I didn't quite make my goal to track my food. I started off strong, but the end of the week proved to be my undoing. Between feeling seriously under the weather and eating foods which cannot be tracked (since I live overseas and there is no way for me to read the nutritional content of restaurant food, if it were even to be provided), I just didn't have a hope. I am aiming to improve for this week.
BUT I'm really glad that I started to (more or less) accurately track what food I'm eating because I never would have figured out the problems otherwise. Here are the three surprising (and problematic) trends that I've already noticed:
-Too few calories. I never would have thought this was a problem. I honestly thought that I was likely getting too many calories. Not the case at all. Because I'm breastfeeding, I need to make sure that I'm getting at least 2000 calories a day. At of this week, my highest caloric intake in a single day has been 1795 but this was an outlier. The average amount was around 1400 calories. This is likely putting my body into starvation mode and holding onto all the fat and such that is coming in. I really, really need to increase the amount of calories I eat. (already working on this one!)
-Wrong balance of carbs/fats/proteins. I knew this was likely to be a problem, but surprise! I trade off on which I'm too high on – fats and proteins. I regularly have too few carbs. The low carbs likely occurs because I like high fiber fruits and veggies, don't eat many beans and don't eat much grains. The high protein was a surprise though, considering that for a good 10 to 12 years I was a semi (sometimes full) vegetarian. Nowadays they call it a “flexatarian”. In any case, I need to start bringing the proteins and fats down and add more carbs. (already working on this one too!)
-WAY too much sodium intake. This was another semi surprise. I grew up in a household that had limited sodium intake due to my grandfather's congestive heart failure, so I recognize that I have certainly added salt to my diet. What I didn't realize was just how much salt had been added. On every day so far, I've at least hit the upper limit for sodium. Some days I exceed. One day I almost doubled what is recommended (and I could tell... I felt like a salt lick). I know for a fact that chicken broth is my biggest downfall currently, but there are other foods that are proving themselves to be much saltier than I expected. (Not working on this yet.. this is going to be a monthly goal in the near future)
As for the exercise part of my goal.. I made it, but barely. I'm not too worried about it though, since I was feeling unwell.
All in all, not the most amazing start, but I didn't fall completely flat on my face. And for that, I will celebrate.
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