Diet Assessment My nutrient report reveals a number of different things. The first thing that is interesting is that the three day period for which I tracked my diet was perhaps not indicative of my normal consumption levels. I was traveling to hang out with friends and as a result, I ate more junk food, exercised less and drank more than I usually would. I was actually surprised when entering the results that I ate burritos on each of the three days. While I do enjoy a nice burrito every now and again, I do not normally eat one every single day. But, the thing about having a nutrition plan is that people often stick to it, and then blow it up for special occasions like travel or holidays, leading to weight gain that can be hard to remove later. So it is important to track one's consumption even while traveling and consuming more than normal. But nevertheless, the nutrient report is slightly skewed in certain areas because of the circumstance of eating on the road.

First, there is the good. I kept my total calories down below the target. This is good, in the sense that I am aiming to drop a few pounds. Combined with exercise, I am on target. I avoid things like sodas that are a killer and my meals are not usually especially large. I take in more protein than the target, which is fine by me since I like to hit the gym and do weights -- I have specifically added protein to my diet, and in most cases I try to avoid too much animal protein.

I also take in more carbohydrates than the target, by quite a large amount apparently. This is a function of road food -- sandwiches, pizza and burritos, along with beer, gives me a lot of carbs, more than I would usually consume. A weak spot, however is fiber, where I am not getting enough. Again, that's on the road where I find it more difficult to eat vegetables. The day before this, I had a giant plate of roasted Brussels sprouts and cauliflower, and I often have salads when I am at home. But I knew that I would show poorly on fiber given my road diet.

Not surprisingly, I took in more cholesterol than the target. I am curious if my usual dietary intake has so much, but I know that eating out is more or less a nutritional disaster. I took in a fair amount of fat, mostly in the form of cheese and aioli, not to mention breakfast meats. I did not receive nearly enough of linoleic acid.

In terms of minerals, I scored "ok" on most intake. I was under on potassium and magnesium, but over on sodium. The latter does not surprise, given that I was eating out. Arguably, the burrito I made at home had less sodium than the website credited. Over the long run, my sodium intake would normalize back to OK levels but when you eat out two days straight for every meal, you are going to take in a lot of sodium. Most of the OK scores were for minerals where my intake was higher than the target, so I was at least hitting the target on most of the minerals, which I take as a good sign.

In terms of vitamins, I was split evenly between under and OK. I scored under on Vitamins A, C, D, E, K...

I scored OK on the rest. This finding also shows the impact that eating out has on one's body. I came out of these three days with excessive sodium and fats, but my diet in this time lacked vitamins. Eating like this all the time would require a supplement. All told, the finding does not surprise me, but I was so far below on some of these that I realize I have to pay closer attention to getting the greens and other vitamin-rich foods into my system when I travel. Such deficiencies are no big deal over two days, but cannot be allowed to persist over the long run without health consequences.
It is clear that one of my biggest challenges is that I tend to fall completely off the wagon when it comes to diet when I travel. At home, I know that my diet is better than this, but on the road I tend to stop thinking about my consumption, and the result is that I am consuming far too much junk. I noticed when I was entering the foods just how many empty calories I was consuming and it was rather alarming. Those empty calories are an issue that should be resolved if I want to continue to lose weight.

I will need to be much more cognizant when traveling of my food choices, because those really can undermine my efforts. I would also like to continue using this in order to analyze my normal choices, to see if the issues identified here are remedied given a larger sample size. The small sample size has skewed things a bit, but I think this is a fairly valuable tool in terms of gaining knowledge about better eating choices. I can see that if the past three days were representative, I would want to increase the vegetables, probably at the expense of the fats, empty calories and maybe even the carbs. My calories are at the right level. I will also need to figure out what foods can help me increase my potassium intake, which was quite a bit lower than the target.

Spangalang's Nutrients Report 09/26/15-09/28/15

Your plan is based on a 2800 Calorie allowance.

Nutrients

Target

Average Eaten

Status

Total Calories

2800 Calories

2283 Calories

Under

Protein (g)***

56 g

89 g

OK

Protein (% Calories)***

10-35% Calories

16% Calories

OK

Carbohydrate (g)***

OK

Carbohydrate (% Calories)***

45-65% Calories

39% Calories

Under

Dietary Fiber

38 g

22 g

Under

Total Sugars

No Daily Target or Limit

33 g

No Daily Target or Limit

Added Sugars

No Daily Target or Limit

12 g

No Daily Target or Limit

Total Fat

20-35% Calories

31% Calories

OK

Saturated Fat

< 10% Calories

11% Calories

Over

Polyunsaturated…