Track My Eating
Last week, following my visit to the nutritionist, I took stock of my goals for the year leading up to TTC and decided it was time to get serious about tracking what I eat. As I've mentioned before, I have been a member of SparkPeople for a couple of years now and will sporadically track my food when I consider my weight loss goals, but I typically lose enthusiasm for it when I am not seeing the kind of progress I want. In the past, I have always stuck to dieting strategies that involve extreme changes in my eating behavior, show quick results, and fall apart the instant I return to "life as usual".
Well, these days I am determined to live a healthier lifestyle, not just get back into a smaller clothing size. I don't want to go back to the days of extreme, unsustainable dieting followed by immediate weight gain, but I worry that my body won't respond to more subtle changes in my diet and activity levels. I am trying to keep my focus not only on how my behaviors impact how I look and feel, but on how my choices might one day soon affect my child's development in the womb and his or her attitudes and beliefs growing up. That is a big responsibility and I take it seriously. I don't just want to lose weight for my own gratification anymore. In fact, as the nutritionist pointed out, maybe I shouldn't even be focusing on weight loss per se. So this past week I decided it was time to focus less on the scale and more on what I am putting into my body.
I'm sure everyone has their own method of accountability that works, but for me it's been the online tracking tools that really help. I can enter down to the last detail everything that I ate or every ingredient I included in a recipe, and then I can reuse those entries over and over for things that I eat frequently. Plus, I can get all kinds of reports, like the one pictured at the top of this post (Note: that is not a picture of my own progress report -- I actually eat about 1650 calories a day for my current weight, and that is the bottom of the suggested range). For someone with a scientifically-oriented brain, these features are indispensable for maintaining motivation and enhancing my feeling of self-control.
Admittedly, I am sometimes at a loss for what to enter when I eat too many things outside of my usual repertoire (I went to a reunion this weekend and tracking just went out the window for the day), but entering my food has helped me to be conscious of what I am eating and how much I am taking in. It isn't so great when I reach the top of my calorie limit for the day and still feel hungry, of course, but it is very freeing when I realize I have eaten less than the limit and can indulge in a little something extra at the end of the day. Plus, I think it motivates me to eat more fruits and vegetables just so I can see them being added to the list.
So far, tracking consistently hasn't caused me to lose more weight (crossing my fingers that this will change in the future), but it has stopped me seeing those occasional weight gains of two or three pounds and makes me feel certain I am eating the right kinds of foods in the right amounts for good health. I'm hoping to remain diligent in this practice throughout the rest of my countdown to TTC and continue into pregnancy.
What about you? How do you keep yourself accountable for what you eat and how much you eat? Do you personally feel helped by calorie counting, or does it backfire for you? Anyone else track what they eat carefully but still not seeing movement on the scale? Any advice on how to stick with a healthy lifestyle even at the times when you aren't seeing much change or improvement?
For more in this countdown series, see last week's challenge about Seeing a Nutritionist.
See a Nutritionist
Normally, I avoid seeing medical or health professionals unecessarily. I believe preventative care is important, but the U.S. healthcare system really isn't set up for people to visit their doctors and other care providers just to check in. Plus, as a graduate student I really don't like to do anything that increases my medical expenses. However, a flyer in the office recently reminded me that my university provides several free services to employees and students to help them stay healthy or get healthier. One of these services is an initial consultation and several follow-ups with a nutritionist. Given my ongoing goal of getting ready for pregnancy over the course of this year, it seemed like a perfect opportunity. So, this past week I added consult a nutritionist about preconception planning and weight loss to my list.
In preparation for the visit, I had to track my food for several days. Since I am a veteran user of SparkPeople, the only difficult parts about that were (1) being more self-conscious about my food choices knowing they would be scrutinized by a dietitian and (2) having to simplify my tracking to fit onto the form I was asked to use (since I usually make my food, I am often tracking a dozen ingredients per meal). In the end, I brought both a filled-out form that was impossible to read and a super long printout of my food from the same days taken directly from SparkPeople. The dietitian didn't seem to mind and actually looked more at my long, detailed printout.
