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I think this makes perfect! I’m curious in what way this is surprising to you
Well, first of all the entire idea of balanced meals weirds me out. I eat in small-but-frequent quantities (you can see what a normal day looks like for me here), so to me the natural time unit across which one should balance one’s nutrient intake is the *day*. (Maybe even 2 – 3 days, since on any given day I often run out of appetite before covering all the categories I’d intended to.) I actually feel thrown off planning-wise when I *do* eat a balanced meal, because what am I supposed to eat to counterbalance it later? It counts towards a little bit of everything, which means it doesn’t *really* count towards *anything*.
(In fact, the entire idea of *meals* kind of weirds me out. My foods are generally much more atomised, and it never ceases to amaze me that there are so many people who go through meal levels of complicatedness and preparation almost *every time they eat*. I do that kind of shit once a day at *most*, and left to my own devices I make relatively simple meals at that.)
While my diet is quite rigid and has had some thought put into it, it’s not exactly *planned* in the same sense that yours seems to be. I don’t track precise nutrient intakes: I just try to cover a bunch of different kinds of food over the course of a time unit. The only thing I specifically seek out is fibre, as my body has repeatedly complained that [a version of my diet in which I do not actively seek out fibre] is not fibrous enough. I’ve also been eating fewer and less frequent high-fat foods, again because of negative physical responses rather than an abstract intellectual belief that they were bad for me.
so part of it is that it’s not a balanced meal – the dietary ‘goal’ of the yogurt is to meet my desired level of protein intake.
I want to be hitting a minimum of 80g/day, and ideally closer to 160g/day. plausibly you can’t usefully consume more than 30-50g of protein at a time.
this is kind of hard to do with balanced meals unless your whole diet is oriented around it. my diet is not and includes a bunch of shitty carbs, so I gotta make up the protein elsewhere.
the most straightforward supplement here is chicken. nonfat strained yogurt is one the next best things, the tier two of protein supplements if you will. fatty strained yogurt with add-ins is kinda down there, but still batting above replacement.
so the more skewed towards protein the yogurt breakfast is, the more room I have to eat cookies or something later. 160g/day is ~650 Cal from protein per day, which is 15-25% of my daily needs. a food which is ~30% protein by calories is considered high in protein, so either you need to eat exclusively that or you have to make up the difference with actually high protein foods.
Ah, okay. Pretty much the same reason I eat popcorn, but with protein instead of fibre.
What made you decide to seek out extra protein?
Want Beeg Mussels
#at greater length: #higher protein intake seems like it has upsides in terms of maximizing potential muscle gains #and minimizing losses if attempting to cut #with relatively few if any downsides
@rustingbridges replied: also, popcorn is great
It *is* great in many ways, but I do find it a bit time-consuming to make and eat, and I worry it’s going to wear down my teeth (I *definitely* have at least one chipped tooth directly attributable to popcorn, and I wonder about more subtle wearing as well). I considered buying some psyllium at the grocery store yesterday, but apparently you’re supposed to take it several times a day and that hardly seems any better on the hassle front.
Mom just ordered another batch of high-fibre tortillas off Amazon, and I accepted her offer to throw in a bag of the smaller-sized tortillas: they’re lighter and less prep-requiring than popcorn, and if I don’t like them she can just use them herself. Next time I’m able to get to a bulk-food store I might try some flax seeds: they do *sell* them in the grocery store, but the packages I saw were 450g and that’s far too much for a test run. I’m also thinking of buying a *different* flavour of fibre bars for evening use, so as not to confuse my brain by eating breakfast food at night.
(FTR, I’ve tried prune juice, but it’s easy to overshoot the dosage on that and also it only lasts a few days once it’s open. Separating out smaller quantities and freezing them only helps so much.)
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