Jun
18
A Day In My Life - Monday
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I was going to talk about how to make health more fun this week but then I remembered I had already promised one of my readers a different topic. So we’re going to defer the fun and health topic and talk about diet this week.
You see, after the healthy eating habits discussion, someone asked me about my own diet. So I decided to spend one week describing what I eat, when I eat and everything else related to my diet. These posts are going to be slightly different than normal in that I’m going to be updating them throughout the day. So with that, let’s begin with Monday.
Breakfast
I usually get up at around 7am. Breakfast is part of my morning routine and I prepare and eat it while getting ready for work. Today, breakfast was two hard boiled eggs and a banana. Here is the nutritional information for 1 large hardboiled egg and here is the information for the banana. Note that the site I use allows you to choose various serving sizes. So make sure you pick the right one or else the numbers you see will be off. For the egg I chose “1 Large” and for the banana I chose “1 medium” as the serving size.
As you can see, this choice is a bit high in fat and cholesterol, most of that coming from the eggs. However, it also adds protein, which I need. The banana adds a decent amount of fiber. I also have a Men’s Once A Day vitamin supplement to make sure I get all my vitamins.
Lunch
Two Quorn Garlic & Herb Cutlets. These are made from soy but taste and feel exactly like chicken. One of them is usually enough to fill me up but I was hungry so I ate both. Total from both was 400 calories, 18grams of fat, 24grams of protein, 44grams of carbs and 6 grams of fiber. I ate them with a tortilla which added 100 calories, 3 grams of fat, 20grams of carbs, 12grams of fiber and 9grams of protein plus about 10 olives. The olives added another 45 calories, and 4grams of fat.
Total for lunch was 545 calories, 25grams of fat, 33grams of protein, 64grams of carbs and 18 grams of fiber. Note that all of the carbs I’m eating are coming from sources like whole wheat tortillas. I don’t eat the junk carbs like white bread and refined sweeteners.
Snack
1 Banana. Same stats as the previous banana. Can you tell I like bananas? Oh, neat little trick I use. Put fruit on top of unhealthy snacks like chocolate. So if I’m reaching for a snack, I more inclined to eat the fruit than the unhealthy stuff at the bottom of the pile.
Snack
My one remaining bad habit is my sweet tooth. I’ll admit it, I love candy! However, I do realize it’s very bad for me. So I try to limit my intake to small amounts. Today, I helped my fiance unload some hay for her horses and just happened to find her stash of jelly beans. These are meant for the horses, but I’m sure they won’t mind me having a few. I looked at the package and I ate the equivalent of two servings. That’s 300 calories with 50grams of carbs and nothing else.
Two things to note. First of all, you can clearly see how bad this food is. 20 jelly beans are nowhere near enough to make me feel full. Yet they have three times the calories that the banana had. They have zero nutritional value and they contain nothing but junk carbs. So yes, this was a very bad snack. The other thing to note is that it’s occasionally ok to have these bad snacks as long as you are aware of how bad they are and plan for it.
I love sweets. I don’t want to give them up. So I build a bit of a buffer into my diet just so I can accommodate these snacks. You can read about that particular healthy habit here.
Dinner
I had Indian for dinner. Since it’s not from the supermarket, it’s a bit hard to estimate. However, I’ve gotten pretty good at eyeballing stuff. I stayed away from the dishes with a lot of rice since those are typically loaded with bad carbs and nothing else. Instead, I had a veggie curry with some dal. The lentils in the dal are a great source of protein. I also added another banana as dessert and some corn when I stopped at my mom’s house after dinner.
By the way, I really recommend you do this exercise for yourself when you’re first starting to focus on your health. I’ve been doing this for three years now but even I learn something new each time I look at these kinds of details. For example, I never realized quite how high in calories corn was. So if you can, follow your own eating for a week in this kind of details, you’ll learn things about yourself and what you eat that you never even dreamed of.
That said, total nutrition for dinner is about: 1200 calories, 20grams of fat, 36 grams of protein, 150grams of carbs and 30grams of fiber.
Total For the Day
Calories: 2409
Fat: 55g
Protein: 93g
Carbs: 320g
Fiber: 54g
Daily Summary
As you can see, my diet is relatively high in carbs. That’s to be expected since I’m a vegetarian. They’re mostly simple, unprocessed carbs, which is fine. At the same time, it’s good to see that I’m still getting a decent amount of protein. I’ve been thinking about supplementing my protein intake but this looks good. My fat consumption is ok and I’m only getting a small amount of my daily calories from fat, which is good. Also, I’m barely eating any saturated fats which is also good. Fiber intake is great, but that too is natural for a vegetarian diet.