I really wasn't sure what to expect from my appointment, since I didn't have any choice over the dietitian and her philosophy--I was just visiting the person who works for my school health center. The only time I've ever known someone to visit a nutritionist was if they had to lose a substantial amount of weight for medical reasons, which is pretty different than my situation. Plus, a university is unlikely to employ someone to work with undergrads whose expertise is in chronic medical conditions. So I shouldn't have been surprised when I came to the appointment explaining that I was frustrated with my current weight loss efforts because I am not losing pounds despite having recently reduced my caloric intake and tracking my food vigorously and her first question was "What would you say if I told you that you should stop trying to lose weight?"
I don't think she particularly believes I am at an ideal weight, but she is a person who subscribes to a philosophy of being healthy at any size. Throughout our conversation, she encouraged me to focus on healthy behaviors rather than fixating on the number on the scale. She also pointed out that I may be making physical changes in preparation for weight loss right now (don't see any evidence of that, but who know maybe I'm stealthily gaining some muscle mass). She also discussed some flaws with BMI as an indicator of health risk (click here for some alternative measures of ideal weight and here for an article about a new way of calculating BMI that may be more accurate for adults). I have not yet found any research on the subject, but she suggested that even the "common knowledge" that BMI is directly linked to negative health outcomes may be flawed. According to the nutritionist, studies which are able to include health-related behaviors directly in their analyses along with BMI typically find that body mass has not additional impact on health outcomes above and beyond healthy behaviors like exercise and eating right. I don't claim to endorse this opinion, but it certainly gave me something to think about and I will want to research this more.
Although I have made a lot of improvements in my healthy lifestyle and the nutritionist was very positive about my health indicators like cholesterol levels, I still couldn't quite get on board with the idea that I should stop caring about my weight. But I agreed with her that I am focusing too much on the scale and too little on the positive health changes I am making. In the end, I didn't have a great answer to her question about my weight. Honestly, if someone told me I don't need to lose another pound to be maximally healthy and ready for pregnancy, I just wouldn't believe them. I'm sure I am at a weight that would make it possible for me to get pregnant and probably have an uncomplicated pregnancy, but I know I could have more energy and a fitter body to deal with the stress of growing a new life and then caring for a small child. Perhaps getting on the scale every day and agonizing over the number isn't the right way to do that, though. Based on my appointment, we agreed I would cut back to weighing in twice a week and pay attention to my hunger cues. At my next meeting, we'll discuss making some changes to my eating habits that focus more on hunger levels than on how many calories I think I have "left" for the day. It's a good start. Hopefully the scale and my healthy improvements will match up soon, but if not I will try to focus on getting healthy with weight being a secondary component rather than my main indicator.
For more in this countdown series, see last week's challenge about Planning with Pinterest.
Eat More Produce
By this point I've had over a month to ease into this countdown business, and despite spending a few days having to pee every 10 minutes and waking up sore one morning from climbing about 20 flights of stairs the day before, so far I haven't challenged myself to make any major changes in my day-to-day life. This week, I want to rock the boat a little more and really put health at the forefront of my efforts. I am challenging myself to eat at least 4 servings of produce a day. At least half should come from veggies, ideally more.
Some aspects of what we should eat and how much of it we should eat are controversial, but I won't be spending too much time today discussing that issue. Almost everyone agrees that eating a variety of vegetables (especially) and fruits is good for you, and the fresher the produce is and the more different kinds you consume the better. You can also add environmental and nutrient benefits by shopping for locally-grown produce in many parts of the United States (just search Buy Fresh Buy Local and your state's name online to find information about farmer's markets and other local food resources). This message is being vigorously promoted by the USDA's My Plate program, which suggests you fill half of your plate at each meal with fruits and veggies. And the same message is also supported by leading nutrition researchers (who are not necessarily without bias but probably are under less direct pressure from the agricultural lobby), such as those at the Harvard School of Public Health who recommend a similar diet breakdown.
This week, I used the handy calculator from the My Plate website to determine what is the recommended number of servings for someone of my age, size, and activity level who wants to progress toward a healthy weight. My personal recommendation is to consume 6 oz of grain, 2.5 cups of vegetables, 2 cups of fruit, 3 cups of dairy, and 5.5 oz of protein daily. Based on the most current nutrition research, I think the recommendation for my dairy intake is too high (see the Harvard School of Public Health's discussion about dairy and calcium for more information), but I am convinced that I should ideally be eating at least 4.5 cups of vegetables and fruits on an average day.
