Today, I’m diving into meal tracking. Where I’ve been with it, what benefits it has brought to my life, and what benefits it could bring to yours if there is a nutrition-related goal that you are having trouble hitting.
When I first started tracking my meals, I was in high school and did Weight Watchers. I was a dancer and I was always a little self-conscious because I have a muscular body type and was “bigger” than the other girls on my team. I don’t even remember if I lost any weight, but I do remember the awareness I gained from the entire process. I am classifying my WW phase as my first substantial interest in food and nutrition. Over time, this awareness led to mindfulness. As I went through college and started to really build up an interest in serious exercise (weight lifting, high intensity interval training, long-distance running), I got more interested in knowing how what I was eating affected my performance as well as things like studying, sleeping, and recovering. I didn’t know much about ‘macro’ tracking or even what I was supposed to be eating, but when MyFitnessPal came out, I discovered it and started keeping track to control my snacking since I am such a hardcore snacker.
The rule was the same from my Weight Watchers days: if I ate it, I had to write it down. And with snacking, every calorie counts. I found it was so easy to hit 200-300 additional calories in just snacks alone that I didn’t even want! This was also around the time I started using a food scale because in MyFitnessPal, they had verified foods listed in grams, which I thought was more accurate than cups.
It took years for me to get from awareness (about what I was eating and how it made me feel) to mindfulness (about listening to my body and making conscious choices) and finally to control. Of course, it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to find out what breakdown works for you. There is a lot more that goes into our daily intake than calories. Sometimes our digestive systems act funny (or it’s not funny at all- my body off of carbohydrates isn’t a functioning one) or we feel low-energy and figuring out how to adjust our diets to eliminate these things is important for our lifestyles, not just waistlines.
Segue into macronutrients! Most simply: macronutrients are the major things that we need every single day.
Carbohydrates:
grains, fruits, vegetables, sweets/sweetened beverages, dairy
grains, fruits, vegetables, sweets/sweetened beverages, dairy
Should be 45-65% of your daily intake
Fats:
oils, nuts, seeds, butters
oils, nuts, seeds, butters
Should be 20-35% of your daily intake
Proteins:
meats, poultry, fish, soy, beans, legumes
meats, poultry, fish, soy, beans, legumes
Should be 10-35% of your daily intake
There are ranges because everyone has a different macronutrient distribution based on their lifestyle, age, gender, and all that good stuff. I’m not going to go into them too much because here I really wanted to talk about food tracking, but it’s an important topic for a different day. I don’t use any other tracker than MyFitnessPal, so I don’t know if there are macronutrient percentages, but it’s really important to see if you are within the recommended ranges (referred to as acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges). I really think that for people who are wondering why they haven’t lost weight despite exercising and what they think is “clean eating,” it could be due to an imbalance in the variety of your calories.
Sample end-of-day macronutrient breakdownNeither of these are perfect, as you can see I set my percentages to 45% carbohydrates, 35% fats and 25% protein, which isn’t reflected in either chart.
EATS:
-Breakfast: 2 slices ezekiel bread; one with laughing cow + jam, other with peanut butter. black cold brew.
-Snack #1: fruit salad of blueberries, strawberries and peaches.
-Lunch: white jasmine rice, tofu, mushrooms, broccoli and a chocolate calcium/vitamin D chew.
-Snack #2: coffee yogurt.
-Dinner: chicken sausage, spaghetti, tomatoes.
-Snack #3: homemade double chocolate zucchini bread.
-Snack #1: fruit salad of blueberries, strawberries and peaches.
-Lunch: white jasmine rice, tofu, mushrooms, broccoli and a chocolate calcium/vitamin D chew.
-Snack #2: coffee yogurt.
-Dinner: chicken sausage, spaghetti, tomatoes.
-Snack #3: homemade double chocolate zucchini bread.
NOTES:
-I ran a half marathon in September, so many days in August were spent running. The weekend prior to this Monday I ran a 7 mile run and I was getting ready to do a 9 mile run the coming weekend. My body runs really well on carbohydrates (so does everyone else’s) so even though I had bread and rice already, I didn’t feel bad about having pasta for dinner because I was running many miles per week.-I am sharing this chart because even though I’m not even close on any of my macronutrient goals, I still have an awareness of what is going into my body and I can adjust the rest of the week based on it or not if I choose (see below for a low carb day).
Breakfast: cereal, coffee with half and half and sugar.-
Snack #1: smoothie with yogurt, banana, blueberries, spinach, cauliflower, whey protein, almond milk, ground flaxseed.
-Lunch: veggie burger, a breaded chicken cutlet, peach slices, grapes, some prepared cole slaw, a handful of honey roasted peanuts.
-Snack #2: didn’t have today.-
Dinner: arugula, tomato, watermelon salad with sunflower seeds, avocado and goat cheese. Chicken breast on the side with a small piece of italian bread.-
Snack #3: homemade double chocolate zucchini bread.
Snack #1: smoothie with yogurt, banana, blueberries, spinach, cauliflower, whey protein, almond milk, ground flaxseed.
-Lunch: veggie burger, a breaded chicken cutlet, peach slices, grapes, some prepared cole slaw, a handful of honey roasted peanuts.
-Snack #2: didn’t have today.-
Dinner: arugula, tomato, watermelon salad with sunflower seeds, avocado and goat cheese. Chicken breast on the side with a small piece of italian bread.-
Snack #3: homemade double chocolate zucchini bread.
NOTES:
-Even for something like lunch, where I basically had a snack plate, I still eyeballed what I had and found the closest thing on the app to what I was eating. Nothing is exact, but it gives an accurate idea.-Even though I completed the diary for the day, I made a note in my head to watch fats the next day since I was a little higher than normal. Since I was much higher on carbohydrates earlier in the week, I felt okay adding some more fat and protein into my diet on this day.