Overall, this looks good. The only thing that was a little off today was the number of carbs, and that’s mostly because of the Jelly Beans and the corn. Those two were really unnecessary but they made me happy and I’m still well within my calorie goal. Of course, this is just one day. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. If you’re doing this same sort of exercise yourself, then I would recommend doing it for at least two weeks. Eating habits can easily vary from day to day and especially on the weekend.
See you tomorrow.
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Jun
19
A Day In My Life - Tuesday
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Monday’s post is complete now just in case you went to sleep before me. Now let’s get started on Tuesday.
Breakfast
3 vegetarian breakfast patties from Whole Kitchen. Each one has 80 calories, 4.5g of fat, 8g of protein, 2g of fiber and 3g of carbs. Throw in 1 medium banana, and we have a grand total of 345 calories, 13.5g of fat, 9g of fiber, 25g of protein and 36g of carbs. The patties have a higher calories from fat percentage than I usually like (50% of the calories in them come from fat) but my diet is usually low on fat so that should be ok. Toss in a One A Day vitamin supplement and my breakfast is complete.
Snack
Twix Bar, also known as, the sweet tooth strikes again! As I said yesterday, I love candy. Rather than struggle with this and end up feeling guilty, I just choose to control it. Instead of eating a whole bowl of chocolate, I went with 1 candy bar. Not healthy, but hey, life isn’t all about health, sometimes it’s about enjoying yourself. Twix bar nutrition is here.
As you can see, it’s pretty unhealthy. Again, that’s the whole point of this exercise, to make me aware of what I eat. at 284 calories, the twix bar is full of fat and sugar. It does have a slight bit of protein in it, but I would have been much better off eating a piece of fruit instead. Heck, for 284 calories I could have eaten a small sandwich which would have satisfied my hunger a lot better. Still, I don’t feel guilty, I planned out my eating plan to accommodate these little snacks. As long as I am aware of them and don’t overdo it, I should be fine.
Lunch
I went to Nob Hill food for lunch. I prefer doing that over a restaurant because it has better prices, more choices and I know exactly what I’m getting. At the same time, Nob Hill food also me to be social at lunch, while brown bagging it (bringing lunch from home) might not. They have a nice seating area where you can eat what you bought.
I ate 2 wraps low fat wraps for a total of 180 calories, 5g of fat, 30g of carbs, 18g of fiber and 18g of protein. I filled the wraps with cottage cheese and cucumbers. The cottage cheese was 180 calories, 5g of fat, 8g of carbs and 26g of protein. both of these items were clearly labeled with nutritional information on them. The cucumber added 45 calories, 11g of carbs, 2g of fiber and 2g of protein and I also added a nectarine for dessert. This added another 62 calories, 15g of carbs, 2g of fiber and 2g of protein. These numbers come from the ND website and can be found here(use the 1 cucumber serving size) and here(use the 1 medium serving size).
Grand total for lunch was 467 calories, 10g of fat, 64g of carbs, 22g of fiber and 48g of protein. By the way, for those curious about price, I paid $15 for this, which also included a frozen entree which I plan to eat as an afternoon snack. I have plenty of leftovers which should supply me with at least one more day of food. Which means I basically paid about $5 for my lunch. That’s very competitive with restaurant prices where I would have ended up with a $7 to $10 bill.
Snack
Afternoon snack to hold me over until dinner. Ate this one at about 5pm. It was a frozen lasagna from Amy’s. It had 310 calories, 11g of fat, 13g of protein, 6g of fiber and 41 grams of carbs. I like a slightly protein heavy snack in the afternoon, especially after I work out. Keeps me full until dinner. Otherwise, a rather unremarkable snack. Only thing to mention is that Amy’s line of veggie foods is excellent. Even you non vegetarians might want to give it a shot. Great taste without a lot of fat.
Dinner
Went to a volunteer meeting and they decided to feed us. Like most social gathering they went with something cheap and easy. In this case, it was Little Caesar’s Pizza. I ate three slices of the veggie pizza. Looking up the nutrition information here (using numbers for veggie, 14″ pizza). So adding up the numbers for three slices I get 720 calories, 23g of fat, 96g of carbs, 9g of fiber and 36g of protein. Interesting note here that an all meat pizza is really not that much worse than the veggie pizza. That’s not saying that all meat is good, it’s just saying that pizza in general is probably not food you should consider healthy, even if you smother it in tomatoes, artichokes and green peppers.