The calculator further breaks down the proportion I should devote to vegetables of different varieties over the course of a week: 1.5 cups leafy greens (note that one "cup" of greens is actually 2 measured cups due to their volume), 5.5 cups orange/red vegetables (like carrots and tomatoes), 1.5 cups beans and peas, 5 cups starchy vegetables (like potatoes and lima beans), and 4 cups of other vegetables (such as onions, mushrooms, and green beans). Unfortunately there is not much evidence provided to support the suggested breakdown, and the Harvard School of Public Health food guide suggests that starchy vegetables like potatoes shouldn't really count toward your daily vegetable intake, but I do appreciate the help trying to think of the different kinds of veggies I should be eating so I don't just get stuck in a rut of eating only spinach or only green beans. In fact, I have a very hard time thinking of anything that isn't green as a vegetable, so the breakdown is pretty nice. My only change would be to lower the allotment for starchy vegetables and redistribute the remaining portions to other categories (particularly leafy greens).
So, this all seems very well and good, but unfortunately I like doing all the research a lot more than I enjoy actually trying to cram more produce into my day. I know fruits and vegetables are supposed to be a large part of my diet, but usually when I start adding more than I would normally eat I just end up packing in more calories rather than replacing something with them. For instance, I'll still have the same amount of rice and chicken at dinner, but now there's a cup of green beans too. Anticipating this problem, the My Plate people have created corresponding dinnerware that visually shows you how much of your plate should be devoted to each of the food groups. This would be a great idea for someone who likes to eat their foods in discrete categories, but I'm more of a mixed dish kind of person. I often eat my foods in a sauce and all piled together on a plate. Grains, proteins, and vegetables all go together but fruits are usually eaten separately, often not even in the same meal. So how do I implement the My Plate idea if I can't see the ratios of the food groups?
Despite the intuitive plate rules, I have decided that the best thing for me is to actually count the servings. This is not too difficult for me since I already track my calories on SparkPeople and can easily look over the day to see which foods were fruits and veggies. It gets a bit dicey when I want to determine exactly how much of something counts as a serving, but generally I use these 3 rules for veggies:
- 2 cups = 1 serving fresh leafy vegetables
- 0.5 cup = 1 serving of cooked vegetables that reduce substantially when cooking
- 1 cup = 1 serving of anything else (cooked or not)
These rules are simplistic, but I think they are true to the spirit of the thing. With fruits I am more fast and loose. One fruit is a serving unless it is especially small (e.g. plums, apricots, cherries), and then I just count about the amount that would make up a cup as a serving. For dried fruits, half a cup is a serving. I don't typically drink juice to get my fruit, but 6 oz is a serving by my accounting.
So now all that remains is for me to actually eat my fruits and veggies. I started on that effort this week and haven't been entirely unsuccessful, but I have had to fudge the numbers a bit to get to 4 every day. Through no fault of my own, our household had an unanticipated influx of leftover pizza this week that had me counting pizza sauce as a partial vegetable serving and of course the summer produce season is ending so it was hard to find veggies on sale at the grocery store. I have been quite successful with the 2 servings of fruit a day, but I think it is much harder to pack in extra veggies. They just don't make good snacks in my opinion - they need to go with something. Plus, I know this is a bad excuse, but it's just so disappointing how quickly fresh fruits and vegetables go bad!
My creative solutions so far in this challenge have been to add spinach to my scrambled eggs, make a peach sauce to top my evening pancake snack instead of syrup (with some bonus sliced banana on top), and to add some yummy hummus to my ready-to-go foods stash (good thing beans can double count as veggies!). I also bought some broccoli slaw so I can hide that in basically any sauce. Plus, I always keep no salt added canned vegetables on hand, as well as fruits canned in juice and a supply of flash-frozen produce to keep it interesting.
What about you? Are you a produce-eating champ, or do you struggle to fit in fruits and veggies? What tips and tricks do you have to boost your intake? Have you found ways to make produce more portable or less work?
For more in this countdown series, see last week's challenge about Taking the Stairs.
