Does anyone stick to their recommendations?

Aimeesdiet

Do must people stick to their recommended intake for vitamins etc? Does it help? How do you go about doing that? I get far too much vitamin A and vitamin C but not enough protein or iron etc

Aimeesdiet

Most*

janejellyroll

Assuming your vitamin A is from vegetables, getting "too much" A and C won't be an issue. The A in vegetables isn't "pre-formed," it's basically materials your body uses to create the A that you need. If you consume more than you need, you just eliminate the rest. Same with C -- any water soluble vitamin isn't going to be a problem for over-dosing.

Iron can be a tricky one. Not every database entry has the correct iron numbers, so sometimes people think they aren't getting enough even though they are (because they're choosing entries missing the information). But it's certainly possible to not get enough iron, so it might be worth double-checking your entries and seeing if you can increase your intake of iron-containing foods (generally, people should not supplement unless their doctor recommends it specifically).

Protein is a good goal to meet. Your body needs it.

Does it "help"? If you mean for weight loss, the guidelines for C, A, and iron are based on your nutritional needs, not what you need for weight loss.

Some people do find that getting enough protein helps them stick to their calorie goal because having protein-rich meals helps control their appetite.

How many of us go about it is to look at our diaries, see the foods we're eating that are rich in what we want more of, and either eating larger portions of those foods or eating them more often. It can also help to Google lists of good sources for the nutrients we want to increase.

AnnPT77

Slavishly? No.

I'm pretty consistent on the big items, which for me are protein and fats. I get a certain minimum of each. (Many people around here just look at protein. I'm one of the rare weirdos who will underconsume fats if I don't pay attention. I gather that's uncommon.)

I care about fiber, but get enough and more without giving it much thought, just via personal food preferences.

I care about micronutrients (and some other things, like food-probiotics and pre-biotics). The micros are not well tracked by MFP, largely because of labeling limitations affecting the database. Mostly, I deal with this by striving to get quite large amounts of varied, colorful veggies and fruits (5+ 80g daily servings minimum, ideally 10+). Every once in a while, I spot-check some nutrients that MFP tracks poorly, by taking a closer look at the micronutrient profile of a typical day or two in my diary. Sometimes, that's as easy as (for example) looking up high potassium foods, and finding I have a number of them already in my diary, but listed as zero potassium because of the labeling issues.

People who are more concerned or want to be more detailed sometimes choose to log at Cronometer instead, though I gather it has its own pros & cons.

I don't worry about being over water-soluble vitamins from food, and have looked up issues with the fat-soluble ones (A, D, E, K) to know whether overdosing is a concern with my typical eating profile. The only micro I've discovered (so far) that I need to be careful to avoid overeating is selenium. The gap between needed amounts and excessive amounts is relatively narrow (compared to most other nutrients), and one food I really like (brazil nuts) can be a surprisingly easy way to reach a questionably-safe level, with fairly modest consumption. If I eat these regularly and often, it's like one a day, even though taste-wise I'd happily eat a handful daily. Bad plan!

Usually, most people following a generally well-rounded diet, and not mega-supplementing, are doing fine. It may make sense to ask your doctor to run a nutritional panel now and then, for key items.

(One observation: I've noticed that some - I don't know what term to use here - health-food-style (?) multivitamins or supplement powders will include kind of remarkably high amounts of certain micronutrients. I'd suggest reading labels and thinking about the implications of supplements in the context of your diet, if you use any of these types. Not saying they're bad, but I feel like some people take them without thinking over the implications. Jane mentioned preformed Vitamin A, for example. That's the form in most supplements, and we can overdo it. It can be kind of easy to get large-ish amounts if using just the wrong combo of a robust multivitamin plus a meal replacement drink plus a vitamin-enhanced superfood supplement, or variations on that theme, just to make up an example.)

A second observation: For most nutrients - all of them I can think of, at the moment - it's really unnecessary to hit them exactly every single day. A little over sometimes, a little under others, not persistently under on the same one most of the time (or persistently over on ones that can be risky) - that's all fine, if the overall average is pretty good, IMO.

Aimeesdiet

janejellyroll wrote: »

Assuming your vitamin A is from vegetables, getting "too much" A and C won't be an issue. The A in vegetables isn't "pre-formed," it's basically materials your body uses to create the A that you need. If you consume more than you need, you just eliminate the rest. Same with C -- any water soluble vitamin isn't going to be a problem for over-dosing.

Iron can be a tricky one. Not every database entry has the correct iron numbers, so sometimes people think they aren't getting enough even though they are (because they're choosing entries missing the information). But it's certainly possible to not get enough iron, so it might be worth double-checking your entries and seeing if you can increase your intake of iron-containing foods (generally, people should not supplement unless their doctor recommends it specifically).

Protein is a good goal to meet. Your body needs it.

Does it "help"? If you mean for weight loss, the guidelines for C, A, and iron are based on your nutritional needs, not what you need for weight loss.

Some people do find that getting enough protein helps them stick to their calorie goal because having protein-rich meals helps control their appetite.

How many of us go about it is to look at our diaries, see the foods we're eating that are rich in what we want more of, and either eating larger portions of those foods or eating them more often. It can also help to Google lists of good sources for the nutrients we want to increase.

Thank you this really helps!

sgt1372

I do

Just got my annual blood test "panels" back and everything is w/in spec

kshama2001

Aimeesdiet wrote: »

Do must people stick to their recommended intake for vitamins etc? Does it help? How do you go about doing that? I get far too much vitamin A and vitamin C but not enough protein or iron etc

I do strive to hit my protein target, which is currently 20%. Sometimes it's 25%.

Because I'm anemic and not getting enough iron can cause major problems for me, I do look at the iron values each time I use a new entry for a USER-created food entry. These are almost always wrong. People either didn't put anything, or they put the wrong thing, or they put mg instead of percent.

(I have not found issues with micros for the entries created by MFP pulling from the USDA database.)

If I were not anemic, I would not look at iron. I don't look at A. I don't look at C either - I take this to bowel tolerance which means I am way way over the RDA, which for C anyway is really just a minimum to prevent deficiency diseases like scurvy.