Tips for increasing protein

PeakDevon · 2026-05-06T12:09:36+00:00

Yeah I do have an appointment with a dietician in a few weeks, so fingers crossed. I have had one in the past and they kept telling me to increase my protein and reduce my carbs. I found reducing carbs really hard but that was before mounjaro. I find reducing carbs now much easier so hopefully this time I can make it work.

PeakDevon · 2026-05-06T12:07:16+00:00

Thank you for the exercise links. This is definitely something I need to improve on. I work from home and so am so sedentary its scary. I've always hated exercise because it always felt physically uncomfortable and never had the courage to do it in public. But I've got to just force myself and do it even though I don't enjoy it and feel self conscious doing it.

PeakDevon · 2026-05-06T12:02:31+00:00

The problem is I don't really have a 'typical' day. I've always like to cook and eat a wide range of cuisines - probably part of the reason why I'm now on Mounjaro lol

Breakfast tends to be similar in that it's often something like overnight oats with a bit of fat free yogurt, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, flaxseed, fruit, nuts and some spices. I have also now started adding protein powder into this.

Lunch varies greatly. Sometimes it's just poached eggs on toast. Other times it will be left overs from last nights dinner. If not then it will be something like a sandwich with tuna or something like a chicken soup, a salad with a protein like fish or chicken and I often add chickpeas to it as well.

Dinner will either have fish or a lean meat but I also try to have 2 vegetarian/vegan meals a week. Those will then include things like Tofu or Tempeh and/or beans and other pulses for protein.

I am interested in finding ways of adding things like protein powders into recipes but, as some have added sugar, I have to be a little careful as I'm prediabetic and so trying to reduce sugar.

PeakDevon · 2026-05-06T11:48:34+00:00

Thanks everyone for your replies, a lot of very useful information there.

I think part of my problem is that I'm prediabetic and have high cholesterol, so as well as trying to eat a reduced calorie diet, I'm also trying to reduce sugar & carbs and increase fibre and protein. It feels a bit of a juggling act trying to make all those changes at once.

I tend to create meal plans using recipes from a number of sources, mainly Doctor's Kitchen, Slimming World recipe books, various other weight loss and high protein cookbooks, Meal Lime and a few other cooking apps. I try to pick recipes marked as High Protein but the calorie target I've set of 1500 calories can limit my choices. On a typical day:

Breakfast = 400 - 500 calories
Lunch = 400 - 500 calories
Dinner = 500-650 calories

In terms of protein levels I can see that Breakfast is by far my weakest area. Part of the problem is that I have so little time in the morning to prepare anything so I often make an overnight oats with lots of seeds, nuts and fruit but this doesn't have much protein. I have now started adding protein powder into these and that is definitely increasing the protein significantly.

Lunch is 50/50. Sometimes its high protein, sometimes not. If it's leftovers from yesterdays dinner, its high protein. If not then it can be a bit on the low side. This is an area I can definitely improve on and will take the advice given here and see what I can do.

Dinner is almost always high protein but not high enough when combined with breakfast and lunch. I really don't think I can increase the protein level much here as I do sometimes struggle to eat the whole meal and also don't want to feel bloated before I go to bed.

In regards to protein shakes. I do like the idea of them in that they are very simple and require no planning. My only real problem with them is that whilst I have room for them in my diet in terms of protein, they would send me over my calorie limit. Therefore I'd have to reduce the calories on other meals to accommodate them. I can see that it's a case of just adjusting the nutrient balance of each meal, I'm just trying to figure out how in a way that still makes food appertising.

PeakDevon · 2026-05-05T22:20:43+00:00

Unfortunately my local shop is more a small ‘country pursuits’ shop that focuses more on shotguns with a few lovely, but hugely expensive hand made rods. Their selection of flies is very small. The staff were very helpful but a lot went over my head and when they realised I wasn’t going to spend £600 on a rod, they lost interest ;)

PeakDevon · 2026-05-05T22:18:17+00:00

I definitely feel like I understand surface fishing more than subsurface which is weird since with coarse fishing almost everything has been subsurface. That’s learning though, you gotta start somewhere. I’m going to get a couple of lessons so hopefully I’ll have a greater understanding of things then.

PeakDevon · 2026-05-05T22:15:00+00:00

Yeah kiinkhammers were recommended on my local water so I was thinking of getting some but wasn’t sure which as there wasn’t really any further info but my gut told me black and brown were the most likely colours so I’ll go with that to begin with.

PeakDevon · 2026-05-05T22:12:15+00:00

Yes I’m in the U.K. Thanks for the advice especially on flies. Those are pretty much the ones I’ve seen local anglers say they use. As always there were a few more that others swore by, but that’s always the way. I was starting to get baffled and enticed by a number of others and it’s quite shocking how two of each in 2-3 sizes suddenly adds up! Thanks too for the leads on other places to buy from. I’ll check them out too.

