A bit of black currant jam, cinnamon and some blueberries help a lot for gobbling down low/no fat cottage cheese for me - it's even pretty tasty!

How about mixing it with yogurt or 10-15% fat sour cream? (Maybe use a blender though mixing with a spoon gives a liquid texture too.)

There's 'soft quark' (aka 'tender quark', "мягкий / нежный творог") made in the East Slav countries which has a creamy texture (just like Greek yogurt).

I don't know if anything analogous is made in the US or even how it's called in English. (In Germany, there's 'Quark-Joghurt Creme' though I'm not sure if it's the same.) Also, I don't know the technology of its production. Some housewives have been able to imitate it by straining kefir.

Is that jam low in sucrose?

My preferred brand doesn't specify sucrose or fructose content, just "sugar". It's not very sweet, cause that sucks imo.

Hehe ...
I researched now a little bit. Apparently it is really between difficult and impossible to get quark in USA. Here it is staple food in a majority of households.

The typical stats per 100 g of soft quark are: 44 kcal, 10 g of protein, 0 g of fat, 1 g of carbs. A 125 g pack costs ~$0.5 in Russia

This correlates well with the reputation of the US as a country where obesity is an epidemic.

Greek yogurt is much higher in protein than regular yogurt, isnt it? Why not switch? The regular stuff is pretty high in carbs iirc.

Want to get very high protein, very low calorie food? Check out chicken breast protein to calorie ratio. Cook up a bunch of it, put it in tupperware containers in the fridge and eat some of that towards the end of the day if you're not going to get enough protein for the day. https://www.google.com/search?q=chic...chicken+breast

Yup, I've been a big fan of Greek yogurt lately. The share of protein in its energy content is slightly lower than in reduced-fat soft quark but GY is noticeably less sour and thus tastier.

What's unique about H&F is that the search for breasts yields mostly posts about chicken, not human, ones Chicken breasts seem lifters' go-to source of protein.

I cant eat dairy at all anymore so its been a long time since I have eaten any yogurt, but its fine if it fits your macros I guess. Eating the high carb stuff seems bad if you're having a hard time eating enough protein and are going over your calorie limit.

I used to eat a lot more chicken when I wasnt trying to weigh close to 240 all the time. Now I have a hard time maintaining my weight if all I eat is chicken. Moving massive weights and weighing 240 seems to make burning calories easy.

Tbh, I don't care about protein : fat : carb proportions all that much, just it's a bit boring to eat beans all the time so I alternate them with dairy and eggs as I can't stand the tastes and textures of meat, fish and soy.

Yes I think chicken breast will bump up my breakfast as well as an end of day snack. Handy to have available. I guess I could cook some right now for tomorrow but that would involve getting up...


That does sound pretty tasty. I'll try it with the ricotta I bought-a for starters. Except I don't have blueberries. Hmph. I do have fresh peaches, apples (natch) or grapes. Yum sounds like a delish breakfast...w a side of chicken.

Josie,

Great job with everything. I need to steal some of your motivation from you on the exercise front! I was wondering if you think the 120 gm protein is something you would be able to sustain in the long term? Obviously you have a lot of will power giving up rice, pasta, bread etc and maybe you are in the mindset of purely thinking of food as fuel?

Thanks Rexx,

I don't miss rice, pasta or bread, though bread (sandwiches) is so darn convenient.

Not sure if I'll be able to sustain the 120g protein long term. It's out of my comfort zone and takes effort right now. I naturally tend toward protein in the 80s.

Right now I'm full. Just ate 3 slices of ham entirely because my protein for the day was at 118g. Not anymore!

I just baked a sheet pan of chicken breast so I'm all set to hit 120 tomorrow.

It's basically cottage cheese + cinnamon + something sweet-ish like jam and berries, but sweeter fruit can obviously work as well! Even better with some granola, nuts or the like for crunch, but that obviously isn't as ideal when dieting.

