Meat Rut, Overeating Fat, Struggling 3 weeks In page

[fateater]

This post is all over the place, please try to bear with me?

As an ex-vegetarian, switching to a primal diet has had it's challenges - namely, the meat aspect.

I have NO problem consuming fat, on days I overeat I can easily down 200g+ of fat!!! I know we are eating high fat here, but that seems WAY too high doesn't it?

I rarely have cheese, organic butter is my only dairy. I use coconut oil and coconut cream and make coconut butter. I love avocado.

I like ground beef, find it easy and tasty to eat. I can eat 1lb in a sitting with a few cups of spinach atop a huge bowl of shredded lettuce (like, an entire head of lettuce) and be hungry after; or feel the need to eat something else still despite having eaten 900 calories for example.

I like chicken, I eat 3-4 eggs per day. I'll have salmon 1x per week.

But I don't know what else to eat, meat wise. Can't seem to find a way to prepare steak or other cuts of beef in a way that is appealing. Pork, can't do it, except these crazy expensive sausages I found that I can't afford more than 1x month. Other seafood, so not appealing...

Nuts are a huge problem for me. Just tonight, instead of cooking some beef, it just didn't seem appealing, so what did I end up doing but eating 300g of raw cashews with celery, which is like +1500 calories! Not good.

I know I have to eat more meat and veg meals, but I don't have a clue how to do that.

And the whole, "listen to your body" thing, is not working out for me. It's like my body signals are screwed up really bad, because I can have a great day of eating Primally, meat-veg-eggs-fats-greens-water, and still end up with this compulsion to eat more after dinner, like I'm hungry for something but I can't figure out what.

(It'd be great if I just stopped buying the nuts, but I feed a kid too, and nuts are moderate part of her diet, because she so far isn't big on the meat, she'll only eat chicken and shrimp and sometimes salmon.)

The Eat More Fat advice hasn't helped subdue my appetite, neither has at least 1g protein/lb of LBM... Something else must be up with my body.

Any advice, ideas, suggestions, familiarity with this type of thing???
THanks

OH - I should add I'm female, 31, about 5'11, weight unknown (160lbs?) but I'm down to the last pair of pants that barely fit I've put on 4" on hips and 3" on each thigh in the past 6 months while eating high carb, low fat. Estimate 27% body fat based on measurements online calculators.

I walk to run errands most days at least 45 mins, often carrying 40lb child, just started going to the gym trying out HIIT on elliptical, otherwise, currently at home unemployed just chillin' with my kid, not super active. Single parent, don't get out ever after bedtime just stuck at home on my butt, which gets bigger and softer and maybe I'm emotionally eating right now too.

Going Primal goal wise: ENERGY and MOOD are the biggest, also to reduce body fat while maintaining muscle, I want to look hot naked basically It's been awhile since I've felt that.

[BestBetter]

You mentoned that hunger is an issue now...in the past, what types of meals were likely to satisfy your hunger? Maybe using information about what worked can help make this newer way of eating work for you better. For example, maybe you need some carbs to feel full. I'm usually like this. In general, having some carbs like potatoes or white rice or something along with fat and protein tends to be more satiating than just the fat or protein alone. What happens if you add a potato into the mix?

I personally don't feel good eating high fat+low carb. I fact, I personally experienced some worsening of health issues eating this way, and i overall feel significantly better eating lower fat and higher carb. On low carb, I gained fat, and among other issues I experienced significant depression and mood instability which was rectified by adding back way more good carbs to my diet, but that's me. I had to figure out the right tweeks to make this way of eating work for me, and what I needed no one else could tell me, I just had to keep trying new things until i hit the right combo for me.

Everyone is different. Some people can guzzle fat and feel fantastic. So if something isn't working for you, change it. Experiment.

[fateater]

I feel good when I don't eat. Once I start eating, it's like I can't stop!

