Day Three: Lets Analyse

I decided that for today I wouldn't count the calories in my food, but the nutrients.  It's something I've always known about, after all, it's hard to ignore the nutrients guide on everything in the supermarket. I've always avoided salt.  Partly because my body reacts badly to it and it can cause huge health problems, but many because I can easily get addicted to salt in the form of McCoy's crisps and 50p ramen packets, so it's better if I completely avoid it.  For someone who struggles with the balance of every other nutrient in my life I get very annoyed when I see internet health 'experts' encouraging diets full of salt because they're low fat, gluten free, vegan diet is so tasteless they need salt to taste anything.  Even more annoying when they could just use spices for once!  Seriously ginger, cinnamon, paprika, turmeric, they're the best. 

So for today I recorded everything I ate and then looked up what nutrients they gave me.  The results were not incredibly surprising but something I did really need to see.

fat	37.9g
sat fat	8.8g
carbohydrates	132.5g
sugars	94g
fibre	13g
protein	36.7g
salt	1.85g

The sugar was really surprising.   Before I even looked at the recommended amount of sugar I could tell I still had far too much.

The recommended nutrients (collected from various government agencies) is below.

fat	36-62g
sat fat	20g
carbohydrates	100-150g
sugars	30g
fibre	30g
protein	46g
salt	3.75g

So I need less way less sugar, way more fibre, and more protein.  Lots of beans and meat I guess? Might have to reconsider my accidental vegetarian diet.  

Food Diary

I went for a morning swim and proceeded to lock myself out.  So as I wondered around town looking for my friend with my spare key I tried to find a reasonable corner shop breakfast.  I didn't do very well.  I had a cocoa trek bar, which did taste delicious but also had loads of sugar.  I also had a vitamin water which didn't do anything bad but nothing good either.

For lunch I had some sun-dried tomatoes with some homemade bread and margarine.  Apparently tomatoes have a lot of sugar? I suppose any dried fruit does but that's pretty annoying considering how great sun-dried tomatoes are.

I had teas throughout the day including some well fancy pukka teas and some classic breakfast tea as well.  It might be stupid but I record these because I think the milk adds up to some serious calories.  I also had a very milky coffee even though what I really wanted was a proper cappuccino.  I feel like I need to do something so I can treat myself to a drink like that.

For a snack I had some honey and yogurt, even more sugar, and a kiwi, even more sugar! I did get some protein though so it can't be too bad.  Also some olives throughout the day, cos I'm classy and it's the lowest salt salty snack you can find.

For dinner I had a homemade tomato soup.  I make this using my smoothie blender and while it tastes so good it always looks like brown gloop.  I packed in most of my vegetables for that day with three tomatoes, carrot, and some onion.

Like normal, I had some evening shortbread as well.  I was surprised but how little sugar the shortbread had comparatively.  It's just going to encourage me to eat some more perfect shortbread before I leave Scotland for London.  I don't think shortbread will feel the same down there.