After posting this, I started to go about attempting to create a food list based on this idea. It's a bit more complicated than I thought, but only because there really aren't any good tools for this out there. Maybe I'll create one eventually. Anyway, all the hard work is upfront, and once you have a general template with foods you like to eat, it would be easy to create variations.
I first started by determining that I want to eat 2000 calories a day. Simply multiply by the number of days you want to do this for, in my case, seven. So that's 14000 calories per week. I decided I want to try to eat a 40/30/30% protein/carbs/fat ratio. Nutrition labels break down information by calories, and grams ofprotein, carbs, and fat, so the next step is to figure out how many grams of each macronutrient you need. There are 4 calories in a gram of protein or carbs, and 9 in a gram of fat. So, I multiplied the percentage of the nutrient by the total calories I need to consume to get the amount of calories of that nutrient I need, and then divide by the calories per gram to get the grams I need to eat. For fat, this was (30% * 14000 / 9) ~= 467g. I determined I need to eat 1400g protein and 1050g carbs.
So now I knew what I need to eat. The problem is figuring out what to eat. The whole point of this is to be able to think generally, without specific recipes. So I thought of some general things I enjoy- stir fries, grilled chicken, salads, turkey sandwiches, peanut butter english muffins, oatmeal, fruit, pasta, spicy rice and bean dishes. It's definitely worth noting here that it's one thing to break up the nutrient balances you need. It's another to make sure you're eating healthy food. It's also worth noting that once you start actually looking at trying to meet a calorie goal with only healthy food, that it's actually pretty hard. Natural foods simply aren't as calorie dense as processed foods.
In the end I decided to come up with some numbers for the foods I was thinking of based on my experiences of what I know I can handle. For example, it might be tempting for me to say "i'm going to eat a pound of dried black beans this week", but the problem is, I know that's way too much for me to eat. On the other hand, I could eat a salad at every meal practically. I figured I'd create a spreadsheet and choose some numbers I thought were realistic about what I can handle eating. I used LiveStrong.com's daily plate application to convert the standard servings you can look up into more sensible amounts. For example, I typed in chicken breasts, and said I ate 5 pounds. This gave me the calories and nutrient breakdown for the amount of chicken I'll try to eat in the week.
For my spreadsheet I made a google document spreadsheet. I figured this way I can access and modify the sheet from anywhere. Rather than explain the spreadsheet I've made it public.. check it out here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlRJ04-7e9HPdFh1OGxQY0RzQVFoNmFEN1BMVnVvMFE&hl=en_US#gid=0
It's still a work in progress, but as I have time I'll add more.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
More on Tracking By Week (repost)
I'd like a bit of discussion on the idea of tracking and managing calories. I find that using the tools to track daily calories is too hard.. especially when you're making your own meals. Unless you buy a scale and measure food exactly in each recipe, I feel it's hard to be accurate in counting calories. Additionally, I get the idea that many people (myself included) simply don't have the motivation or willpower to input so much data into some site every day.
I've recently been thinking about an easier way to keep track of calories, as well as help keep on track with a food budget and meal planning. My idea (I'm pretty sure it's not original) is to figure out how many calories you should be taking in per week, as well as the balance of fats/carbs/protein, and figuring out what to buy for a week to meet this goal. My reasoning is, it's easier to think generally about the kind of foods you like, and then say "okay, to meet these goals i'll need six pounds of chicken, two heads of lettuce, four sweet potatoes, 1 cup olive oil, etc", then just throw the food together in meals and try to spread it out evenly, combining things however you like.
advantages:
1) easier input whole food items into tracking sites, rather than try to figure out what fractions of things were used in a certain meal. in fact it eliminates inputting per meal entirely.
2) easier to plan and stick to a budget.
3) easier to avoid temptations to eat other things, because you'll have enough food around to make something.
4) it's easy to make a few big dishes and eat the leftovers all week and still be on track.
5) on days where you're more hungry, you can eat more without having to figure out how much and of what you can eat. On days when you're not as hungry you can eat less without worrying about making up for it later (which is good if you're trying to build lean muscle for example).
disadvantages:
1) you need to be aware that it's best to try to split your food intake and protein/fat/carb balance evenly every day.. with this plan it might be too easy to binge one day with all your fat and carbs.