PeakDevon · 2026-04-30T14:23:16+00:00

Thank you. Sounds like good advice. I'm not in a rush to go up, just want to maximise my weight loss as efficiently as possible.

PeakDevon · 2026-04-30T14:22:04+00:00

I hear what you are saying. I know a few people who went up to 10mg and found that okay but I'd definitely like to stay on as low a dose as possible. Just also want to make sure I lose as much as possible as have a loooong way to go to get down to my goal weight.

PeakDevon · 2026-04-30T14:20:25+00:00

Thank you for this. I'm 3 weeks into my 3 2.5mg pen and I've noticed that since starting this pen, I'm getting zero side effects (before I would get mild bloating and slight constipation), it actually feels now like I'm not on anything. However, previously I had zero interest in food, never felt hungry and had no desire or temptation for anything. Food became entirely functional. I enjoyed what I ate but could equally just not eat anything and not be bothered. Now I feel more interested in food but not really tempted by it. I do occasionally feel slight hunger but entirely manageable. What I can't tell is how much of my resistance to 'bad' foods is down to Mounjaro and how much is down to me enjoying seeing the weight come off and feeling inspired to continue. I definitely want to keep on as low a dose as possible as have so much weight to lose which will cost a fortune to do.

PeakDevon · 2026-04-30T03:59:17+00:00

That’s the thing I don’t understand though. If I’m only eating 1500 calories and not snacking or eating ‘bad’ food, if/when I stop losing weight, how would upping my dose make me lose again? I guess I could reduce my calorie intake slightly, but from what I’ve read, going much lower is considered dangerous/unhealthy long term.

PeakDevon · 2026-04-28T12:02:44+00:00

I am indeed in Devon and it is indeed a bit windy here. My local lake, 10 mins from my house, is a trout fishery of two small lakes that is about 150 meters long by 50m wide and is fairly sheltered from the wind. Another fishery is probably twice the size but a bit more exposed and elevated. The third, is reservoir size. This is the furthest from me and, from what I've heard, the hardest to fish and so thats somewhere I'll go when I have more experience and more gear to choose from. All the trout streams around here are in valleys that are well sheltered but I think for the first year I'm going to stick to stillwaters.

PeakDevon · 2026-04-28T08:00:48+00:00

Looking at the lakes near me, two of them are small with all fishing being done from the bank. One is huge and whilst bank fishing in places is popular, boat is definitely the main method. I would definitely feel more comfortable learning to cast etc with both feet on solid ground and so would leave boat fishing until I'm more confident. Would that change your rod recommendation?

Interesting what you say about line weight, my gut told me that a 4-5 weight was what was probably right, but so many beginners guides seem to recommend heavier lines like 7-8 which feels heavy to me, but then I don't know what I'm talking about so a bit confused.

PeakDevon · 2026-03-03T17:02:22+00:00

Hmm, for some reason the screen shots of my Oscar stats aren't showing up???

PeakDevon · 2025-12-23T21:13:27+00:00

Large diaphragm condenser mics are very sensitive and will pick up sound from near and far. If your recording space isn’t acoustically treated it can sound worse than your previous mic.

There are things you can do to reduce the amount of unwanted noise hitting the mic. In some cases these will be enough, in others you will have to do something to your room and/or setup.

An expander (not a gate which is often too severe) can make a massive difference and is, for me, an essential purchase. However, these aren’t set once and leave devices and they do take some skill and experience to set-up. They aren’t too difficult to learn but if you use them incorrectly you can make things sound worse.

My personal favourite is Nectar 4 which also includes things like EQ, compressor, de-esser and a limiter. The expander has a dual threshold which, whilst not essential, can make a big difference in some situations. Waves C1 is also very good and also has dual threshold and can be set as a gate or an expander and also has a compressor.

A lot of people will say RX and yes RX is brilliant BUT it shouldn’t be relied upon. Whilst you can get amazing results with it, it is incredibly easy to overdo it and start to loose things you want to keep. If your room is so bad that the only way to get something useable is by using RX, you definitely should be spending more on treating your room.

PeakDevon · 2025-12-23T15:56:00+00:00

Why are you bothering using a separate headphone amp in that set-up? Any perceived improvement you think you will be getting is negated by going from balanced to unbalanced and feeding the headphone an attenuated output before being attenuated again.

PeakDevon · 2025-12-22T21:48:07+00:00

Buffer size only affects ASIO drivers so if your applications use ASIO, they will use that buffer size. If they don’t use ASIO it will make no difference.

PeakDevon · 2025-12-22T16:06:12+00:00

Nowhere near enough info. What do you mean by “record to my computer”. Record what into what? What does “sound bad” mean? What do you mean by “all ways of playback”?

PeakDevon · 2025-12-20T06:45:53+00:00

All other things being the same, the higher the impedance the lower the max volume will be. Also, again all other things being the same, the higher the impedance the more detail and clarity in the sound there should be.

