Why steak works when you’re counting your macros
Steak can be a great way to get plenty of protein, but it can be easy to get too much fat. In order to hit your goals with steak, we have a few tricks we can share. First you have to choose the right steak. It needs to have enough internal marbling to be delicious but still on the lean side. You have to trim the excess fat - “perform surgery”. Finally, you need to cook in a very hot pan with minimal oil and choose sides that err towards an acidic as opposed to a fatty base (think wilted greens over creamed spinach).
Here’s how we do it:
Choosing your steak
If you’ve ever tried to log a steak in a popular calorie or macro tracking app, you’ve probably been greeted with 42 versions of the same thing. The USDA–the source of this data for common meats–uses detailed names like “Beef, Loin, Top Loin Steak, Boneless, Lip Off, Separable Lean Only, Trimmed to 0” Fat, Choice, Raw.” That name is so long, in some apps you can’t even see it all, and some apps will just show you someone else’s (likely incorrect) guesses at macros with a simple, user friendly name. So how do you decode the jargon and get an accurate log? Let’s break down the 3 major categories of fat the USDA uses to classify meats.
Trim Fat
The first is the external “trim” fat. This fat is literally a ring around the edge of the steak, or a “fat cap” as you might see on some NY Strips. Common USDA choices are “trimmed to 0" and “trimmed to ¼”. This is the easiest fat to remove and we recommend you always do, either before cooking or on your plate. On the other hand, the intramuscular marbling fat is impossible to remove.
Intramuscular Marbling Fat
This is determined by the USDA grade: Prime has the most fat, Select has the least, and the very common Choice is in the middle. The real decision you have to make is if you’re going to remove the large internal fat blobs.
Separable Fat
The USDA calls these internal fat blobs “Separable”, so you’ll either end up with “Separable Lean Only” or “Separable Lean and Fat.” This fat is a bit harder to remove because you’re doing surgery to cut holes out of the middle of your steak, but with a sharp paring knife and some practice, you can do it quickly.
Trimming your steak
Does it matter? An 8oz NY Strip, trimmed to ¼”, Separable Lean and Fat, Prime, is 635 calories with 50 grams of fat. But an 8oz NY Strip, trimmed to 0”, Lean Only, Select, is only 305 calories with 11 grams of fat. That’s a whole dessert of extra calories!
Here’s what our NY Strip looked like before and after trimming the fat:
We got these steaks at the local grocery store, New York Strip Choice. We also really like Denver Steak, which is a tender cut from the shoulder, but gives you a similar result to NY Strip, often with less fat to trim.
You can see after we’ve trimmed the external fat to 0” and removed the internal separable fat with a pairing knife. We got these delivered with Walmart+ InHome but when we get to pick them out myself, we choose steaks where we’ll have to do less surgery on the internal fat. Here you see that we’re left with holes in the steak, and even some completely detached pieces. That’s OK! We bunch the loose pieces up close to the main steak when cooking, but if they are too unwieldy for you, keep them in place with a couple toothpicks.
Never skip a generous sprinkling of coarse kosher flake salt and pepper. You can also use a steak spice blend that’s mostly salt, pepper and roasted garlic.
Logging and cooking your steak
When you log your steak in BODYSIM, you can use our search categories to drill down to the exact cut you are having, and weigh and log the raw steak before cooking.
We just sear the steak for 90 seconds on each side. You start by preheating the cast iron pan for at least 10 whole minutes, with the cast iron press in the pan, then once it’s HOT (smoking - seriously, don’t hesitate to get it really really hot), we add 1 generous glug of grapeseed oil and immediately throw the steaks on with the pan, do one quick flip, then apply the press, repeating on the other side for 90 seconds each.
Your hot pan and finished steaks should look like this:
While our steaks are resting (at least 5 minutes, preferably a bit longer), we make our pan sauce. We blot the extra oil out of the pan and off the steaks first (who wants to log that?), careful not to disturb the brown bits, then pour any excess juices from the steaks on the cutting board back into the pan. The goal is to maximize flavor and minimize fat!
Making a pan sauce and side salad
Here are my secrets to the perfect pan sauce: Savory beef broth concentrate (Better than Bouillon is also good, but the squeezy bottle is convenient), a vinegar, something spicy (if you don’t have tabasco, just chili flakes are great), a wine (we like dry vermouth because it’s shelf stable), and just 1-2 tablespoons of butter. If you’re really cutting fat, it’ll work without the butter, but it’s a great emulsifier, as you can see in the picture. You just turn the stove off, throw a splash of everything in the pan, add the butter, turn the stove back on high, and let it reduce until it’s darkened in color but not evaporated yet. If you over do and break the sauce, add a quarter cup of water and reduce it again! That hot cast iron pan is going to continue to reduce the sauce so turn the stove off a bit before the sauce is perfect.
Here are the ingredients and how your pan sauce should look:
Again, unique to BODYSIM, you can save this pan sauce as a sub recipe and easily add it to your future steak (or steak salad!) dinners.
Drizzle that sauce over your sliced steak and add a simple green salad. Unique in BODYSIM, you can save sub recipes and use them as components in your logging. My go-to homemade vinaigrette for 2 people is simply 1T Dijon mustard, salt and pepper, 1T vinegar (we mix it up between beer vinegar, champagne, sherry and apple cider) and then a slowly whisked in 1-2T olive oil. A bit of herbes de provence or dried harissa are good too.
We had extra calories this night so we also added 1T pepitas and 1T half-sugar craisins to jive up the salad.
If you love a creamy side with your steak, try mashed cauliflower, sweet potato, or squash to get the same effect as mashed potatoes with less carbs.
Here’s the finished plate:
Another good tip for logging your bread is to weigh your typical slice (this is 2 oz), and stick to the same size slice every time!
Here’s our logged steaks:
Steak is actually a great order when you’re out to dinner too because the restaurant often provides the raw weight of your steak. You can log your cut as “all grades”, and if you don’t eat the fat, you can log it as if it were trimmed. The best side is always a salad, but if you can’t resist steak frites, a serving of fries is 3 oz., which is about 12 to 15 individual fries, or 140 calories. Split them with the table!
Interested in learning more about our beta program? We’d love to chat. Get in touch at support@bodysim.com