Food template

sherlockjr6225
sherlockjr6225 Posts: 6 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all I’m trying to come up with a simple way to journal that includes how much protein, how many fruits, how many veggies, water, fat. Maybe a template. A similar idea to the old Weight Watchers where you checked boxes. Any ideas?

Replies

  • sollyn23l2
    sollyn23l2 Posts: 1,824 Member
    I took each meal section and renamed them grain, protein, fat, vegetables, and fruit. Then I list each food as most appropriate under the group it fits best in.
  • sherlockjr6225
    sherlockjr6225 Posts: 6 Member
    Good idea. I can do that. I think I’d like to come up with how much of each I should have also. Like - 5 fruits and vegetables, 2 fats, 3 carbs etc. But I suppose that’s a bit too old school. Nutrients are probably more important.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,928 Member
    edited January 14
    sherlockjr6225 wrote: »
    Good idea. I can do that. I think I’d like to come up with how much of each I should have also. Like - 5 fruits and vegetables, 2 fats, 3 carbs etc. But I suppose that’s a bit too old school. Nutrients are probably more important.

    I'm not saying this will be perfect for you, but what I do is track fats and protein in my MFP totals, and - since I weigh most of my food - strive to get at least 400g and ideally 800g+ of varied fruits and veggies by the end of the day.

    If I wanted to be more structured about that, I'd put all the veggies and fruits in their own meal slot in my diary, but I prefer to structure that by actual meals, i.e., things I eat together in a short time span. It's easy enough to rough-total them across a day in my head, or use my phone/PC calculator if I want more accuracy.

    But I don't care how many carbs I eat, as long as I get a certain minimum (or more) of protein and fats, since those contain essential nutrients our bodies can't manufacture so we need to eat some.

    I definitely wouldn't count each food as being carbs or fats or protein as so I could count X number of fats or protein, rather than number of grams of fat or protein. If I tried to count the number of carb foods or fat foods, how would that work? If I eat a cookie, say, that's usually carbs and fats both. If cookies are off the table . . . well, lots of foods are carbs and fats combined, or carbs and protein combined, etc.

    But that's just me.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,928 Member
    sherlockjr6225 wrote: »
    Good idea. I can do that. I think I’d like to come up with how much of each I should have also. Like - 5 fruits and vegetables, 2 fats, 3 carbs etc. But I suppose that’s a bit too old school. Nutrients are probably more important.

    If you want to do that, you could put it in the title of your custom meal slots. You'd still have to count how many you'd had, though. Maybe that would be the number of lines in that section, but maybe not. (Example: My breakfast included something labeled and logged as "Mixed Berries". Is that one fruit? Depends on why we're counting, I guess. :) )
  • sherlockjr6225
    sherlockjr6225 Posts: 6 Member
    Good suggestions all.

    One thing I need to remember is to keep things simple. Using the nutrient tallies that MFP is already keeping for me is a good idea.

    And there’s always the plate method 😁. A quarter of the plate is protein, a quarter carb, half a plate of veggies, and some sort of dairy. My go to is Greek yogurt.

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