Plugging along

Each time I get us back on track with our eating, I use the Sparkpeople website. Over the years I have added many of my own recipes, so it's pretty easy to keep track of all the foods we regularly eat.  If you type in all ingredients of any recipe you use, even your own creations, and add how many servings that recipe makes, the website will figure calories per serving for you and you can add that food at any time with one click.  When you put the recipe on the site, it takes a little time to do it, but it's there forever.  Abandon Sparkpeople for two years, return and sign in, and all your recipes are there.  

Perhaps abandoning the site is the reason we never seem to make it more that two years!  

Along with calories, you can also track most any nutrient you want; add a nutrient you would like to keep track of and it will be on the daily tally forever unless you remove it.  

What I've noticed is that it's very difficult to get the recommended amount of protein, and I eat some meat most days.  Fiber is another one that's difficult to maintain at the proper level... also magnesium and potassium.  

  

This shows my nutrient goal on the left, followed by my intake for the last seven days.  Notice how seldom I actually meet the minimum daily suggested requirement for protein.  The calcium levels are pretty good due to the fact that I take a calcium pill daily; also a magnesium pill, although I had forgotten to add that to my daily grouping of pills (which can be added each day with one click) until today.  I take a fish oil tablet, a multi-vitamin, a calcium pill, and a magnesium pill, and all of them are figured in my nutrient total.

In light of the fact I have meat almost daily, it amazes me that my protein comes up lacking.  That makes me wonder how on earth vegetarians get their quota.  

It doesn't worry me, because my parents didn't have a lot of meat in their diets and my mother lived into her nineties.  Daddy might have lived that long too, had it not been for lung cancer.  He had a very strong heart.  

Here's what I ate yesterday.  Have a blast laughing at my "dinner", but that's what I usually have for supper every night.  Cliff has a salad or Lean Cuisine dinner.  I do go to bed hungry at night, but I turn in early and eating that sort of supper works for me.  For the same calories I could have a Lean Cuisine dinner, but I like the nuts.  I can make them last a long time!  Oh, if you wonder what's up with all that cream?  That's how much I use all day in my coffee, it's just easier to add all of it at once.  Gotta have it!

This is probably of little interest to anyone but me, but it's what I have for today.