Personal Dietary Analysis

March 25, 2012

Personal Dietary Analysis

The website www.choosemyplate.org, a website from the USDA aiming to promote healthier lifestyles, provides online diet and exercise tracking tools. Using these tools I compiled a summary of my dietary intake and exercise for a period of 3 days with the purpose to analyze my dietary and exercise habits; and to see how they compare with the daily recommendations for nutritional and exercise needs for someone of my height, weight and activity. The project offered an overview of my daily habits and consumption by using charts to analyze my intake of the 6 different food groups, their nutrients, details about the foods, and my physical activity. The results were somewhat surprising, I was under the impression I was a somewhat to very healthy eater, but there were some things I was over on (empty calories) and under on (some vitamins and food groups).

The Food Groups and Calories, and Food Details reports analyze how much or how little of a food group you consume in total, and tells you if you are under or over on your intake. My results from the 3 day total were in the OK range for refined grains but it surprised me to find out I was under my target on the whole grains. I make an effort to eat whole grains, specifically because when I was in college I was having issues with dizziness and fatigue as reaction to what I was eating, I learned to incorporate whole grains and fats into my diet, cut excess sugars, and specifically to not have a meal entirely of refined grains or purely sugars and candy. One of the main things I cut out was bread and pastas, now with the popularity and avalibility of newer foods such as quinoa and whole grain breads, I have been slow to incorporate these back in to my diet, and this was definitely an eye opener as to how much I have cut grains from my diet. I was “over” on my leafy greens, I do eat a lot of greens but I probably will not stop this, it is not indicated as harmful as long as I am getting enough of other nutrients. The rest of the vegetables were under; beans and peas, colored vegetables, starchy and other. I think I do need to make an effort to consume more vegetables and legumes. Normally I do consume quite a bit of legumes and was surprised to see this was low, I think this was a 3 day period I happened to not eat as much. I was also a little surprised that I was low on vegetables, I think over a weekly total I would have met most of my recommendations*, but I do think I would benefit from incorporating some more vegetables into my diet. I was “ok” on my fruits and dairy, but under on my seafood. I take a fish oil supplement that the system did not allow me to input, but this does not make up for the nutritional value of real seafood. If this was a full week of dietary analysis, I believe I would have consumed my RDI for fish because I usually have fish about 2-4 times per week.