Day 9

I for no apparent reason decided to try tracking calories today, just to see how many I was getting in to my system out of my own curiousity. Before I started slow carbing, I was probably having 25-2600 calories a day MINIMUM, often still feeling hungry, with the intention of trying to put on some muscle. More on my findings shortly.



I started the day with a fairly small breakfast of left over lentils, spinach and a can of tuna. I think I should have planned it out better - that tuna tasted horrible! Couldn't finish it.

Mid-morning snack was me experimenting with a couple of ways of trying to get cottage cheese to taste good. First attempt was a bit of vanilla extract and cinnamon. Super fail! Second attempt, and a lot more bearable, was just adding a bit of salsa to it. Still not 100% sold on it, but it was a nice change from plain.

Had grilled peppers and onions and king prawns for my actual lunch, and savoured every mouthful of it. I really wish I could remember how I made it, but that is the problem with improvised cooking!

Had an early dinner, which was chilli made with chicken mince and kidney beans, on a bed of leafy spinach. I also had a 2nd helping of this meal a few hours later, immediately pre-workout.

Had a bit of a fat blasting interval workout, clubbed together from a couple of sites - mixture of interval training and tabatas. I will post my workout tomorrow. Left me absolutely drenched and sweat and my legs are still throbbing now. Love it!

Immediatley post-workout I had 2 scoops of a whey shake (allowed it myself as it was post workout) and then a bit later, to round off my day I had 3 tsp of peanut butter. Ok so I haven't properly learned my lessons yet from last week, but I like to think my workout does justify it.

Plus it is worth remembering that my goals are based on not really having a huge amount of weight overall to lose, but a substantial amount of muscle to gain, so I am allowing a couple of cheats which I think will help this muscle gaining - peanut butter for calories, good fats and some extra protein, and whey post-workout because it is the quickest absorbed protein there is.

Anyway on my original point, I thought I had some very generous servings today and felt like I was pigging out a bit. As it turns out, including all of my proper meals and snacks, the whey shake and the 3 tsp peanut butter, I got to something like 2,024 calories and literally cannot handle any more. Got in something like 231g of protein as well, which is HUGE!

My one concern is that based on conventional nutritional science, I need closer to 27-2800 calories a day to make decent muscle gains, so I think I will need to look at substantially upping my portion sizes. I don't mind if the weight loss slows down, as long as the waist loss can keep progressing ;)