Seemingly large quantities of food...

[Ronald Istrat]

Removed.

[Mikkel Ravn]

I’ve been losing weight and have found my progress in strength training to be a bit slower than I’d like. I speculated the former was due to a caloric deficit and the latter potentially due to insufficient protein. With a target weight of 170 lbs with ~10-12% bodyfat, I imagine I need about 136 g of protein per day. I made this my goal today and decided to measure out just the protein sources for the time being, to keep things simple.

 

To reach that goal, I’ve eaten 732 g of meat, spread out over 4 meals, totaling 127.3 g of protein and 1,541 kcals. I ate volumes of vegetables equaling that of the meat at each meal, but didn’t take measurements of exact amounts. All of the ingredients were fresh and home-cooked.

 

I’ve never been described as having a small appetite. However, this felt like an obscene quantity of food next to what I usually eat. If this is what it takes to reach what I thought were conservative goals, I’ve definitely been operating with both insufficient calories and insufficient protein. I figure I’ve been eating half that, most days.

 

I felt stuffed after every meal and genuinely feel like I’m over-eating. I’ve ordered a copy of Understanding Nutrition by Whitney and Rolfes, as I’m rather naive when it comes to this, but it won’t arrive for a while.

 

Can anyone say whether or not these number sound right?

 

edit: looked at the nutrition info for a tub of protein powder. 186 g of the powder comes out to 138 g of protein and only 660 kcals. I guess it makes sense why so many people supplement meat, eggs, dairy, etc. with protein powder

I understand if it feels dreary to chew through all that meat. Why don't you substitute with other items? 1 litre of milk and two large eggs, that's ~50 grams of protein right there. A couple of slices of good cheese and a serving of greek yoghurt, that's another ~25-30 grams. There are lots of options.

[Karl-Erik Karlsen]

Sounds like you have been going high protein and low carb, am I right? And you are trying to add mass quickly?

Either you are not eating enough fat - which is pretty energy dense - or you are just not used to the amount of food yet.
Gaining weight is very tough, you have to eat uncomfortable amounts of food if you are in a hurry to gain. You will gradually get used to eating a lot over time though, but it's something you'll need to adapt to.

Alternatively, you might want to eat more carbs - which are energy denser than most vegetables (I'm thinking grains and stuff here) or like Ravn says, milk (and other liquids) is good since it doesn't make you feel so full. On the other hand, it can lead to some GI issues if you overdo it.

OR you could try to just stay in a low surplus and attempt to gain weight over a year or two - which would probably be more healthy for you, lead to less fat gain and might be easier to sustain over time, since your set point for weight is being altered slowly. I personally think fast changes are usually not a good idea, as the body tries to resist changes in homeostasis.

[Joshua Slocum]

1g of meat has about 4kcals. So the meat you're eating must be incredibly fatty if you're getting 1541kcal with only 127.3g of protein. That's probably why you feel so full. Go for leaner meats. 

[Alessandro Mainente]

definitely joshua is correct, 1 gram of protein is equal of 4 kcal this means, for you intake 500 kcal of protein, is about 1/3 of your total intake. something here is wrong. what type of meat?

[Josh Schmitter]

Pterodactyl...or possibly unicorn?

[Ronald Istrat]

Removed.