WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
Scheduled WHEE diaries
January 4
Mon AM - NC Dem (looking at your pecs!)
Mon PM - ???
January 5
Tues AM - ???
Tues PM - Clio2 (Kessler, Ch. 38)
January 6
Weds AM - ???
Weds PM - Edward Spurlock
January 7
Thurs AM - ???
Thurs PM - ???
January 8
Fri AM - ???
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January 9
Sat AM - kismet (calorie values of everyday food/what a week of "clean eating" looks like)
Sat PM - ???
January 10
Sun AM - ???
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I recently came across a fantastic website that contains a wealth of nutritional information, both about foods that we buy in the grocery store or local farmer's market (or grow in our own garden), and on foods sold by major restaurant chains. Here is a link: http://www.nutritiondata.com.
There are many great features about the Nutrition Data website, but my favorits are the graphics that make it obvious at a glance which foods one should be eating more of, and which foods we should be eating less of. I've included three samples, all for broccoli which, Bush the elder to the contrary notwithstaning, may be as close as it's possible to come to a perfect food.
At the top of each food's entry are a text summary of some of the most important nutritional facts about it, and two charts. The first chart is a square with a scale for nutrient density along the horizontal axis, and the "fullness factor" (how filling it is per calorie) along the vertical axis. Just by looking at this chart, it's immediately obvious whether the food is nutrient dense and filling in relation to the number of calories (like broccoli), or whether it (like much of the American diet) is the opposite. Immediately under this chart are a series of ratings from 0 to 5 stars for the food's value in general nutrition, losing weight, and (for those few people trying to GAIN weight) gaining weight. Next to this chart is a triangle showing the percentage of calories in the food from carbohydrats, protein and fat, and below this chart are entries showing the food's glycemic load and inflammatory factor. Here is what this part of the entry for broccoli looks like:
On the left-hand chart above, if you're trying to lose weight, you want to select as many food as possible that are located close to the upper right hand corner of the chart (nutrient dense and filling in relation to calories), and as few as possible that are located in the bottom left hand corner. A quick glance at the chart will tell you whether this is a food that you want to eat more of, or less of.
The next two charts are a pie graph showing nutritional completeness and one showing amino acid balance, together with scores for both of these factors:
Basically, if a food had a nutritional completeness score of 100, you could subsist on that food alone and have your complete nutrient needs satisfied. No single food does that, but broccoli comes pretty close. And if the amino acid score is 100 or above, you could get all of your protein from that food and have complete protein. (Although you could theoretically get ALL of your protein from broccoli and do just fine, you'd have to eat nearly 4 1/2 pounds of broccoli per day to do it. But the good news would be that you'd consume less than 1000 calories in doing so, which if you're trying to lose weight, would be a lot better than doing it on a steady diet of Big Macs.)
The final major part of each food's entry is a detailed analysis of the nutritional value for just about every nutrient you can imagine. It's more complete than this, but this will give you an idea of the kinds of things that are included:
There are a host of other valuable resources on the Nutrition Data website, including access to recipes utilizing any food you care to name, foods in the various food groups that are best for weight loss and optimal health, a recipe analysis tool, and a host of other things. If you're interested in eating better, I'd strongly recommend visting this site and exploring it for awhile. Between it, and walking, I'm now 40 pounds below my maximum weight, and while I've got quite a bit still to lose, I'm feeling much better than I did a couple of years ago.