When I ate high carb low fat, my appetite was also out of control, and all I thought about was food. I'd literally be hungry 45 mintues after eating 1000 calories of fruit and veg.

I'd fast regularly, but I still nurse my toddler 2x day so IF'ing or similar fasting plans are not something I can consider right now.

If I eat breakfast and then am out busy busy running errands and doing stuff, not at home, I generally won't feel hungry. Maybe it's something in the air in my house

Example of a filling breakfast, 3 eggs and half an avocado with black coffee. Or a big spoonful of coconut oil and coffee.

Right now, as I've been trying low carb for the first time ever, I find that if I get over 45g carbs I start to just feel the need to eat eat eat eat eat. Often in the form of nuts, or oddly enough, salmon. Or roasted veg. No issues here eating an entire head of cauliflower roasted in coconut oil. And that's after dinner.

I don't know, I like the lessened cravings for sweets. I'm finally sugar free and a little bit nervous about eating fruit again lest it set me off (the high carb low fat thing, that was the fruitarian 30 bananas a day, tons of dates etc. thing).

I haven't yet experimented much with including more carbs/starches. It's definitely something to consider, you're right. Thanks for the reply!

[Drumroll]

I have heard that nursing mothers need a significant amount of extra calories both to produce milk for the infant and to replace the calories lost in the act of nursing. Maybe your body is just trying to tell you this?

[fateater]

I have heard that nursing mothers need a significant amount of extra calories both to produce milk for the infant and to replace the calories lost in the act of nursing. Maybe your body is just trying to tell you this?

Well there is that aspect, yes. I kinda thought that would be an non-issue now that she's not an infant, and the majority of her calories are met through food now. She just turned 3 and nurses to sleep and upon waking but that's it. I certainly USED to be able to down close to an extra 1000 calories per day when she was a wee one nursing round the clock!!

[avelin]

How are you cooking your meat? Getting much variety in flavours?

Even with mince you can eat a ton of flavour combos and ethnic/national styles and a variety of cooking methods.

I'm also wondering how you are doing with the sugar monster and if you were previously a night time snacker.

[Drumroll]

Well, has the need for extra calories dropped in accordance to the amount you are nursing your child, or has it stayed constant?

Really, the only way to know this isn't the cause is to stop nursing your child altogether for a while and see if your appetite subsides. This is not necessarilly something I can advise you to do or not, i is a decision you must make on your own, but it is the only reliable way, in my opinion, to truly rule out the breast feeding as the cause.

[spuggygirl]

It has only been 3 weeks. Give it some more time.

I've been primal for a year now and would hear all these stories about people who were fat adapted and never felt hungry - and I wondered when on earth it would happen to me....after time I thought it never would. I've tweaked and tweaked again but I still felt hungry - then it was eventually suggested that maybe I was eating too many starchy veggies and cutting down on these might help with the hunger (and to drop some fat). I cut down to basically just leafy greens, but found that I needed to increase my fat intake to avoid energy dips. I dropped about 10lbs really quickly (that has stalled now, although I'm still losing inches and building muscle) but more importantly, all of a sudden I didn't feel constantly hungry any more.

That is what has worked for me. For you it may be quite different, and certainly the fact that you're still nursing is likely to be having an impact....but give it some time. Perhaps you need to slowly wean off of the carbs using high fat and then can play about with fine tuning, perhaps you're still going through some kind of carb flu that's making you feel hungry (and possibly crave carbs), but 3 week isn't a lot of time to become fat adapted. Be patient and don't be hard on yourself.

[Damiana]

Listening to your body thing doesn't work for everyone because during certain times of the month, my body tells me to stay in bed all day and eat all the chocolate I can before falling into a sugar coma. You don't need to do high fat, despite what the book says. It's a guideline, not the bible. I'd tweak my macros until I find what works if I were you.

[Cossycarrick]

Fast for a while then you can reset your body. it worked for me to control my food intake.
Hope this help:-)