Day 14 - Playing with Fitday

So I mentioned previously that I was playing around with a site called Fitday. It's basically an online food database with a free food diary tool. I see it recommended a lot if an online food diary is your thing and you're an American. For us Brits I recommend Food Focus if you want an online diary that'll include a lot of UK  foods.

Anyhow, inspired by a post by Mark Sissons, in which he demonstrated his daily diet, I thought I'd plug an example paleo menu into Fitday and see what the verdict was. Now I did have to use some approximations with measurements and foods but as a guideline I think it's pretty accurate. The menu was along the lines of sausages and eggs for breakfast, chicken salad with balsamic dressing and olive oil for lunch and a pork chop in a home made tomato sauce with veggies for dinner. I included some fresh fruit and some almonds, macadamias and dried fruit as snacks and a couple of black teas with honey. If you look back through my diary so far I think it's a pretty fair representation of how I've been eating (when I didn't cheat!). Here's what it looked like.

A day's worth of paleo food.

So about 2.5k calories, assuming I know how much a 'cup' is, which I really don't. I tried to be generous with my measurements because I am in real life! The split is an even amount of carbs, protein and fat. In fact more protein than I would have expected and, actually more carbs. Guess that's all the meat and veg!

Here's how the calories break down.

1g of fat has twice the calories as a gram of protein or carbs so my intake is about 50% fat. given the nuts, oils and the fat on the meat I eat that seems fair and contrary to popular belief, fat is actually good for you. Well actually not all fat. That last link talks about why saturated fat is not the evil the food industry would have you believe. Even worse though is they tell you that Polyunsaturated Fat Acids (PUFAs) are the healthy alternative. They're not. Margarine as an alternative to butter? Bad idea. Low fat foods made with vegetable oils? Also bad. Cooking oils high in PUFAs? You get the idea.

Monounsaturated fats are ok too. That's why I go for olive oil when I can although it's not the best option for cooking with at very high heats. I also picked up some hazelnut oil earlier rather than walnut oil due to the higher MUFA content. Anyhow plenty of MUFAs above so we're ok.

The last bit of useful info I dug up was my RDAs. Now these are American RDAs and a lot of people would dispute if they are even right but let's use them as a starting point. Am I getting everything I need by eating what I do when I'm paleo?

I see some red...

So actually that's pretty damn good. With what I'm eating I'm probably doing better than most, although only just getting enough potassium. There is a bit of red on there though. Calcium is about 50-60% RDA. I'm getting some from the Brocolli but really I need to be eating a LOT of leafy greens (the dark kind like Spinach and Kale) each and every day or I need to be taking a supplement.

This Calcium deficiency is actually one of the reasons that, outside of the 30 Day Challenge, I'm not paleo. I think dairy in moderation is not only ok but a good thing although I'll cover this more at the end of the challenge. For now I'm playing by the rules.

The big one is the Vitamin D. My recommended RDA of Vit D according to the US is 600IU. Now I think I should be getting some from my eggs but it wouldn't be enough on it's own. I'd really need to be eating oily fish most days to be getting enough and that's unlikely to happen. I do eat some each week but not enough. So my options are to supplement or to get some sun. Direct sunlight exposure generates Vitamin D an order of magnitude higher than it would be possible to get in my diet. No sunscreen either.

I try to get some sun a couple of times a week and I've now discovered I can sun bathe for half an hour in my lounge when I get home from work as the sun angles in through the windows. Perfect! I make sure they're open though because glass blocks the UVB needed. In the winter the sun isn't strong enough so I think I'll use the sun in the summer and supplements in the winter.

A few other random bits.

I made paleo brownies today and then proceeded to eat 3 of them :)

The 'porc provence', which was a pork chump chop marinaded in garlic and spices, I ate for lunch was one of the nicest pieces of meat I have ever eaten. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest with that statement. It was incredible! I'm beginning to think Old Spot Farm Shop is worth the trip (and extra expense) to stock up the freezer!