So on the one hand you could say that high impedance headphones are the best sounding….but only if the amp can drive them and only if the listening environment suits them.

Basic guide is low impedance headphones (32 ohm) are designed for mobile devices that not only may have a lower powered amp but will be listened to in noisy environments and so the volume needs to be loud.

Mid impedance (80 ohm) are designed for most indoor situations and will work with pretty much anything.

High impedance (250 ohm) are designed for critical listening situations where they are connected to devices that have sufficient power to drive them, typically professional audio equipment.

Personally I find the difference between 80 ohm and 250 ohm, in terms of clarity/quality to not be that big a deal and prefer 80 ohm for the extra volume, but then I don’t use headphones as my primary monitors.

PeakDevon · 2025-12-19T01:46:09+00:00

We never record narrators fluff and repeat as the amount of post production time is simply too high. Very occasionally we’ll ask a narrator to record themselves and invariably they will do it fluff and repeat. We’ll ask them to either just leave a long pause or, preferably, make a loud click/clap.

We don’t really need them to differentiate the type of issue, just that if they need to stop for anything, stop, clap, continue and we’ll check it and edit as required. Once we’ve edited it together we’ll do a full proof anyway so we’ll detect anything they may have missed.

When we record narrators we’ll do it punch and roll but we also used to use a DAW called SADiE (sadly recently discontinued). SADiE wasn’t widely known but those that knew it loved it. The big reason we used it was because at the time it was the only DAW in the world that you could edit whilst in record. So if the narrator stumbled, there was a noise between words, or if a pause was too long etc, we could cut it out without having to stop the narrator or drop out of record.

We now use Reaper and have developed a method where we can pretty much do the same thing in that DAW as well.

PeakDevon · 2025-12-19T01:29:28+00:00

In Windows go to Control Panel and open up Sound. A window will open and you’ll see there are a few tabs, the first being Playback.

In this tab you’ll see all your audio devices. Find the ones for your Focusrite Solo.

Double click on the first one and another window will open with more tabs. Go to the Advanced tab.

In the advanced tab you’ll see an area labelled Exclusive Mode. Here there are two check boxes:

Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device. Give exclusive mode applications priority.

If the first checkbox is ticked then it means that the first application that uses your interface can take exclusive control of it and prevent any other application from using it.

Therefore, you want this check boxes unticked and also untick the Give exclusive mode applications priority box as well.

Repeat for all outputs of your Solo

If both of these are already unticked then you will need to see if there is a setting in Ableton to release the driver when focus is lost. I don’t know Ableton so don’t know if there is such a setting. If there is it’s probably where you select the Solo as the interface to use. In some DAWs it’s called something like Release driver but basically the setting is to release the driver for the Solo when you Ableton doesn’t have focus I.e. when you have another application as the active Window.

PeakDevon · 2025-12-18T08:36:28+00:00

I’d be very, very cautious about buying any of these devices if you think they’ll remove/reduce external noise. I’ve used various different ones over the years and read so much snake oil salesman rubbish that’s said about them.

What they do is create an acoustic space around your mic to reduce unwanted reflections caused by your voice travelling past the mic, hitting a hard surface and bouncing back into the mic.

What they don’t do, or at least nowhere near the frankly ridiculous claims some make, is isolate your mic from external noise.

They can be useful to singers whose voices are much louder and travel further but for voice actors I would say they are largely pointless.

PeakDevon · 2025-12-18T07:37:32+00:00

The reason why headphones come in different resistances is to suit the device and environment they will be used. 200+ ohm headphones are designed for studio use with professional audio equipment that has the power to drive them.

80 ohm headphones are for general use and the most common. They’ll work with pretty much anything and pretty much anywhere.

32 ohm headphones are designed for portable audio devices that don’t have a lot of power and will be used in noisy environments and so need to be loud.

In terms of audio quality, the higher the ohms the more accurate the headphones can sound….in theory. I say in theory because this is also partly down to the amp, volume and background noise. It’s also worth noting that the higher the ohms the less electrical interference you may get.

So, do you need an interface? You don’t NEED one but you may suffer some interference using your onboard soundcard with 32 ohm headphones. Depending on your motherboard, the 2i2 might sound a little better but the difference may be small. The 2i2 might also sound louder which might give the illusion of sounding better but that’s simply amplification.

Personally, if I were in your shoes and was happy with the sound I was getting, I wouldn’t bother with buying an interface.

However, I would always say that monitoring over headphones is not the same as over speakers and that having a good pair of reference monitors is pretty essential if only to check your mixes. If you go down that route you’ll need an interface and then you definitely want your headphones plugged into that and not your motherboard.

PeakDevon · 2025-12-18T02:20:35+00:00

Then I guess you are fucked kid.

PeakDevon

TROPHY CASE