A longtime dilemna of mine, related to weight loss, is... How to find good snacks, to eat while working, that are rich in protein but not carbs?

And before anyone says "beef jerky", I don't really like it.

Does anyone have any ideas of high-protein, low-carb snacks, besides beef jerky? Note that I'm not looking for something that simply "says" protein on the label but turns out to be mostly carbs with a little protein in it (like many of the "bars" you find at the health food stores), I want to sate my appetite with something that's genuinely mostly protein, to prevent me from wanting to go out to a fast food restaurant for lunch, and to offset the carb intake I normally have for the rest of the day.

Beef jerky?

Turkey jerky? Mutton jerky?

Peanuts?

Tried searching on Google for protein bar?

[dirty old man mode]
I've got a protein shake for you!
[/domm]
(This would work better if you were a young girl....)

Non-fat cottage cheese and canned tuna are protein miracles. Mix up some non-fat miracle whip with some canned tuna and you have something you can get down if you're not too picky.

For snack bars, I like EAS Myoplex Low Carb bars. The protein to carb ratios rock, and the flavors are decent.

I've tried other bars that I really didn't like. The MuscleTech Nitro bars were just nasty (I have a friend who works there and I got a killer discount, and still didn't buy any more). The Champion Nutrition bars made me naseous just from the taste after about 5 of them (over a two week period, not in 10 mins or anything).

Peanuts?

What's the protein/carb ratio for a jar of Planter's Peanuts?

Non-fat cottage cheese

Ick. I love cottage cheese, but can't stand the lowfat or nonfat variants. In fact, I'm very picky even about the brand. So that's out.

canned tuna

Now there's an idea. Keep the fixin's for Tuna Sandwiches in the fridge here at work. Hmmm.

I like EAS Myoplex Low Carb bars.

I'll look into that, thanks.

Nut nutrition info.

Peanuts are just over a 1:1 protein-to-carb ratio. But pistachios are at 2:1. Of course, you've got a lot of fat with any nut, but isn't nut fat* (monounsaturated) supposed to be good for you?

Edit: Oh, and before you say anything, I used to be able to get bulk low- and no-salt pistachios at my local fancy grocer. Just make sure you stay away from the red-dyed ones. That dye is there to hide poor-quality nuts.

* See earlier reference to ``protein shakes''.

And before anyone says "beef jerky", I don't really like it.

OK, then. Soylent Green it is.

OK, then. Soylent Green it is.

Too gritty for my tastes. Besides, they don't disclose what it's made out of, and I just don't trust that.

Actually, with Beef Jerky, I don't like the stuff they sell in stores either. It is remarkably easy to make your own though, and it will taste like whatever you want. Ours uses Soy, Worchestershire, garlic, salt, chile powder, and about a dozen other ingredients. We've tried different recipes and the finished product can taste radically different. Just cut a slab of meet into 1/4 to 1/8 inch thick peices and soak in a sauce of your own making for a few hours, then stick in a drying rack overnight.

We built our own drying rack using one 100-watt lightbulb at the bottom of a fiberboard box with metal trays in a few hours. Its been working well for more than a decade now. We also dry bananas, apples, strawberries, and all sorts of other things in it.

-Biscuits

Two words... Pork Rhinds.... Don't really know what the protein level is, but being that it's fried animal skin there are no carbs! I lived off of these when doing the atkins diet.

What's your sugar intake like?
Any good health food shop should be able to help you with this.

I guy at college was entering body building comps and stuff, he was *cut*! His lunches were often simple things like tuna and cucumber.

Aren't pork rinds nearly all fat?

- Trevor

Have no idea, I do know that there are no carbs... which makes them an excellent snack (if you can stomach them) for low carb diets.

Have no idea, I do know that there are no carbs... which makes them an excellent snack (if you can stomach them) for low carb diets.

I've never investigated low-carb diets very closely but I'd be surprised if they were effective for weight loss if they encouraged sitting down all day snacking on almost pure pork fat...

Peter

The best tasting bars that I've tried are EAS' Myoplex (they have a number of categories and then multiple flavours in each), Labrada (Texas Pecan Pie is good), Promax (Mmmm...) and Balance (standard and Gold - they're smaller therefore less calories per bar)

Keep in Mind Tony, the "carb" count in the better bars is not strictly made up of what you'd traditionally call a carb, nor are they usually made up of sugar or starch.