If you eat a lot of chicken breast it would behoove you to read this article: http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/06/h...en-breast.html

You can pan fry instead of grill as well of course. Neutral cooking oil at first, finish with a touch of butter (a little goes a long way taste-wise).

I had ricotta, cinnamon, grapes and the tiniest drizzle of honey this morning and it was frigging delish. Gonna do a chicken chaser soon.

Thank you for the link!

I typically do pound my meat, but last night I did not as I was just lucky to get it in the oven and cooked. And the reminder about brining is great. I usually brine chicken parts but not necessarily breast meat. I dunno why not though! They're the part that probably need it most.

The chicken in the pic above was coated in plain yogurt, garlic and spices before baking which makes it pretty tender but not super brown.

I, too, like to pound my meat.

Mmmmmm breakfast! Not pictured is the chicken portion of breakfast.

However! With 4oz of chicken, that's a 50g protein breakfast! Assuming I finish this chicken.

Ack, I forgot to post yesterday's numbers and ****.

It was a rest day so....

Back to the goblet squats! 4x15x25lbs - really just focusing on best form possible. I still find myself leaning forward when getting close to parallel. Trying to clean that shiat up.

Planks 3x61 seconds - I find I hate doing planks and am very spent afterwards. I skipped the 4th one.

Yoga poses 15 minutes - some really good stretches done after the squats and planks. Downward dog, upward dog, warrior pose, baby pose, camel.

Bicep curls (both at same time) with 30 lb weird looking free weight barbell thingy. It was hard. 3x5x30. The funny thing is when I do bicep curls with the weight machine, I do them one at a time and do 20 lbs each. Here I'm doing 30lbs, w both arms = 15lbs each so it should be easier but ITS NOT. I will have to work my way up to the 40lb barbell thingy.

Treadmill - 45 min @ 3.8 incline - I wanted to do some cardio and did not feel like doing that ****ing elliptical.

Swim - 10 laps - I haven't been doing this enough and I loved it. Only problem is people tend to talk to me (!) while I'm in the pool and pool area. wtf is up with that? No I don't want to chat with you while I'm in a frigging pool and out of breath from swimming a lap, nor do I want to chat when dripping when out of the pool half nekkid.

Last week a guy would not stop talking to me IN THE POOL so much so, I cut the swim short and walked away to the whirlpool. Soaking in whirlpool, head back, eyes closed...I open up my peeps and boom there he is, inches away from me in whirlpool talking away. "well this is warmer than the pool." Oh, ****ing really? But I digress, back to work out.

Sauna - 20 min

Then shower, home, cooked up some chicken for tomorrow and ate some ham.

Why a late night ham snack? Because my protein was at 118g for the day at that point and um, no. I exceeded 120g with my ham.

Speaking of protein...

Calories 1273
Protein 123g <---that's right biatches!
Fat 45g
Carbs 95g

MFP snapshots to follow.

I dont know what your goals are, but if you are not getting enough protein, its going to be hard to get very lean or very muscular.

I think as you become stronger and work out harder, your body will crave more protein.

Nice job on the chicken!

Good job on the protein intake lately. Great job on everything for that matter!

Thanks Cha!

I'm not too worried about long term, just one day at a time. So long as I'm prepared, I can hit the 120g and I know 80g is too low for me, I just needed a little kick in the butt.

TY Floppy and may I say you have a fabulous outdoor area thats gorgeous and functional...love it but don't think I commented.

My goal is neither to get very lean nor to get very muscular but just to find a reasonable compromise between the cost and the healthiness / balance of a diet. I'm discussing this in the noob thread right now - it looks like whey concentrate can rescue me when my food intake is running low on protein, though rumors are that it's dangerous to abuse it on a regular basis. I'm sorry that you have trouble with using it yourself.

How does one abuse whey?

How will you be consuming it?

'Abuse' is a strong word - I've been wondering if taking the normal dose (60 g, or even 30 if some of the other food of the day contains enough protein) every day is safe enough.