even olive oil and balsamic vinegar. There is a short order that will prepare eggs anyway you like them. And then the standard two meat choice and a couple of vegetable choices.

My daily meals before IF, breakfast: three eggs - 1 yolk - scrambled with tomatoes, onions and peppers and turkey bacon. Snack - handful almonds. Lunch: tuna with 1 tbsp mayo and lots of dill relish, salad - mostly lettuce and peppers, sometimes cucumbers and tomatoes - with oil and vinegar. Snack: Almonds or some other nut. Dinner: whatever lean grilled meat is offered, whatever vegetables are offered and another salad like at lunch. Snack: this is the killer - something sweet usually chocolate, but could be an ice cream cone or a couple of cookies. Drinks: either water, diet soda or water with crystal light on the go for flavor.

So, even before IFing and finding paleo I was trying to eat better. Since Ifing - my breakfast is gone and my meals are the lunch and dinner as described above, so far no nuts or chocolate, but have had couple oatmeal raisin nut cookies each day.

I have a few specific questions:

1. What are the thoughts about diet soda - I do not drink coffee, this is how I get my caffeine - and crystal light? Can they fit in with a paleo lifestyle?

2. I cannot eat tuna plain - I am replacing my mayo (starting today) with olive oil (will see how that goes!) - I really enjoy my dill relish in the tuna - are pickles paelo? If not, would it be a huge no no to keep them?

3. Not a paleo but an IF question: Just realized that crystal light has 5 calories - if I consume this during my fasting hours does that mean I have broke the fast?? Today is the first day that during my fast time I drank a crystal light drink.

Also, any general advice you can give this newb would be appreciated. I apologize for the long post, I have read through many others and I figured I would try to answer the questions before they were asked!

Thank you,

Tracy

[Allen Yeh]

Tracy a few things then I'll go into the questions:

Do you know what your maintenance calories are/should be? That is where you should try to build your meals from. IMO the key to IF is not restricting calories but the simplicity of eating the same calories you did previously but in a shorter window. After a while you can restrict your calories more because you will find you don't need as many calories as you did previous to IF. So what is your ultimate goal right now? weight loss? If so find your maintenance calories and subtract 10% off of that. Then figure out how much protein/fat/carb intake from there.

I personally think trying to go Paleo and IF at the same time may be a bit too much at once, I would think one would be better served trying to eat cleanly first, then going Paleo would be the next step after that, then IF.

Cheating - I like John Beradi's rule of 90% if you eat well 90% of all your meals then you deserve some 10% of non wiggle type meals (cookies, ice cream, chocolate). That means that if you have 5 meals/snacks a day so in a week you are at a total of 35 meals/snacks, meaning you can hvae less than ideal items 3-4 meals/snacks a week.



Have you checked you MOD's most excellent IF blog? http://projectfit.org/iflifeblog/

Your questions:
1. No neither of these fit into Paleo, but both of these can fit into "clean eating" although anyone will tell you water is best. Being deployed however I'm sure you need to be conscious of electrolye intake as well. You would be best served with neither of the above, water, green tea (not the arificially sweetened kind), herbal teas (not sure if the last 2 are even availible where you are at).

2. Not positive on this one but I think pickles are ok?

3. During the fasting period you should try to avoid anything that can spike insulin. Artifical sweeteners are iffy and personally would not have it during fasting.

Hope this helps, definitely check out the link I gave you MOD put a lot of work into getting all of that together.

[Allen Yeh]

BTW whole eggs = good for most people.

[Mike ODonnell]

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

Have you checked you MOD's most excellent IF blog? http://projectfit.org/iflifeblog/

Wow....I just had a Bill and Ted Excellent Adventure moment...not good...

Allen hit alot of it....just follow the simple rules:
- Eat healthy (paleo) foods first
- Don't IFOC (IF on Crap), it doesn't work real well
- If you need to give yourself a weekend day off then go ahead

Fat Loss is hormonal....so you have to understand how to control those hormones to your advantage. Here's a good overview:
http://projectfit.org/iflifeblog/200...er-the-basics/

Also here's an intro to IF
http://projectfit.org/iflifeblog/200...-start-part-i/

IF can and does work...although you still want to eat healthy foods for a healthy body...skinny people can get sick too.

[Tracy Kay]

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

Tracy a few things then I'll go into the questions:

Do you know what your maintenance calories are/should be?

