Meats - Choosing Them

If I eat my protein with tons of fat, my salad with tons of fat dressing, and my French fries with tons of fat, unless I fasted the rest of the day, that sort of meal could get me in trouble unless it was once in awhile.

For any of you who were like me and aren't familiar with what makes different meats different, I'm going to show you so you can visualize it.

Now let's discuss some IF/THEN scenarios to show how you can make decisions you feel content with in real life without sacrificing all you've worked for with your weight loss.

So I apply an IF/THEN principle when deciding what to eat based on what's most important to me at a given time.

Examples:

Choosing a sandwich (P4)

Eating out more frequently (P4) (p3 - might be more of which higher fat low carb food do I want most at my meal tnite- how can I compensate on the rest of the meal, or the rest of the day to balance it out?)

If you have strength/working out goals

We all go through cycles of motivation- having a little head knowledge can help us easily make choices that fit those current motivation.

Show 186 calories of all meats:

Chicken breast = 6 oz - has 39g protein
Chicken thigh boneless/skinless = 5.5 oz - 35g protein
Chicken thigh with skin - 3.1 oz - 15.1 G protein
85/15 ground beef = 3.1 oz - has 16.4g protein
80/20 ground beef= 2.6 oz - has 12g protein
Ribeye- 2.4 oz -12g protein

Between the 2 extremes is a 27g protein difference.

Show: 6 oz portion for all meats:

Chicken breast - 186 calories
Chicken thigh - 205 calories
85/15 beef - 360 calories
80/20 beef - 426 calories (this is usually the fat content of what they serve at a restaurant)
Rib eye steak - 462 calories

Between the 2 extremes is 276 calories

There is ROOM to eat all these meat servings - but armed with this knowledge, I wanted to think of a way to both pursue better body goals and still eat what I really wanted - I was helped to start making IF/THEN scenarios:

IF I plan on going out for ribeye with hubby tonight, THEN I will eat plain chicken breast/lower calorie meal for lunch.
IF I want to eat French fries in phase 4 (#truestory - want and do all the time) THEN I will skip the 20% fat burger patty at the grill, have salad and fries and make myself a lean protein serving at home.
IF I am in the mood to work at building muscle/getting stronger, THEN I will have a late night snack of 5 oz of chicken breast instead of my dessert smoothie.
IF I am in the mood to have my favorite sandwiches at the local bakery shop THEN I will get it with 1/2 the cheese ( to lower the calories a little), and have additional lean protein when I get home (because the deli meat in the sandwiches is not that much protein). This will give me the proper calorie amount in the proper ratio for my body.
IF I prefer chicken thighs in my soup because I think chicken breast in soup is too dry for my taste buds, or I want a nice hearty beef stew meat with some fat in it, THEN I will just have in mind to be more sparing on the other fats I add to the soup.

Key takeaways from this discussion

• there is 10 grams less protein and 240 MORE calories in a burger patty that you would get a bar and grill than the same size serving of chicken breast. (So lower protein, more calories- significantly so - point to patty)
• Higher fat meats have less protein per ounce and more calories - in some cases, double, the calories, for the same serving size.
• If you choose to workout and desire to reap the benefits from those workouts you will likely need to increase your protein intake.
• Increasing your protein intake through higher fat meats would at the same time, raise your calorie and fat intake substantially.
• Increasing your protein through lean meats will increase your protein intake without adding a LOT of anything else.
• If you choose to lean out, choosing leaner cuts is a way to reduce calories without reducing the volume of what you're eating. You're still eating 6 oz of something, it's now just a chicken breast or lean pork or turkey instead of a ribeye or pork rib.

One of the things I discovered from my own experience is the variation in calories and protein for different types and cuts of meat.

I'm a dark meat girl. So until recently, I never ate chicken breast and I always went for thigh or drumstick, preferably with skin.

I'm going to give you a couple scenarios, and it's not to show that you should never eat higher fat meats. It's to show the differences between these foods and how we can bounce back and forth between various choices and still keep things in balance.

To reduce the calories to be the same as the 186 of the 6 oz chicken breast, you'd have to eat only about 2.5 oz of the beef patty and that would give you only 12 grams of protein.

