Basic Pursuits

Discovery Health, the TV channel, produced a pretty good special called The Truth About Food. One segment strove to make the point that people eat too much because they grossly misjudge the size of the portion that they are consuming.

To illustrate the point, the producers broke a group of people into two equal groups. Both were invited to watch a movie. One group was given a reasonably sized bag of popcorn while the other was given a super-sized bag of popcorn. At the end of the movie the researchers measured how much each group ate. Not surprisingly, the super-sized group ate the most.

Another experiment featured two groups eating chicken. One group left their bones on the table. The other group's bones were cleared as soon as they ate the chicken. The group who could observe the bones and had a visual reminder of how much they ate, ate less.

Dr. Oz, the show host, said that we need a visual measure of what we are eating or we lose track. He said that was the reason to keep a food log.

The show also chronicled a couple working hard to lose weight. They were seen writing down everything that they ate and testified on camera how helpful it was. They said it made them realize how much they had been overeating.

Writing down everything and then having to look up its caloric value is a pain. Most people quickly give up in frustration. And to take it to the next level and compute the nutritional values...forget about it.

What the show did not point out was that it's a lot easier and a lot more informative ways to track what your are eating. In an earlier post I named a few online sources. There are a lot more I'm sure. My favorite is the free download, Cron-O-Meter, which is the fastest entry and is the most customizable.

I spend no more than 10 minutes a day logging my food using Cron-O-Meter. It quickly shows me the proportions of macro nutrients I'm eating so that I'm able to make quick adjustments. For example, if I find I'm taking in too much fat during a particular day, I might make a protein shake. If I'm low on a particular vitamin, I quickly adjust. For example, low on Vitamin C, I eat a tangerine. Low on E, I eat an ounce of almonds.

With time, this has become incredibly easy. In fact it's a way of life. It's not a diet. It's a way of life.

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