You can also try shakes, but you will likely find they're higher in calories than many of the bars. The all-out winner for taste is the Myoplex brand from EAS. Nothing else comes close. Of course then you've also got aspertame with this stuff and a bit of starch with the EAS shakes (to make them thicker).

With any of these things, make sure you've got a regular exercise routine. Protein shakes WILL pack on the pounds if you're not working out. As will anything really. And they're not meal supplements! They're a small meal replacement. Of course if you're going to have multiple of these things per day, including bars, you should also be having smaller meals.

Read "Body for Life" sometime. It's a quick read. Ignore the pictures. It's worked very well for a number of people here at work. The most important keys are a protein balanced diet and regular exercise (with a good focus on resistance training - ie. weights). You don't have to have any shakes or bars or buy anything from EAS. Any of that stuff, of any brand, is merely a convenience item.

Bruno

In reply to:

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I've never investigated low-carb diets very closely but I'd be surprised if they were effective for weight loss if they encouraged sitting down all day snacking on almost pure pork fat...

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The truth is even self proclaimed health experts have no idea how fats affect weight loss, actually fat is good for you if you eat the right kinds. The fact is it's a common misconception that eating fat makes you fat, most of the chemical additives in "low fat" foods actually impair weight loss... Low carb diets do indeed work I can vouch for that... They work extremely well... there are arguments as to the health risks involved. However for me after 2 weeks and a loss of 10lbs I couldn't resist the urge to eat bread. These diets don't work for me simply because of the willpower factor. I was amazed when I tried the atkins diet that I could get up, eat eggs, bacon, sausage, then for lunch eat a huge frickin steak, dinner consisting of two chicken breasts cheese and other various meats and still lose weight. Once your body hits keytosis (i think thats how you spell it) the weight starts falling off.

The big problem with fats is how the body utilizes them. Some people turn over fats very quicly and do not store large amounts (just lucky geneticlly speaking), others cannot readily metabolize fats and tend to increase stored and blood "fat" levels. Since many types of fats are potent stimulators of cells this can lead to coronary-artery disease, cancer etc. Remember though that these are chronic problems, eating hihg amounts of fat for shorter periods or occasionally I expect should not be a problem.

I believe the word is Ketosis (related to Ketone bodies in the Kidney/Ketone Metabolism)

Keep in Mind Tony, the "carb" count in the better bars is not strictly made up of what you'd traditionally call a carb, nor are they usually made up of sugar or starch.

I'm not sure I understand you here. Sugar and starch are what I'd traditionally call carbohydrates. What do the bars contain -- cellulose?

Peter

Alcohols, usually, IIRC. Fiber, too.

The one thing I'll say about the Atkins diet is that I've never met anyone who has resumed a normal diet and kept the weight off. This makes it just another yo-yo diet. Of my friends who've done the diet, most of them did lose a significant amount of weight, but once they resumed a normal balanced diet, the weight came back on. One of my friends has called it a "deal with the devil" because now she can't go back to eating right. There's just no way that the Atkins program can be healthy long-term, even given the advantages of losing weight. It also shifts focus away from exercise, which is IMHO a much more important component of remaining healthy and keeping weight off.

As with all these things, YMMV, but as much as I'd love to lose 20 lbs or so, I'm not going to do it if it means never eating a sandwich again.

I think that it might work better if the person on the diet lost however much weight they wanted to lose and then stayed at that weight for quite a while before slowly returning to a normal balanced diet. I think that your body has to have a chance to let its metabolism get settled.

But this is pseudo-scientific claptrap. I could be totally wrong.

Here's a link to recipes for "zone" favorable meals, including snacks, which tend to be well balanced - high in protein, low in simple carbohydrates and recommend natural unsaturated fats. might turn up a few decent ideas

http://www.zoneperfect.com/Site/content/cookbook_search.asp

The biggest problem/danger of the Atkin's diet IMO (and why I would never do it) is the load it puts on the kidneys. I'll stick with the "everything in moderation" plan.

Tony,

There is a bakery in my town that makes "health bread" that is a 40/30/30 bread (the ratio that is recommended by sports nutritionists like Michael Colgan). It's pretty good, too. If you go with the tuna sandwich route (I put dill relish in mine), make sure you don't destroy the whole thing by eating the wrong bread with it. Shop around and try to find a good, relatively low carb, protein fortified bread. Boutique bakeries make them.