Nope. How do I do that?

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

So what is your ultimate goal right now? weight loss?

Fat loss - I have about 40-50 ugly pounds of that, that need to go!

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

If so find your maintenance calories and subtract 10% off of that. Then figure out how much protein/fat/carb intake from there.

Not sure how to do either - can deduct 10% of known value - its the other two parts I am unsure of.

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

I personally think trying to go Paleo and IF at the same time may be a bit too much at once, I would think one would be better served trying to eat cleanly first, then going Paleo would be the next step after that, then IF.

So far the IF part is pretty easy for me and I think I have been pretty clean as far as eating goes. Obviously need some help, but that is why I have asked!

I checked out MOD's blog and it is great with a lot of great info. I spend a lot of time between there and here.

Allen, thank you so much for your helpful and thoughtful response. BTW, I do have access to green tea and herbal teas. You would be surprised how civilized deployment can be depending on your location and job. Let's just say I am a desk jockey!

Thanks again!

[Tracy Kay]

MOD, thanks! I had read that weight loss 101 and already changed my eating window to end earlier so I would get the benefit of MAX GH response! I read the Fast 5 book, which is where I got the idea for my fasting periods, so my first fast ended at 10pm, lol. Oh, well it is day three and still so many lessons to learn . . . However, as far as what to eat, I started out trying to be clean in addition to the fasting.

[Mike ODonnell]

Tracy, here's some quick thing to just remember:
- protein with every meal
- veggies with every meal
- skip breads/pastas/grains
- add healthy fats
- Fruit AM or pwo when insulin sensitivity it highest
- dump ALL sugars (will never burn fat if insulin is out of control)
- keep active daily

[Allen Yeh]

Originally Posted by Tracy Kay

Nope. How do I do that?



Fat loss - I have about 40-50 ugly pounds of that, that need to go!



Not sure how to do either - can deduct 10% of known value - its the other two parts I am unsure of.



So far the IF part is pretty easy for me and I think I have been pretty clean as far as eating goes. Obviously need some help, but that is why I have asked!

I checked out MOD's blog and it is great with a lot of great info. I spend a lot of time between there and here.

Allen, thank you so much for your helpful and thoughtful response. BTW, I do have access to green tea and herbal teas. You would be surprised how civilized deployment can be depending on your location and job. Let's just say I am a desk jockey!

Thanks again!

There are a lot of ways to figure out maintenance calories, there are a lot of different formulas and each have their pros and cons. The 2 I'm most familiar with is the Katch-mcardle formula and theHarris Benedict. The Katch-Mcardle is based upon lean body mass while the Harris Benedict formula is based on height weight and age.

I did a rough formula and came up with ~2300 calories for a lightly active female of your age, height and weight. Then take 10-20% off of that to get what you should shoot for. If you think you are more active than lightly active you just bump up that number above by 300 calories.

We can get more in depth if you want or you can try to follow MOD's guidelines and go from there.

[Mike ODonnell]

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

Katch-mcardle formula and theHarris Benedict

Personally I've found those formulas to be a load of crap.....telling average overweight women to eat 2300 calories??? That's insane unless you want to workout 4x a week with bodybuilding workouts on top of 45 min on the treadmill afterwards. Hell I eat 2500 cal on IF and keep muscle and burn fat...so why does a woman need to have my intake?

If you are doing IF...eat as much meat/protein, as much veg (not potatoes, corn, peas), little fruit and healthy fat.....that is keeping it simple for most people. Plus cycle low cal weekday and enjoy the weekends more (cheat meals, higher calories, reset starving metabolism). Train for muscle, eat protein to keep muscle, keep calories low to burn fat all day long. (I did something today on getting a fat metabolism on the blog....nothing new to people here, just shows why a higher fat/lower carb diet leads to more fat burning in fasted or low calorie states)

[sarena kopciel]

Not to piggyback here but to help all understand perhaps better, MOD ! You recommended greens at every meal. I went thru a short cycle where for breakfast before Oly practice, I only ate my meat/fish/eggs w/ fat (avocado generally). Is that a no-no??

Not that I dont like the greens, I am eating pies of raw collards and kale now w/ fresh homemade hopped liver (even made h/m EVOO may!!). I was just looking to see how practice would be w/out any AM carbs!

Thoughts?