Diet Tracking for Improved Nutrition
The Big Question: Why should we do it?
Quite some people shy away from tracking their food intake.
When someone never did it before, it may indeed appear like an unreasonable exaggeration. After all, you survived up to this point in time, why spending extra time on it? And isn’t it so that the body anyway will tell whether some food is good for you or not? You may take that as empiric evidence that you did well regarding your nutrition. Right?
Not quite. In fact, not even close. The human body is amazing in its adaptability, tolerating a wide variety of life styles, at least for some time. It won’t tell you for a long time that things are going utterly wrong in the inside.
Examples
To give just a relatively simple example: Do you know whether you are deficient in folate? A deficiency in folate has two main effects: the production of red blood cells is disturbed, and the level of homocysteine may be elevated. Both physiologic effects can be detected by lab tests… and by tracking food intake. The consequences? Fatigue, decreased delivery of oxygene to tissues, which increases the probability for cancer and accelerated aging, and a direct damage of the blood vessels, leading to CVD and stroke.
As we mentioned before, the body does not have a sensory for vitamin and mineral deficiencies resulting from nutritional habits. Slowly but surely things get out of order until some system in the body fails. Particularly prominent in this regard of “slow and hefty failure” is the collagen production, the functioning of cell membranes, and the energy producing system. Non-experts, including most of the doctors, do not have the knowledge to supervise those systems, or are following internet gossips, and without tracking food not even an expert can help.
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are widespread and most of them will not be easily identified. The effects of long lasting multiple deficiencies are subtle and brutal at the same time. Bottom-line, the body simply becomes brittle in parts or as a whole.
Whether it is about the master regulator Vitamin D (more than 90% of all people are deficient), about vitamin A, vitamin C, or magnesium (for each about half of all people), or about folate and vitamin B12: the risk for getting seriously sick in the long run or dying early are elevated multiple times.
The point is, we do not have an internal sensory that this or that vitamin is deficient. The body will try to cope with it, and you won’t die immediately. Nevertheless, serious damage can result, often in multiple organs and tissues.
Especially those people that are following an elimination diet, for whatever reasons, are endangered. Examples are vegans and carnivores, or those following a “diet.” Likewise, anyone crossing a particular stressful phase in their journey through life easily runs out of essential nutrients without taking explicit counter measures.
The metabolic machinery of your body is resilient, yes. Yet, its proper maintenance requires adequate fueling. Not just for avoiding long-term damage, but also for providing the possibility of peak performance, whether regarding the brain or the muscles. It is almost impossible to have the food intake complete, balanced and with variety, particularly regarding the micro-nutrients, without tracking, at least periodically for the purpose of adjusting habits.
Such, the question of "why" has a simple answer: Knowledge is power.
By tracking what you eat, you gain valuable insights into your dietary patterns. You can easily see whether there is a systematic deficiency, or oversupply, pushing the body away from its optimal functioning.
Diet tracking, even when performed periodically every other month for a week or two, empowers you to make informed choices, aligning your nutrition with your goals. Or likewise to supplement in a targeted way. Or, when crossing it with the results of a medical blood test, to make easy yet precise adjustments.
Diet tracking is a journey. Starting with measurement, proceeding to management, and arriving at mastery!
The Answer
Dependent on the state of your metabolism, some food is like medicine, while other food may act almost like pure poison. And for someone else it can be just flipped to the opposite. We provide coaching and support for some of the apps as well as the process.
Our recommendation is the app Cronometer.
The result : eat with conscious confidence
Imagine going from simply measuring what you eat to managing your intake with confidence, and ultimately, mastering your nutrition for a healthier, happier you.
Request a support session now!