Since my childhood, I have always had an aggressive appetite, and obviously, not all the meals I ate were healthy and nutritious. For a long time, I did not care much about what I ate and how my food choices and eating habits influenced my health. However, recently, I have started to pay more attention to my daily diet. In particular, I decided to track my daily meals for a week, write down everything I eat and prepare my diet analysis based on calorie intake and the amount of protein, fats, and carbohydrates consumed. It has helped me find out what my organism lacks and, on the contrary, what is redundant.
While analyzing what the foods I typically eat every day are and how my eating choices change over the days, I have found out that there are some negative tendencies in my daily diet that I definitely need to change. At the same time, there are also certain eating habits that need to be further encouraged and maintained.
What have I found out?
First of all, my diet analysis has revealed that I consume not enough water. I thought that I drink much, so the result was a shock to me. Over the days, I systematically drank less than 1 l of plain water or a bit more. The rest of the consumed liquid was mainly tea or coffee. I know that it is important to drink more water as water can help with hair and skin. Besides, in general, drinking water makes the body work properly. If I want to make a change in my daily diet, I definitely need to increase the amount of plain water drunk every day and eliminate the amount of coffee, juices, and sodas consumed.
Speaking about my overall calorie intake, it was rather unstable during the week of my diet analysis. While on some days, it was normal, on other days, it was either excessive or insufficient. For example, on Monday, my calorie intake was 648.5, while on Sunday, it was 2343.6. The matter is that on working days, I often have no time for eating. Sometimes, I choose eating at fast foods, although I know that such eating habits can lead to severe health problems. At the weekends, I have more time and can prepare meals by myself. It is important to stabilize my calorie intake and consume the required number of calories to keep my body in shape and not put on weight.
Apart from the need to stabilize calorie intake, my diet analysis has also revealed some other issues. I understand that tracking my eating habits just for one week is not enough to make conclusions as over the days; my eating choices can significantly change. Still, my diet analysis can help me identify the negative tendencies and try to establish a healthier diet on a daily basis.
Vitamins as integral part of the healthy life
An important aspect of my diet analysis research was vitamin intake and my vitamin D level in particular. After I had reviewed my vitamin intake, I understood that the foods I ate did not include many vitamins. My vitamin D level is particularly low. It can be understood because it is winter now, and that is why my exposure to sun is low. However, not only the change in the weather can help increase my vitamin D level. One of the main sources of vitamin D is milk, and I almost never drink milk. As I do not have any allergies, I can include milk to the foods I consume every day. My favorite drink is coffee, and sometimes, I drink it too often. Instead, I can drink milk or water. Besides that, there is a possibility to eat vitamin D supplements to increase my vitamin D level. I realize that I need to do something about my eating choices and eating habits to ensure the required level of vitamin D in my organism.
While working on my diet analysis project, I realized that I even though I lead an active lifestyle, I do not exercise enough. Bringing more exercising into my life will definitely help me to stay in shape. In particular, I am going to add jogging to my daily routine. As the sun is the source of vitamin D, jogging will also help me to increase my vitamin D level.
My research met the results
My diet analysis research has shown that in general, my vitamin levels are very low. It can be explained by the fact that I eat not many vegetables and fruit. That is why based on my research; I decided to make a change in my daily diet and add more vegetables and fruit to the foods I eat. I believe that it will also help regulate my calorie intake at large. In particular, my daily diet includes almost no fruit. For example, over the days, I ate fruit just a few times. On Thursday, I drank a smoothie, and the only fruit I ate that day were the ones added to this smoothie.
Another significant problem in my diet is eating too much fat. As during the week, I often eat at fast foods, it means that I eat the foods that contain trans-fat and saturated fat almost every day. For example, my overall intake of saturated fat over a week was 28.7, and this number is huge. I need to exclude fast food from my daily diet as eating too much trans fat, and saturated fat can not only lead to obesity but also provoke serious health problems.
To sum up, I should say that my diet analysis research has turned out to be very helpful and useful for me. With its help, by tracking my eating habits and the foods I eat for a week, I identified the key problems in my daily diet and made some significant decisions. For instance, I found out that I drink not enough water. I decided to work on it and develop a habit of drinking the required amount of plain water every day instead of drinking too much coffee. Water is essential for the overall health and well-being, and thus, drinking enough water will be my priority. Besides that, I understood that my vitamin D level is rather low. I will do everything to increase this level by drinking milk and eating other foods that contain vitamin D. Also; my diet analysis showed that all my vitamin levels are low because of consuming not enough fruit and vegetables. I do not like fruit very much, but I will try to add as many of them as is needed for my daily diet to stay healthy and ensure vitamin intake. What is more, I eat too much trans-fat and saturated fat, and I want to change my eating habits and eliminate the number of fats consumed in my daily diet.
