Dietary Analysis Project

According to the first writing assignment we did this semester, I need just over 1,900 calories per day in order to maintain my current weight.  However, I want to lose some fat, and try to get my weight at least close to where it was before I graduated high school, which was a lot healthier, so my maximum calorie intake should be slightly over 1,500 calories per day.  During the week that I kept track of my food intake versus my activity level, however, I consumed an average of 2,622.5 calories per day, which is almost 75% more than I needed.  I was extremely surprised, because I was definitely hungry when I ate that food; what I’ve found out since then is that the foods I was eating had little actual nutritional value, so I was—in essence—malnourishing myself.

According to FitDay, my consumption of carbohydrates was also much higher than necessary.  I ate twenty percent more carbohydrates, on average, than my body required, and a lot of it was processed grain products such as white bread or french fries.  I have to say that I definitely felt pretty awful physically.  It may not have been completely my over-consumption of carbohydrates, since my schedule is very stressful, and I had other unhealthy eating habits during that week, but that high amount of carbs was definitely a factor in my gastric troubles.

I did not know when I first started to take this course that the average non-vegetarian gets too much protein on a regular basis, which gets stored as a lot of excess fat on the body.  As a result, whenever I craved some sort of meat product, I thought that meant I needed some protein, so I would eat some meat.  It turns out that I was eating one and a half times my daily necessity for protein, and that protein was mostly coming from processed meats such as bologna, and extra-fatty fast-food burgers.  Toward the end of the week, after I’d had a few sessions of this class, I started trying to eat healthier.  I didn’t completely succeed, but I managed to get some non-meat protein into the mix by eating some cashews.

I ate half again as much fat as I needed during the week from August 30-September 5.  Most of that was in the form of saturated fats which came from red and processed meats, and from dairy products.  FitDay does not really kept track of the trans fats that were in the foods I ate, but I’m pretty sure Cheez-Its might have a little bit in them.  I did not really consume many foods during that week which had long shelf lives—except for the Cheez-Its—that I can remember, and it seems that trans fats were invented in order to prolong that shelf life.  So I guess that is probably a good thing where my own diet is concerned.  I just do not really enjoy foods (except certain kinds of chips or crisps) that have to be specially processed to last a while.

With even my poor food choices during the week I tracked my eating habits, I managed to get more than the minimum recommended amounts of eight different vitamins and minerals.  I almost had enough Calcium, Manganese and Zinc, on average, that week, but not quite.  That is a good thing.  There were also vitamins and minerals which I had only gotten about halfway to consuming enough of (such as B12, Copper and Magnesium), but the really bad part is, I was severely deficient in Vitamin D, Selenium and Vitamin E.

I thought I had had a lot of Vitamin D while I was tracking my consumption that week—after all, I love whole milk.  But it turns out that just that one little bit in my cereal in the morning was not enough.  Perhaps none of the cheeses I ate had a significant amount of Vitamin D either.  I should probably eat more shitake mushrooms, tuna fish and eggs in order to help with my Vitamin D problem.  I like mushrooms, and my sister gets a lot of tuna fish sometimes to make lunches with, so I could pack a couple of tuna sandwiches at least twice a week.  I’ll have to be careful how many eggs I eat though, because those have a lot of fat and cholesterol; one or two every couple of days should not hurt though.

Vitamin E is a bit trickier, but not completely hopeless.  It is in sunflower seeds and nuts, and recently I have been making almond butter and jam/apple butter sandwiches for my lunches.  I also have some sunflower seeds in my car and backpack to snack on in case I get hungry between meals.  I did not have these during the week I kept track though, since I did not know how much healthier they were than what I was eating.  I also like nuts of all kinds—though I have a slight peanut allergy, so I tend to avoid those—and if I can find affordable raw nuts, I like to pack them as side snacks in my lunches for work.

I don’t like clams, oysters or a lot of shrimp, so those won’t help me to get more Selenium; however, I do like beef, turkey, whole grains, and brazil nuts, so maybe I should eat more turkey and whole grains.  I’ll also try to find some brazil nuts when they’re in season.

I knew I had a fiber problem before I started keeping track, because of ongoing problems with the bathroom which I will not go into.  During the week between August 30 and September 5, I only ate an average of 62% of the minimum amount of fiber I needed.  I’ve tried since then to find foods that were higher in fiber, and to eat more of those, which has helped tremendously.

