FatDay
Every so often I’ve considered tracking my food intake, to see just how many calories I was taking in and to what degree I was meeting my nutritional needs. I’ve always been curious, since my diet has been pretty nonstandard for most of my life. However, the manual bookkeeping was always prohibitive, until I recently decided to ask iniren, my local expert on dieting. Without hesitation, she recommended FitDay, and two weeks ago I began tracking my diet in as much detail as I could manage. Now I thought I’d share some initial observations. Mind you, two weeks is hardly a large dataset, so these are very preliminary, and will change significantly over the coming months as I segue into training mode (I’m still eating like it’s winter, mostly).
One thing that surprised me was that my base life processes (sleeping, digesting, sitting, and moving around a bit) require over 2,800 calories a day. I really expected that to be a lot less. Add another 3,300 calories on top of that for a good day’s bike ride, and we’re talking over 6,000 calories just to maintain a steady weight!
As you can see from the chart at right, on the intake side of the equation, I seem to be averaging about 3,100 calories per day, in the form of 51% carbs, 17% protein, and 29% fat, which actually is a better balance than I’d feared. The recc for cyclists is about 65% carbs, less than 30% fat, and 15% protein, so I’m not that far off, even considering I’m not yet in full training mode.
At right is one of the interesting ways that FitDay can report on your nutrition: displaying your average daily nutrition in the form of a “Nutrition Facts” food label. It’s a great way to get a snapshot of the overall sufficiency of your diet.
One nutrient I am particularly concerned about is calcium, as a result of this article that recently appeared in Bicycling magazine entitled “Why You Need to Bone Up”. Because sweat leaches calcium from the bones, any endurance athlete must be concerned about their bone density, but that’s exacerbated for cyclists, because cycling is non-weight bearing. And I’m particularly at risk, having spent so many years drinking soda, which is also bad for your bones. Fortunately, I am getting over 2,300 mg per day, or two and a quarter times the minimum required for normal people. The majority of that comes in the form of nonfat Hersheys chocolate milk cut with nonfat skim milk, and calcium-fortified orange juice, and occasionally augmented with calcium citrate supplements.
I seem to get at least the minimum RDA of all the other nutrients and minerals. I’m a little low on fiber and high on sodium, but that will balance out more as my diet adapts back into training mode.
I plan on continuing to use FitDay, and will be curious to see how my diet changes as I become more conscientious about my eating and do a lot more training as we approach my major cycling events of the year.