Also, make yourself up some egg salad and bring it to work for sandwiches (or by itself). If you really want to keep the calories down, lose some of the fat by removing *some* of the egg yolks. I've known body builders who don't seem to mind eating only egg whites (great source of protein), but they just don't do it for me, so I leave most of the yolks in.

If you can find even a 1% cottage cheese that you can stomach, it's much better than whole or 2%. I didn't like non-fat cottage cheese at first, but I got used to it. I found that I could get used to almost anything after a while: diet vs. regular soda, non-fat dairy, non-fat salad dressings. I didn't like any of them at first, but over time I actually prefered them.

The other "miracle foods" from my fitness and weightlifting days were: Grape Nuts (complex carbs, you still need carbs, but try to stay away from starches and sugars. GN is an easy and fairly good breakfast as long as you get yourself some protein to have with it), chicken breasts, fish (Colgan has some great things to say about fish), roasted turkey breast, sweet peppers, asparagus, brussel sprouts, sliced low fat deli meats like chicken and turkey.

If your activity level picks up, especially with weight lifting, you will need more protein. With 3-4 days/week of strenuous weight training, you will need about 1g per lean body mass pound. That is a lot of protein. People will argue about this, but the research is available. I found that with heavy weight lifting, the only way I could keep my protein intake high enough was to go with a protein supplement. Whey is probably the best. It tastes awful, so another alternative is to back off on the strength training. Depends on what you're after. Another thing that people will argue with but is well documented is that the best way to lose fat is with resistance weight traning. Cardio workouts are great, and good for other reasons, too, but if you want to take off the pounds, high intensity weight lifting is the way to do it. PM me if you want some materials on this approach. It's not as horrible as it sounds: 30-45 minutes 3 or 4 times per day.

Take a good multi-vitamin and the research seems to show that chromium picolonate will help with what is thought of as "GTF" or glucose tolerance factor. Chromium appears to have something to do with insulin and sugar metabolism.

Have you read "Optimum Sports Nutrition" by Colgan? It is a must read.

Jim

30-45 minutes 3 or 4 times per day.

I hope that's a typo...

Oh my. 3-4 times per week! Sheesh. Actually, that's conservative, as you get stronger you can only do 1 or 2 per week without overtraining, but it takes a while to get there.

Lots of good advice in the thread so far, everyone, thanks.

Some of the discussion here is getting off on a tangents about dieting and "zone" that isn't directly to my specific question, but that's OK. It's all good information

For reference, I've managed to go gradually from about 215+ pounds down to my current weight of 170 simply by changing my eating habits and doing a little light exercise. It took 2.5 years, though. So I'm not looking at this as any kind of a crash diet, I've simply changed the way I eat and plan to stay with it.

At the current time, what I'm trying to do is simply satisfy my middle-of-the-day snack cravings without eating a lot of garbage full of carbs and fat. For the last couple of years, I've done my best to simply live with the cravings and not give into them. Now that I'm close to my target weight, I'm beginning to get back into the idea that I don't necessarily need to go hungry any more.

Here's my experience with protein bars, from last night:

After reading what was said about protein bars in this thread, I looked for some while grocery shopping. They had and entire section of them, with many different brands and flavors.

I found that most of the bars said "high protein" on the label, but when you looked at the fine print, they would be something like 10-15 grams of protein, 30-40 grams of carbs, and 20-30 grams of fat. Not what I was looking for. And, IMHO, falsely labeled. If it's a protein bar, why so much fat and carbs? They should say "some protein", not "high protein".

I found one brand of bar labeled "Low Carb Diet" that looked good, and bought a few. 3 grams of carbs, 20 grams of protein, 10 grams of fat, no sugars. Decent ratio, although the fat is still higher than I'd like. Tasted decent, not the greatest, but enough to satisfy my cravings for a snack. But they're $2.50 a pop. Ouch!

I know you've said you hate beef jerky, but I still think you might want to try making your own. It doesn't have to taste like those nasty Slim Jims or the other crap they sell in stores. It'll taste like whatever you make it with.

Personally, I've had the opposite problem from most people; it takes a lot of willpower to eat regularly. I just don't get hungry, so if I'm not careful, I can go for several days without eating, which is NOT a good thing.

-Biscuits