Total for the day
Calories -2136
Fat - 72g
Fiber - 47g
Protein - 125g
Carbs - 275g
Another interesting note. As a vegetarian, I am getting more than enough protein. That’s something I worry about on occasion but this little exercise is showing me that I’m doing fine and don’t need protein supplements.
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Jun
20
A Day In My Life - Wednesday
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We’re doing a little exercise this week at 60 in 3. I’m going to write down every item I eat this week along with nutritional information. At the end of the week, we can see how good or bad my diet is. The point of this is not to get you to eat what I eat. Instead, it’s to teach you a bit more about individual foods and a healthy diet. I would recommend that you do the same exercise when you can. It will teach you a lot about what you eat.
Breakfast
Today started out much like yesterday. Breakfast consisted of three breakfast patties from Whole Kitchen, some olives and a peach. The patties are meatless, containing soy instead. All three totaled up to 240 calories, 14g of fat, 9g of carbs, 6g of fiber and 24g of protein. The olives added 45 calories and 5g of fat and the peach (use the 1 medium serving size) added 59 calories, 14g of carbs, 2g of fiber and 1g of protein.
Total for breakfast is 344 calories, 19g of fat, 23g of carbs, 8g of fiber and 25g of protein. A little lesson from today’s breakfast comes in the form of the olives. Most people assume little additions like this add flavor and nothing else. They rarely even think of the calories or fat and just write off the olives as a garnish. Well, this little garnish accounted for about 13% of my calories from this meal. Always keep in mind that there are no free rides in nutrition. Everything you add to your food counts. 9 olives accounted for 13% of my calories. That handful of peanuts you grab on the way to work might have upwards of 100 calories. Even those diet sodas can still add sodium, which your body doesn’t really need any more of.
Lunch
Una Mas Veggie Burrito. Nutrition facts can be found here. 692 calories, 27g of fat, 91g of carbs, 22g of protein. Fiber number unknown but I’m guessing at least 10g. Not too bad by itself. However, many people choose to add a little something extra. Would you like a bit of chips and guacamole? It’s just 833 calories! How about some chips? All Mexican places provide a few free chips with their meals. Come on, how much harm could there be in a few chips? How about 661 calories, almost half of them from fat!
Which is the lesson learned from this lunch. Stay away from the appetizers, the free chips, the mayo, the ranch dipping sauce and all the other ways restaurants have of stuffing calories down your throat. Eat your main course slowly and then pause for a while. Don’t munch on those chips, they’re nothing but fat. Just pause and see how hungry you really are. If you’re still hungry fifteen minutes after you’re done with your main item, you may want to order a smaller additional item. Just keep to the healthy stuff and avoid junk like chips. Maybe order a side salad and eat it with your main course. It will help you feel full without adding a lot of calories.
If you’re keeping a food journal, do make sure to note down junk like chips. Too often I hear people say “I have no clue why I keep gaining weight, I always watch what I eat”. These are the same people who don’t include the chips when they figure out calories for lunch and they’re the same people who smother their salad with ranch sauce but then only count the calories from the veggies. Don’t cheat on your food journal. The only person you’re cheating is yourself.
4pm Snack
Cheese sandwich. Two pieces of American Cheese. Each 110cal, 9g fat, 0g carbs, 0g fiber, 7g protein. Two pieces of whole wheat bread. Each 80cal, 1.5g fat, 17g carbs, 3g fiber, 3g protein. Grand total of 380 calories, 21g fat, 34g carbs, 6g fiber, 20g protein.
Notice how a small snack can have a large amount of calories. This was a simple cheese sandwith with two pieces of cheese. I’ve seen people down two or even three of these for lunch. That’s 760 to 1140 calories. Even worse, most of those calories come from the cheese. This is something most people ignore. Lay two or three pieces of cheese on your sandwich and you can quickly turn a healthy snack into one with an enormous amount of calories.
8pm Dinner
Went out with some friends for dinner. Had a wonderful time and ate a bit more than usual. Still a little thought goes a long way. We started out at a wine store.
2 glasses of red wine with nutritional information found here (use the 1 serving choice) total up to 146 calories and 8g of carbs. A bit of cheese eaten with the wine is about the same as the slice of cheese I had for lunch today, so add another 110cal, 9g fat, 0g carbs, 0g fiber and 7g protein. Plus I had a few cashews which add another 161 calories, 13g of fat, 9g of carbs, 1g of fiber and 4 of protein. So total for the predinner starter is 417 calories, 22g of fat,9g of carbs, 1g of fiber and 11g of protein. Notice that this is all before dinner.