Before our lab on sodium, I did not realize how much was in a lot of the so-called foods I usually ate.  Now, I look at the nutrition facts label on everything—if there is a label—and if it is extremely high in sodium for the meal or snack I want to eat, I choose a different food item instead.  The bologna sandwiches I had that week were atypical, since whoever made them put three slices of bologna on the sandwich; I only use one slice per sandwich, but even then there is a lot more sodium than is necessary, especially when added to the sodium content of the rest of the sandwich or meal.

While I was keeping track of my food consumption, I did not really think about any of it.  I just ate when I was hungry—whatever I was in the mood to eat, or had in a convenient place—and did not know or care about the nutritional value, or the lack thereof.  As I look back on the Average Daily Nutrition Facts label report that FitDay provided for me for that week, I am appalled at how much I over-consumed in macronutrients and calories.  I also know that I did not drink enough water or other liquids, and that is still a problem because I don’t have a lot of opportunity while I am at work to go get something to drink.  The most I usually end up drinking is a few sips of water, eight to twenty ounces of coffee, and maybe a cup and a half of milk in one day, which is not nothing, but is not nearly enough to keep me properly hydrated.  I was also surprised to note how much of my food was processed.  The beginning of the week I kept track is more in line with how I used to eat, while the later days reflect my attempts to change that.  I still ate a lot of processed food then though.

I have been working on improving my diet by adding more whole foods, and saving the processed stuff for extras in the two months since I kept track of what I ate.  However, I find myself backsliding when the processed or more unhealthy foods are more convenient, or when I don’t have any money in the bank and have to rely on my Speed Pass at the gas station to get enough to eat for lunch.  So, I’ve come to the conclusion that, not only do I have to buy healthier, more whole foods at the grocery store, but I have to make sure to budget my money properly so that, if my sister and her husband have not been able to buy groceries and I need more food for lunch, I can actually afford to go to the grocery store, instead of having to rely on the Speed Pass.

Dietary Analysis

Day One: I was at school the entire day, so I bought food from the Cougar Grille.  I tried to make healthy choices, but may not have been that successful.  The Rueben (my favorite sandwich) is definitely full of fat, and corned beef is processed meat, which is not all that healthy.  I did manage to have some fruit in the yogurt parfait I ate, but I think there’s too much sugar in that, because it was sweeter than I would have expected—just not overpoweringly so.  I had some V-8 Splash and a cinnamon bun too, which added even more sugar.  Overall, I should have cut down on the sugary foods and beverages, drank more water, and had more vegetables.  I did not do too badly with calorie burning vs. consumption this day, though I still ate more than I burned.

Day Two: This was a long day, and since I was awake for about twenty-two hours, starting at 1:30 in the morning, I ate a lot more than I would if I had been asleep for a more substantial part of the day.  According to FitDay, I ate more than twice as many calories as I burned.  I’ll have to be extremely careful on Wednesdays in the future to try and space out my limited calorie allowance over the course of those twenty-plus hours.

Day Three: Thursday is my shorter school day, so I did not need to stay up as late as on Tuesday, and I actually burned more calories than I ate for the first time in the week!  I was still eating a lot of processed foods though—I could have replaced the Rice Krispies’ Treat with something a bit healthier, at least.

Day Four: I spent the afternoon studying at my parents’ house after work on Friday.  One of my dad’s rules is that if you leave the house hungry, it’s your own fault.  I take him up on that once a week, but I managed not to eat too many calories above the amount that I burned that day.  I even managed some tuna fish and cantaloupe, which was a lot healthier than what I had been eating so far that week.

Day Five: On Saturday, I went straight home after work, and I tend to be a bit of a couch potato when I’m at home.  I did not really get up from the couch—or the bed, if I was reading or watching a movie or show online—so I didn’t burn as many calories as I did the four days previously, and did not adjust my calorie intake to compensate for that.  The French toast I had for dinner was made from whole grain wheat bread; however, so that is pretty good.  I also had apples and some other whole foods that day too.

Day Six: Sunday was the best day.  I burned the same amount of calories that I took in.  It was completely by accident though; I do not even know how I did it.  I do not doubt that my food choices were still not very healthy though.

Day Seven: Monday I actually burned more calories than I ate, like on Thursday, but twice as much.  I also went to sleep extremely early, which means I did not eat after I got home from work, so I did not have the opportunity to consume more calories, and I probably would have if I had been awake to do so.  In other words, it was a fluke brought on by sheer exhaustion.

Teacher Comments and Grade: Very well done - Great "diary" observations as well.  No more bologna or pop tarts :) and do try to have some water at work--super important.  I got 68/68 for this project.