What to watch

Levahna

I hate only having room to track 5 nutrients. I don't want to track them all but wondering what I should be tracking. I don't have any medical reasons to track anything specifically. . . just for general better health and weight loss. Currently I have carbs, fat, sugar, fiber and protein.
Sugar is always off but MFP doesn't decipher between natural and processed sugars. I'd really like to keep a better watch on sodium and thought maybe I'd replace protein, as I do pretty good with that.
Any suggestions would be great!

xTattooedDollx

I think this is more of a personal prefrence. I keep track of Calories, Carbs, Fat, Proteins, sodium and fiber.

danibabs

I switched from sugar to sodium because I knew most of the sugar I consume is natural versus refined sugar so it really wasn't doing me any good to track it.

aippolito1

I track carbs, fat, protein, fiber, and sodium. I've gotten better at watching my sugar but sodium is always hard especially if I have to grab something from a restaurant.

rfialkiewicz

I track carbs, cholesterol, protein, fiber, and iron b/c I'm iron deficient. I would like to track my sodium, but there's nothing I'm willing to sacrifice to do that.

rml_16

It's definitely a personal preference. I track protein and iron because I'm vegetarian. I don't track sodium because I don't tend to eat high sodium foods or add salt to anything and I'm not hypertensive. I don't track sugar because I know I'll drive myself crazy if I do. I don't track C because I know I get a ton of it.

I tracked fat for a while, but decided I was more concerned with potassium, so I switched.

So, I track protein, potassium, iron, fiber and protein.

And while it's a PITA, you can always look at everything every day by changing it and then changing it back.

Motleybird

Wow, thanks for the reminder! I just checked my iron and it's always low. I must work on that!

Edit: After going back and checking my diary, I'm going to not worry about protein, fat, and carbs anymore and start watching my nutrients! Sure, I could take a vitamin, but that's a bit like cheating. Getting those in will force me to eat healthier for the rest of it any way.

rml_16

Wow, thanks for the reminder! I just checked my iron and it's always low. I must work on that!

Edit: After going back and checking my diary, I'm going to not worry about protein, fat, and carbs anymore and start watching my nutrients! Sure, I could take a vitamin, but that's a bit like cheating. Getting those in will force me to eat healthier for the rest of it any way.

I do take a vitamin because it would be tough to get enough of something like iron and not go way over my calorie goal (although, I often cook in cast iron, which leeches iron into the food. But there's no way to know how much). But I try to get most of my nutrients from food alone. The vitamin is backup. I don't consider it cheating. I forgot that I also track calcium.