Saturday, May 22, 2010

Eating the Pyramid

Did you all take Audrey's advice and download the Food Pyramid Worksheet? I did, and I want to urge you to do it, too. You will get instructions based on your calorie intake, on what to eat everyday. For me it's 1 1/2 cups each of fruits and vegetables, 2 cups dairy, 4 oz meat and 5 oz grains. It also suggests that I limit my extras- solid fats and sugars- to 170 calories a day. (Yes! There is still room in my life for cheese and peanut butter!) It is so helpful to me to have numbers to work with. At the end of the day I can look at what I've eaten and say, "I have 200 calories left, what is missing from my diet?" It's almost ALWAYS dairy. I just can't seem to work it in. I mean, 2 cups is a lot! I didn't realize my body needed so much dairy. Or grains for that matter.

While you're there, check out this tool. It's another suggestion from Audrey. It's a search field where you can type in a food, and it will tell you what food group it belongs in, and it's calorie content. I don't know about you, but I was unsure about a few of the foods I eat on a regular basis. Like tomatoes (vegetable,) avocado (fruit,) and cucumbers (vegetable.)

I also like the section called Inside the Pyramid. There you can explore the pyramid by group. It has some great charts that tell you what counts as an ounce or cup, and a fun food gallery that shows you what a serving looks like.

Kudos to whoever created mypyramid.gov. It's a goldmine of information that has proven to be really helpful to me.

8 comments:

  1. Do you go by the calories on that sight. Just curious, because I just did my calorie count and it said 2200 to loose weight. That doesn't seem right? Maybe if I subtract 500 calories that might be a little more accurate. Then is there a way to find how many of each food group I should eat if I have less calories? I haven't played around enough with this site because I'm comfortable with Livestrong, but I'm always up for new options of tracking.

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  2. Alicia, if you click on the food pyramid worksheet on the right they have it broken down by calories so you know what you should be eating for all different ranges! Trust me, this makes knowing what to eat simple, gives you energy and does not limit you. Give it a try.

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  3. I think their calorie allotment is too generous. I'm using the Loseit! app for the iphone to calculate my calorie needs. If you click on Food Pyramid Worksheet, I'm going with the 1400 calorie chart.

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  4. I'm going for a priviate tutorial with Audrey.

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  5. Okay, found it! That makes so much more sense and looks so useful. I'm going to print it off and give it a try.

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  6. Seriously girls, HOW do you get by on 1400 cal??? I am too addicted to food...I guess that's why I haven't been losing???
    HOW DO YOU DO IT???

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  7. I'm with Jill. 1400 calories? I'm just not willing to eat that little. So I'm just shooting for 1/2 pound per week weight loss and that gets me more in the 1800 range.

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  8. I'm eating more than that when I workout. It just depends on how many calories I burn.

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