2) if you end up going out to eat or something, or you break down and have some snacks, it will throw off your weekly plan.
Still, I think this may work better for people like me, and I plan to implement this soon to try it.
I've recently been thinking about an easier way to keep track of calories, as well as help keep on track with a food budget and meal planning. My idea (I'm pretty sure it's not original) is to figure out how many calories you should be taking in per week, as well as the balance of fats/carbs/protein, and figuring out what to buy for a week to meet this goal. My reasoning is, it's easier to think generally about the kind of foods you like, and then say "okay, to meet these goals i'll need six pounds of chicken, two heads of lettuce, four sweet potatoes, 1 cup olive oil, etc", then just throw the food together in meals and try to spread it out evenly, combining things however you like.
advantages:
1) easier input whole food items into tracking sites, rather than try to figure out what fractions of things were used in a certain meal. in fact it eliminates inputting per meal entirely.
2) easier to plan and stick to a budget.
3) easier to avoid temptations to eat other things, because you'll have enough food around to make something.
4) it's easy to make a few big dishes and eat the leftovers all week and still be on track.
5) on days where you're more hungry, you can eat more without having to figure out how much and of what you can eat. On days when you're not as hungry you can eat less without worrying about making up for it later (which is good if you're trying to build lean muscle for example).
disadvantages:
1) you need to be aware that it's best to try to split your food intake and protein/fat/carb balance evenly every day.. with this plan it might be too easy to binge one day with all your fat and carbs.
2) if you end up going out to eat or something, or you break down and have some snacks, it will throw off your weekly plan.
Still, I think this may work better for people like me, and I plan to implement this soon to try it.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
An Introduction
My name is Chris, and I'm a 28 year old software developer. Like many, I have struggled with maintaining healthy eating habits. It's a fact that most people are very bad at determining the calorie and nutrition content of what they consume every day, and I'm no exception. I consider myself fortunate that I am naturally athletic, and have a slim body type- it's easy for me to build the endurance to cycle and run long distances, and work out at intense levels. However, despite being pretty active, I have always struggled with addiction to soda and candy, and that has always hampered my efforts to develope a leaner build and feel more motivated and energetic in my life.
I am writing this blog to explore an idea. I'm sure this is not an original idea, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately. My idea is that for people that are trying to get a hold of their food intake and budget, current tools and methods for tracking what they eat are too time consuming and annoying to use. Any tool that requires daily input of exact amounts of food eaten takes a substantial investment of time and motivation. I believe that many people like me would be more likely to stick to a budget and eat healthy if they were to determine a weekly caloric goal and macronutrient breakdown, think generally about the types of foods they like and can realistically eat in a week, and then buy all the food for that week and be able to make whatever dishes they can think of out of it.
The motivation to actually start this blog came from a recent post in Runblogger (http://www.runblogger.com), which is a fantastic and motivating blog about running by fellow New Hampshire-ite Pete Larson. He made a post about the recent F as in Fat Report, a report on obesity rates in America. I made a couple of posts about my idea, and set out to create a week's shopping list and implement my plan. My next entries will be near copies of those, and I'll continue to post about my results and thoughts in the coming weeks, and hopefully months.
I am writing this blog to explore an idea. I'm sure this is not an original idea, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately. My idea is that for people that are trying to get a hold of their food intake and budget, current tools and methods for tracking what they eat are too time consuming and annoying to use. Any tool that requires daily input of exact amounts of food eaten takes a substantial investment of time and motivation. I believe that many people like me would be more likely to stick to a budget and eat healthy if they were to determine a weekly caloric goal and macronutrient breakdown, think generally about the types of foods they like and can realistically eat in a week, and then buy all the food for that week and be able to make whatever dishes they can think of out of it.
The motivation to actually start this blog came from a recent post in Runblogger (http://www.runblogger.com), which is a fantastic and motivating blog about running by fellow New Hampshire-ite Pete Larson. He made a post about the recent F as in Fat Report, a report on obesity rates in America. I made a couple of posts about my idea, and set out to create a week's shopping list and implement my plan. My next entries will be near copies of those, and I'll continue to post about my results and thoughts in the coming weeks, and hopefully months.
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