What Surprised You the Most About your Food Diary?

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tildastwistedlife
tildastwistedlife Posts: 85 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I was just curious what most people have had the most problems regulating. I feared that fat would be my issue...or cholesterol, since that was significantly high at my last doctor's visit in November just prior to starting back with MFP. Nope. Neither of those were it. Sodium. That is the culprit. I find that I have to regulate having too many prepackaged foods in one day. We eat a lot of fresh vegetables versus canned so that helps. However, I recently made this great Chicken Enchiladas recipe from Skinnytaste.com (here if you are interested: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/02/chicken-enchiladas.html) that was so yummy. I didn't monitor my sodium on the prepackaged items like I should and the sodium ended up being through the roof. The two major problems were the tortillas (I've since taken to making my own homemade) and the tomato sauce (Fresh Market store brand; 240 mg per 1/4 cup serving, are you kidding me?). I had to use 2.5 cups of sauce for this recipe which was 1920 mg alone!

So what nutritional aspect of dieting seems to give you the most fits?

Replies

  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
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    In the very beginning, sodium was one of my biggest surprises too. Not so much with cooking at home because my husband had already started reducing his sodium intake so there were not a lot of packaged and canned foods around. For me it was more of a surprise with restaurant meals, like Subway for example...and Mexican & Chinese food.

    BTW Hunt's makes a really good no salt added tomato sauce. We use it for everything, with various spices, wine, whatever (depending on its use). Good reduction in sodium there.

    The other big surprise for me was sugar. My first few weeks on MFP, I was "in the red" on sugar by about 100 per day or so...now I rarely go over -- only when I've had an unusual amount of fruit and/or honey, or went out for some kind of splurge dessert treat. Some of the main culprits for me were condiments/sauces, and yogurt cups like Oikos or Chobani with fruit on the bottom to the tune of like 18g sugar...that was all easily reduced. Most of the sugar adjustments were simple fixes.

    On the flipside, I was a little shocked to find that I eat pretty low carb (I don't even track that anymore). I never set out to do that. I haven't ever been a big fan of bread, bagels, crackers, or chips, so that helps. But I'm not on a low carb diet yet found that my usual eating was considered semi low carb.
  • LoupGarouTFTs
    LoupGarouTFTs Posts: 916 Member
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    Definitely sodium. I don't add salt to my food at all and thought I had my sodium intake under control because my blood pressure is good for my height and weight. But the numbers! Ack! I know they will come down as I learn to prepare foods for myself again--I hate to cook since I live alone again--but right now the days I stay within the recommended allowance are few. I consider it a good day if I exceed the recommended allowance by 200 to 500 mg.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
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    Definitely sodium. I don't add salt to my food at all and thought I had my sodium intake under control because my blood pressure is good for my height and weight.

    That is wonderful, though, that your bp is good. Mine too. My husband's at a healthier weight and eats healthier than I do (somewhat) and he struggles with his bp. A lot of that is genetic though.

    Frequently I have conversations with friends and family members about healthy eating (THEY bring it up) and when they ask about my use of MFP, I sometimes mention something about tracking sodium and they almost always say, "OH I don't have a problem with that because I never salt my food". People just do not make a connection!

    I really think that most people who haven't looked at their sodium intake thoroughly would assume they eat little to no salt. Even though some of those people eat a *TON* of processed, packaged foods, lots of chips, jarred pasta sauce, and restaurant meals. I am by no means trying to make those things out to be bad or evil, but I do think it's nice to get a handle on the numbers.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    Not getting enough protein has always been my biggest problem.
  • TiberiusClaudis
    TiberiusClaudis Posts: 423 Member
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    Condiments...how much carbs, sugar and/or sodium are in them.

    If you drop them, you can eat a LOT more vegs and even meats.

    Bubble Gum..which I chew during exercise..has lots and lots of carbs and sugar.

    And juice..OMG...the sugar in juice...I'll never drink juice again. Takes way too much of my daily macros of sugar.

    Oh eggs..how high in sodium they are. Wow
  • LoupGarouTFTs
    LoupGarouTFTs Posts: 916 Member
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    Definitely sodium. I don't add salt to my food at all and thought I had my sodium intake under control because my blood pressure is good for my height and weight.

    That is wonderful, though, that your bp is good. Mine too. My husband's at a healthier weight and eats healthier than I do (somewhat) and he struggles with his bp. A lot of that is genetic though.

    Frequently I have conversations with friends and family members about healthy eating (THEY bring it up) and when they ask about my use of MFP, I sometimes mention something about tracking sodium and they almost always say, "OH I don't have a problem with that because I never salt my food". People just do not make a connection!

    I really think that most people who haven't looked at their sodium intake thoroughly would assume they eat little to no salt. Even though some of those people eat a *TON* of processed, packaged foods, lots of chips, jarred pasta sauce, and restaurant meals. I am by no means trying to make those things out to be bad or evil, but I do think it's nice to get a handle on the numbers.

    I completely agree with what you are saying. I don't eat a lot of chips, but I do rely on jarred sauces and gravies and eat fast food about once a week. I was shocked by how much sodium was in Subway sandwiches, which are touted as a "healthy" alternative. I just have to make changes based on what I know now, is all, and not freak out and try to make those changes so quickly that I set myself up to fail. I have a cookbook of diabetic-friendly recipes now and will eventually be trying my hand at sauces and gravies. And seriously, one of the best changes I made for myself was changing to unsalted butter. It's a minor and easy change, but one that removed a bunch of sodium from my meals.

    So, anyway, I'm really happy with my blood pressure being good. I'm the only adult over the age of 30 in my family--on both sides--who is not on blood pressure medication. That makes me pretty happy indeed. :)
  • rockmama72
    rockmama72 Posts: 815 Member
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    My biggest shock was how much booze I can drink. And second, how stupidly tiny a serving of wine is. ;) I wasn't too thrilled with myself after realizing I wouldn't have gained weight if I'd been more judicious with the drinks. I logged my normal intake of both food and alcohol for the first week, and food totals were not once over 1800 calories and were even nicely distributed among the macros.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    that I don't eat more protien...

    I actually have to focus on that everyday to get it in and when I don't focus on it...it's low.

    Anything else because MFP sets its limits to the minimum I don't watch that closely.
  • tildastwistedlife
    tildastwistedlife Posts: 85 Member
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    I totally agree. I think people would be shocked at how much sodium is packed into foods that they eat every day. I'm also lucky that my BP was always low, though it was up in November for my doctor's visit. Having only lost 16 pounds, it is already back to it's low levels which is great.
    Sandwich meat was a biggie for me. We do sandwiches for lunch on the weekends a lot around here and I had to either find something else or buy low sodium or no salt added. And then there's a marked difference in taste....which you can't mask with condiments because of the carbs and sodium!

    I also struggle a little with the protein to fat ratio. I know to buy lean but it's still hard to find low fat items that will still give you the protein you need.
  • psych101
    psych101 Posts: 1,842 Member
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    I'm the same as Stef - when I don't focus on my protein, I'm surprised how low it is, even when I think I'm doing ok. I have to focus on protein to ensure I eat enough of it to meet my goals.
  • asianrunner
    asianrunner Posts: 42 Member
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    The first couple days, I was shocked at how many calories I ate! I've dabbled in losing weight off and on for years so I thought I could guesstimate how many calories I was eating. I was off by about 1000! Ugh.

    My sodium is always off the charts but I'm not too worried about it yet. I workout 6x/wk and sweat quite heavily. When the temps are above 60*, I am always covered in salt!

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