So all I want you to make notice of for now is that there is 10 grams less protein and 240 MORE calories in the burger patty that would get a bar and grill than the chicken breast.

First of all, there is NOTHING WRONG WITH FAT. That fat is bad or that we should always eat low fat is old school, dance to the 80's and 90's stuff. However, just because fat is good, doesn't mean we eat it with total abandon either.

This is because fat, like all other macronutrients we consume,  will always = a certain amount of calories. And each of us human beings has a unique set of energy requirements to use up a certain amount calories, and if we consistently go beyond that, it's extra. Our body hasn't USED it right, so it's going to be stored as fat.

Now I LOVE my burger patty at my local grill every week. Hey I already gave up the bun right? But you know what I love even MORE than the burger patty? My fries. I'm not promising you will be eating French fries in Phase 4- that's between you and your body. I think Crossfit is what has allowed my body to process carbs like this well where I don't gain weight from it - if you're interested in that you might want to check out the weight lifting tutorial section 😉

It comes down to 2 things:

Calories - and you don't have to COUNT calories to be aware of and make choices that are line with what you are trying to do based on what I'm going to share with you.

Your goals - maintain weight loss + get stronger or get a little leaner.

I desired to get stronger at Crossfit and maybe to lean out a bit.

To get stronger - not only do you need to lift the weights and train, you have to give your body the protein it needs - working out is kind of like hiring a painting contractor. Once you've hired him you are set to go right? But the actual painting a house- which we'll compare here to the building of muscle and strength in your body, can't be done unless you have....paint...or ear protein. So just like the painting guy can't do his job without his materials, your body can't build the muscle you've given it the incentive to build by working out, if you don't have the materials. If you add a room on to your house and you're going to repaint it, you will need more paint this time right? So if you work out to build muscle, you will need more protein than before to build muscle. Sitting in a chair just doesn't require as much protein to keep your body as it is, and sitting in a chair also isn't asking your body to do more for you. Sitting in a chair is like NOT hiring a paint contractor and deciding to let your paint job just keep fading.

I know I'm painting a pathetic picture.

All this to say that as a person who considers myself a pretty big carnivore, once I finally worked up the nerve to track my macros a little bit in my fitness pal, I came to find I wasn't eating enough protein for the type of workouts I was doing. I was pretty shocked by this. But I feel like I eat so much meat!

I came to find it was, in part, because I was eating only higher fat meats. So I was getting less protein from the higher fat meats for the same serving size as a leaner cut, and I was get more of my daily calorie intake from fat. Which would be okay if all I wanted to do was maintain. It could also be not okay depending on just how much of that higher fat meat I was eating along with how much of everything else I ate in a day.

Everything has to play together right? The blueberries have to play with the steak and the olives in the end because it all ends up inside your body at the end of the day.

So once I learned that lean meats have more protein per ounce than higher fat meats, I gave in to chicken breast. And super lean steak cuts. don't get me wrong. I STILL EAT MY RIBEYE. But instead of eating it every time I want steak, it's more like 1/3rd the time I have a ribeye and 2/3rds of the occasions I get a lean beef cut like London broil.

Frame of reference - Doing this if eat 6 oz of chicken breast, I get almost 40 grams of protein in my meal, instead of 30. For me, I'm trying to eat 100-120 grams of protein a day with my current workouts so you can see how that 10 grams makes a big difference.

To get enough protein only from say the 80/20 beef patties- my calorie intake would be WAY high -

But the question is, do you have to eat only lean meats in order to get enough protein and to keep your calories in balance.

This is what I do:

When I'm just in maintenance mode/not caring TOO much mode, I eat higher fat cuts more often and my protein intake is a little lower.

When I'm in the mood to try a little harder to get stronger, I will start swapping out SOME of my proteins for leaner versions.

If I'm in the mood to lean out a little bit, I will start splurging my calories on my very favorite things and going with lean protein.

Example- earlier I mentioned loving my burger patty but that I loved my French fries even more.So I've taken to skipping the burger and just ordering my favorite French fries and the house salad that has my favorite mustard vinagriette on it. Then I'll go home and have 7-8 oz of chicken breast.

Making little trade offs like this allows me to have my very favorite things while still either maintaining or even pursuing new body goals.