The numbers for the wine and the cashews are really surprising. I knew nuts had a lot of calories but I never imagined it was so much, same for wine. Note that I used the 1oz serving size for the cashews. How many times have you eaten just 1oz of cashews? Again, this is the whole reason for this sort of exercise. It forces you to be aware of what you eat. Next time I’ll know better.
To this whole thing I also added a tofu dish. The restaurant we ate at does not have nutritional information but a quick Google search later brought up this information about a similar dish. So it looks like my main dish had 540 calories, 19g of fat, 51g of carbs, 40g of protein and I’m guessing about 5g of fiber. Note that my little predinner snack had almost as many calories as my main dish. Heck, I could have skipped the cashews, had one less glass of wine and made plenty of room for dessert!
Total For The Day
Calories - 2373
Fat - 108g
Carbs - 208g
Fiber - 30g
Protein - 118g
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Jun
21
A Day In My Life - Thursday
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Today was rather busy, so I just jotted down some notes on what I ate without looking into the nutritional details. Now that I have a bit more time, I’m going to look at the specifics. If you’re doing your own food journal, make sure to write down everything as it happens, even if you don’t have time for the calorie numbers. Just write it all down and look at it in detail later. If you don’t, you’ll forget, and that’s when you tend to miss the little things that can really ruin your healthy eating habits.
7am Breakfast
Small portion of leftover pasta and a peach. You can see the pasta nutrition here and the peach one is the same as yesterday’s breakfast. So that’s 200 calories, 5g of fat, 34g of carbs, 5g of fiber and 5g of protein for the pasta, plus 59 calories, 14g of carbs, 2g of fiber and 1g of protein for the peach. Total is 259 calories, 5g of fat, 48g of carbs, 7g of fiber, and 6g of protein. Not too bad. I don’t usually eat pasta for breakfast but it was leftovers from my fiance’s dinner and it would have gone bad otherwise.
Snack
Twix Bar. Twix bar nutrition is here. At 284 calories, 14g of fat, 38g of carbs and 3g of protein, the twix bar is definitely not healthy. Still, I like them too much to quit and so I plan around them. Again, don’t kill yourself over the occasional bad snack, just acknowledge and plan your eating habits accordingly.
Lunch
Veggie Burrito (Can you tell I like Mexican Food?) Nutrition facts can be found here. 692 calories, 27g of fat, 91g of carbs, 22g of protein. Fiber number unknown but I’m guessing at least 10g. Not too bad by itself and I made sure to stay away from the chips and guacamole, as we discussed yesterday.
4pm Snack
Cottage cheese in a whole wheat wrap. These were leftovers from Tuesday’s lunch. the wrap was 90 calories, 3g of fat, 15g of carbs, 9g of fiber and 9g of protein. The cottage cheese was 90 calories, 2g of fat, 4g of carbs and 13g of protein. All told, this meal was 180 calories, 5g of fat, 19g of carbs, 9g of fiber and 22g of protein.
By the way, you may have noticed that I like wraps, either home made or as things like burritos. Wraps are a great alternative to bread. They provide the same texture and do a great job of holding things together like a sandwich would, but they can be far healthier. There are a variety of low fat wraps on the market with really nice fiber and protein numbers.
6:30pm Dinner
Chow mein noodles and steamed vegetables. Nutritional information for the noodles can be found here. I used the 1 cup serving and then multiplied by two since I had a large serving. That means 474 calories, 28g of fat, 52g of carbs, 4g of fiber and 8g of protein. A bit high in carbs but paired with the veggies, it made for a good meal.
I found the nutritional information on the veggies here. This isn’t an exact match to what I ate but it’s close enough to use. Again, I multiplied the numbers by three since I had a large portion. So for the veggies it was 150 calories, 6g of fat, 24g of carbs, 9g of fiber and 6g of protein. Making the total for the meal 624 calories, 34g of fat, 76g of carbs, 13g of fiber and 14g of protein.
Totals For The Day
Calories - 2039
Fat - 80g
Carbs - 272g
Fiber - 39g
Protein - 67g
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Jun
22
A Day In My Life - Friday
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Here’s today’s food journal, a bit late but complete. It’s funny, I thought I would do this exercise just to show other people how it’s done but I’m actually learning quite a bit about my own eating habits. Which proves that this is a good thing to do on occasion, even for people who believe they know everything about the food they eat.
7am Breakfast
Whole wheat wrap with strawberry jam. The wrap was 90 calories, 3g of fat, 15g of carbs, 9g of fiber and 9g of protein. Here is nutritional information for the jam. I used the 1tbsp measurement and multiplied by 2. So total for breakfast was 174 calories, 3g of fat, 35g of carbs, 9g of fiber and 9g of protein.
