fOOd 4 ThOught

This is a calorie counter tool from a great website called: balancemindbodysoul.com and it is a nutritional way to keep track of what each item taken in in a calorie form and then totalled to give you the totals broken down in different percentages ie... fiber, sugars, fats, etc.

So if you look at the left hand side of the screen you will see the choices of different items that you can pick from. You can also type in words for specific items and it will search and give you the matches in the upper middle white box. Then you scroll down and choose the correct type that you are looking for and click "add to list". Then it puts the item to the bottom white box and adds all the calories and nutritional information together in the label to the bottom right of what you ate. As you add a food item it adds up the information on each item. It is pretty nifty.

This is a log of what I ate in one day. Calorie wise I think I did okay but when you look at sodium levels, fat levels, and other percentage levels it is clear that a bit of change in my diet would not hurt. One thing not included in the mix of food counting was the skittles that I ate as a snack mid day, the apple that I ate and of course water! This was really interesting and fun to do!

*Questions*

How healthy of a diet do you think this is? Why?

I thought I was eating pretty healthy. I am eating fruits, veggies and drinking my 6 to 8 glasses of water a day (okay maybe not quite 6 glasses on some days) but after seeing the readings of how many fats and sugars I was taking in... I am thinking that it could use a bit of altering and the SODIUM was crazy high!

What would you change about this day's eating, if any?

If I were to change anything it would probably be not having so much bread. But I really like what I ate it was delicious. So maybe I would just add a bit more exercise to the mix to balance it all out after all this is not what I eat everyday. I have a varied diet and I think that anything in moderation is good.

Do you find this type of nutritional tracking helpful? Why or why not?

I think that this type of nutritional tracking is great. I think that writing down everything that was consumed in one day was actually more helpful then using the calculator because it made me conscientious of what I was eating. I liked the way the food calculator added everything up and broke everything down into the subcategories such fats, cholesterol, sugars etc. and I think this could be very helpful to those that are trying to watch what they eat for dieting or health reasons.