Written Report
Overall, I am undereating my daily Calorie expenditure by 18.12%. My daily Calorie expenditure is 3054.4 kcal and my average daily intake for the 5 experimental days is 2500.8 kcal. I am a little surprised that I am not taking enough calories for my age and body weight because I thought I was eating a little too much. However, I think that eating more is a lot easier than forcing myself to cut down and have a bag of Cheetos stare at me, mocking me.
Although my total caloric diet is lower than recommended, I am overeating in proteins. My protein intake was 90.45 grams, 18.45% greater than my recommended protein intake being 76.36 grams. This was pretty expected for me because I tend to eat a lot of meat. I always found myself incorporating meat into every meal I have. I catch myself ordering burgers, pizzas, and pasta with some sort of beef or chicken along with it. Over the 5 days, the 4 servings of diced short ribs at Gyu-Kaku contained 80 grams of protein. This course was almost complete protein. So if I got rid of this course and replaced it with a rich fiber meal, it would balance out my overeating of protein and also help increase my fiber intake, which I am lacking in. I should shift my focus of nutrition onto the other categories such as fat, fiber, Vitamin C, and iron because those are what I am lacking in. I think that I can improve my protein intake pretty easily. I am not overeating by a crazy amount, so a little control and reduction will most likely balance out my protein intake with my recommended protein intake.
One category of nutrition I am lacking in is fat. Over the 5 days, I ate an average of 89.04 grams of fat which is 10.31% below the recommended intake being 99.27 grams. Most days I had about 70 grams of fat which was consistent but below my recommended fat intake. However, on Day 3, I had 145.25 grams of fat. A huge majority of it was from the Chick N Tater Munchie Meal from Jack in the box. This item helped a lot with increasing my fat intake to meet the recommended and it also provided a good source of fiber which I am lacking in as well. The only foods that I know of that contain fat are avocados or salmon. One problem I have with increasing my fat intake is that it isn’t very obvious to me which healthy foods contain a good source of fat unlike how protein, fiber, and carbohydrates, for example, are easy to identify.
One of the categories I am heavily lacking in is fiber. I am getting almost less than half the fiber I am supposed to be getting with a recommended 38.18 grams of fiber. Over the 5 days, I averaged in an intake of 19.62 grams of fiber leaving me at a 48.66% deficit. During the 5 days, one of the foods that had a good amount of fiber was the quesarito big box from Taco Bell. Fiber is very healthy for the digestive tract, and the fact that I am consuming only half the fiber I am supposed to be consuming is a little concerning. It is very important that I change my diet to increase my fiber intake. I think this is pretty doable since cereal contains a lot of fiber, and I just need to wake up early enough to eat breakfast.
Another category I can improve on is my Vitamin C intake. My recommended Vitamin C level is 91.63 milligrams and I am eating 69.06 milligrams resulting in 24.41% below the recommended. I think that I can increase my Vitamin C level pretty easily. I noticed that a lot of fruits such as strawberries, mangos, and oranges contain a pretty high level of Vitamin C. I also am lacking in Iron, where my recommended intake is 27.49 milligrams and my intake over the 5 days was 22.28 milligrams. This leads to 18.95% below my recommended intake. Although my iron intake is not as severe as Vitamin C, a problem I have with iron is that I don’t know what foods contain a good source of iron or how to identify them. But with some research, I think that it is very likely to find healthy foods close by that contain a good amount of iron. I am also heavily lacking in Vitamin A and Calcium. I am down about 49.2% for Vitamin A and 63.13% for Calcium. I think I can increase my Calcium intake pretty easily by just drinking more milk, but to increase my Vitamin A intake would take some research and shopping.
The only category where I was met my recommended intake was sodium. Only 2.83% below my recommended intake of 3665.3 milligrams of sodium, I averaged at 3561.5 milligrams of sodium over the 5 days. I was pretty surprised that I was so close to my recommended amount. I thought that sodium would the category that I went way over from the meat and the soda. Overall, I learned that I need cut a little down on protein, increase my vitamins and minerals intake, and focus a lot on a richer fiber diet.
Daily Analysis