10am Snack
A bagel with a bit of creamcheese. Here is nutritional information for the bagel, I used the 1 medium serving size. Here is information on the cream cheese, I used the 1oz serving size. Total for this meal was 387 calories, 12g of fat, 57g of carbs, 2g of fiber and 13g of protein. This is a snack I could have done without. No clue why I had it. I wasn’t very hungry, but it was there and I gave in to an urge. Oh well, it happens.
noon lunch
Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with information that can be found here. Also added a chocolate chip cookie. Can’t find the exact kind of cookie so I estimated the type as this one. I used the triple chocolate cookie found here. I multiplied this by two though since I had a big cookie! Total for this meal was 751 calories, 37g of fat, 98g of carbs, 7g of fiber and 15g of protein.
5pm snack
Veggie sandwich. Unfortunately, it was one rich in cheese and mayo, which makes for a very unhealthy sandwich. You can see the numbers for yourself here. I had the Del Monte Special I believe. So total for this snack was 860 calories, 69g of fat (ouch!), 49g of carbs, 20g of fiber and 15g of protein. Just goes to show you that something that sounds healthy can be very unhealthy when you’re done adding cheese and special sauces to it.
7pm Dinner
Steamed Veggies. I needed something light. So this was it. 150 calories, 6g of fat, 24g of carbs, 9g of fiber and 6g of protein
Totals
Calories - 2332
Fat - 127g
Carbs - 263g
Fiber - 47g
Protein - 58g
One thing to note. I knew I overdid it with those cookies and the veggie sandwich. In the past, I would just figure since I blew my day already, I might as well binge. These days I just ate a light dinner and still came in well within my daily calorie goal.
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Jun
23
I spent the past week writing down and analyzing everything I ate. I learned a few important things from this.
First, my protein consumption is fine. I’ve been a bit worried a bit this since I started eating a vegetarian diet, but the numbers I’m seeing this week tell me that I’m doing ok. No need for protein supplements. Second, it looks like my food plan is working. I still snack a bit more than I should, especially on candy and chocolate, but my plan of leaving a bit of cushion in my calorie goals to account for these snacks is doing well and I never exceed my daily targets.
There were a few surprises. On the one hand I learned just how calorie rich corn is. I’ve always assumed it was relatively healthy but it looks like I should moderate my intake of it somewhat. On the other hand, I found a dairy product with great nutritional value in the form of cottage cheese, something I had been grouping with other, less healthy, dairy products.
However, my goal for this week wasn’t to learn a lot about my own diet but to help you learn about yours. I would really recommend that you go through this kind of exercise yourself. It will teach you a lot about where you get your calories. It will also force you to face some your unhealthier habits.
If you do choose to keep a journal, here are some tips.
- Write down food you eat as soon as you eat it. Yes, even if it’s a handful of peanuts. Don’t wait until later, just write it down now before you forget. If you don’t have time to figure out the calories right now, that’s fine, write it down and come back to it later.
- Don’t forget your drinks. Yes, liquid calories and fat still count. I know this is called a food journal but you should include every source of calories in it, liquid or solid.
- Don’t cheat. It amazes me when people cheat on this kind of food journal. Who are you cheating here? Do you think someone is going to secretly read your journal and then confront you with “AHA! You ate a candy bar on Thursday!” This journal is meant to educate YOU. If you cheat on it, you’re just cheating yourself.
- If you can’t get accurate numbers, guess. Not all food comes in nice packages with nutritional values printed on them. If you don’t have access to exact numbers, guess. Do a simple Google search on the name of the dish you just ate and the words “nutrition” or “nutritional values”. More often than not, you’ll find something. If that fails, try to break the food down into it’s components. Worst case scenario, give it your best guess, and again, be honest. Putting down 3 calories for the steak you just ate because you couldn’t find an exact number online is pretty silly. Maybe you could look up a different kind of steak and put down those numbers.
- Keep going for at least a month. Food habits change from day to day, from weekday to weekend and from week to week. If you want a clear picture of your diet, you need to keep track of it for at least a month.
- Analyze your food journal and see your results. Once you do, decide on any changes you need to make. A year later, come back and do another month long food journal. What’s changed? Have your efforts succeeded? Do you have any new bad habits?
Being healthy is relatively easy, but spotting your own unhealthy habits is sometimes hard. We may hide them from ourselves or we may not know that something we do is unhealthy. So spend a month and research what you eat, what you learn may surprise you.
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