Carly Barton completed a three-day dietary analysis assignment which revealed low calorie and nutrient intake, specifically potassium, vitamin D, vitamin E, and calcium. Her vitamin D and E levels were borderline low but not deficient. To improve her calcium intake, she plans to eat more leafy greens, almonds, and broccoli. The assignment made her more aware of her eating habits and she realized she often grazes on small meals and snacks instead of sitting down for full meals due to her busy schedule. In the future, she would track her food intake using an app that analyzes photos of meals to better understand serving sizes and nutrition information.
Carly Barton completed a three-day dietary analysis assignment which revealed low calorie and nutrient intake, specifically potassium, vitamin D, vitamin E, and calcium. Her vitamin D and E levels were borderline low but not deficient. To improve her calcium intake, she plans to eat more leafy greens, almonds, and broccoli. The assignment made her more aware of her eating habits and she realized she often grazes on small meals and snacks instead of sitting down for full meals due to her busy schedule. In the future, she would track her food intake using an app that analyzes photos of meals to better understand serving sizes and nutrition information.
Carly Barton completed a three-day dietary analysis assignment which revealed low calorie and nutrient intake, specifically potassium, vitamin D, vitamin E, and calcium. Her vitamin D and E levels were borderline low but not deficient. To improve her calcium intake, she plans to eat more leafy greens, almonds, and broccoli. The assignment made her more aware of her eating habits and she realized she often grazes on small meals and snacks instead of sitting down for full meals due to her busy schedule. In the future, she would track her food intake using an app that analyzes photos of meals to better understand serving sizes and nutrition information.
My three-day baseline food logs indicate that my calories were low as well as nutrients such as potassium, vitamin D, vitamin E, and calcium. I did not have any excess nutrients which could be correlated to my lack of calories. Food isn’t the only source of vitamin D. When I am outside more often and the sun is out, I am not as concerned about my vitamin D intake. The cold winter months makes it harder to give our bodies the needed vitamin D. I may consider taking vitamin D supplements in the winter like I have done in previous years. Vitamin E deficiency is rare in humans. I have 69% of the recommended daily allowance. This is borderline risk for being low but not enough for me to have a significant focus on vitamin E. Calcium’s function include: cell metabolism, blood clotting, transmission of nerve impulses, muscle contraction, and bone support. To increase my calcium intake, I eat more leafy greens, almonds, broccoli, etc. This assignment was very eye opening for me. According to the My Plate report- I am lacking in almost every area. The days that I recorded my diet were busy days when I did mostly graze. This happens often as I work and go to school. Getting caught up in a busy schedule usually leads to meals on the go and snacking rather than eating full meals. I am best at breakfast. Some of the benefits of keeping this food log was it made me more aware of what I was eating, I found myself paying more attention to serving sizes, and each day I found myself improving a little more on calorie intake. I feel like I improved on eating carbs and protein the most. If I were to instruct someone to do this for a number of days, I would help them find a digital way to track their food. I found an app in the Apple Store that could log your food based on taking a picture. The app would process the picture and tell you how big of a serving size, what you were eating, and the nutrition facts about everything on your plate. This encourages eating meals not snacks, paying attention to serving sizes, and it’s very easy/fast. The biggest reason why people don’t food log is probably because it is inconvenient. This app made tracking food easy and fun for me. I didn’t feel like my behaviors changed when I started to track my food. My lifestyle is already very active and conservative with food. There are many things that I could see changing if I did this long term. I feel like I would cook more often and eat less on the go. Right now, my lifestyle is pretty hectic so food is not as big of a priority as it maybe should be. I would be interested to see what changes I would be able to notice in my physiology as I was more aware of what I was eating.