Re: how to calculate fats/proteins/carbs in your diet

[Guest guest]

Well that explains it Bee!

I went to the FitDay site and signed in and put in my foods for the day.

First, unless I'm missing something (and maybe it's because it's their trial

version?,) it wasn't easy to fine tune the amount in a serving. If I wanted

to add less than one cup of coconut oil, for example, it wasn't

automatically apparent. I generally didn't see a way to easily control the

way the food was prepared either. For example when I wanted to add in

broccoli my choices were either get a stock of raw broccoli or a whole dish

made with cream sauce. I didn't see fresh steamed broccoli. But there's

where I think we're having some confusion: Their estimates of fats seemed

extremely high to me -- as if there's a glitch in the program.

I say this because I regularly use a program called " BalanceLog " . It cost

about 50 bucks and I downloaded it at www.healthetech.com

They have you get tested to find out what your Resting Metabolism Rate is

and then you plug that into the " profile " at the beginning as well as as

Body Mass Index and Body Fat %. You can usually get those things at a gym.

Anyway, all this stuff goes into to helping you create a diet that is best

for you. As you go along it compares the number of calories you're eating

with how much you should be eating to either gain or lose weight. It also

shows you how close or far you are from the target diet recommendations in

your preferred diet. Some of you could put in 70% fat in " Custom Diet " and

it would help keep you to that amount for example.

Anyway, the thing is quite specific and I like the way I can mold it to my

way of eating. It " remembers " the food you repeatedly choose. It also has

the biggest data base of foods I've seen, including a lot of modern " health

foods " .For their listed foods, you can control the amount of the serving

each time you plug it in to a meal. For example if their regular serving

size of steak is 4 oz. you can put a fraction in the box provided to

represent the amount of the 4 oz. you actually ate. For example if I ate

only 3 oz. I could put .75 in the box and it would scale down all the

calories and nutrients to 75%.

I've used BalanceLog religiously for the past year. I started when I first

had digestive problems and wanted to not only record of what I actually ate

each day (to keep track of allergies) but also to control the amount of

fiber and sugar. For every entry, it enters all this data in number and

chart form so that for a person just starting out and unaware of the amounts

of sugar, for example, in various foods (including vegetables) it was a

fabulous educational tool. It really helped me to understand my diet. If I

started having problems I could look back a few days and see what I'd been

eating. I also saw that I was consuming a heck of a lot more sugar than I

thought I was.

I'm sorry this is so long. I'll try to make my point here: At the beginning,

where you key in your personal statistics, you also key in your preferred

diet regimen (or create your own custom diet.) This is done with percentages

just as Bee did in her earlier email. The choices they have are the American

Heart Association, The American Cancer Society, The American Diabetes

Association, Vegetarian, Low Carbohydrate, Body-For-Life and Custom. Except

for the Low Carb diet which had their carbs listed at only 40% of the total

calories consumed, all the others recommended at least 50% carbs. Also the

highest fat intake for all the diets including Low-Carb was 30%.

Now before you say that that is waaay too many carbs and so on I need to

point out that the way these two sites measure carbs, fats and proteins

seems to me to be very different. I just did a test. I plugged into FitDay

the same foods I had plugged into BalanceLog. I came up with two very

different numbers. In fact, FitDay had me at about double the fat percentage

that BalanceLog had me. 60% on FitDay versus 30% on BalanceLog.

I don't know which is right but I can tell you that they are very different

in the way that they compute fat for the same foods. I hope that this helps

dispel some confusion?

~Robin

[Guest guest]

Dear Robin,

Thanks, but I had no confusion. Fitday calculates the amount of

calories contained in the grams of foods. Fitday also allows for

portions like .5 of a serving, or you can measure in cups, part of

cups, or smaller portions like tablespoons. You can also " custom-

make " foods.

>The choices they have are the American Heart Association, The

>American Cancer Society, The American Diabetes Association,

>Vegetarian, Low Carbohydrate, Body-For-Life and Custom. Except

> for the Low Carb diet which had their carbs listed at only 40% of

>the total calories consumed, all the others recommended at least 50%

>carbs. Also the highest fat intake for all the diets including Low-

>Carb was 30%.

I don't have any faith in the first 4 groups listed above and I find

their information not creditable because it makes people sick. But

it appears that we are in fact measuring the same way. It makes

sense that these groups would recommend such high carbs and such low

fats. That's been the norm for many many years. The first three

organizations have a vested interest in keeping people sick so they

can ensure their own livelihoods.

However, the recommendations I am making are based on calories as

calculated at fitday.

The best in health,

Bee

[Guest guest]

Well, once again we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think you recommend

way too much fat and not enough vegetables. ~Robin

[Guest guest]

wrote:

> Robin

> I would like to jump in here and offer a thought.

> THink back before preservitives were the normal,

> THink back before Monsanto Genetically Modified Seeds

> THink back before industrialized conglomarated farms

> THink back before carrots were orange and originally white ,

> THink back when crops were eaten whether the produce was uniform

>and perfect, you ate what you grew, you ate what you could gather in

>the forest in terms of wild grasses and such. You ate what you could

>hunt, small animals-one pot meals that the meat, bones,organs,and

>fat could be rendered in a simmering caldron over a small fire or

>sometimes glowing coals.

Dear ,

You've said it better than I ever could. Thank you so very much, and

thanks for your ongoing wise and helpful contributions.

Hugs,

Bee