When I Return - New Blogging Experiment! Things Byron ate three weeks ago

About three weeks ago I received a Twitter DM from my friend Byron: "If I track what I eat for a week and blog about it, will you critique/lambaste/publicly analyze it on your blog?"

I was more than happy to oblige. One thing that's difficult about nutrition though is that there isn't a singular definition of a "healthy diet" and in my practice, I tailor the education/counselling I provide to accommodate for my clients' nutrition/health-related goals. However, I'm pretty sure Byron's not at a point in his life where he's actually looking to change his habits, so even though I'm pointing out all the areas where he could improve here, if I had a similar client, I would be focusing on getting them to a mindset where they are preparing themselves for change, and to get them to change one little thing at a time as opposed to overwhelming them with a bunch of advice/numbers.

I know simply saying, "Eat breakfast," "Don't drink so much" and "When was the last time you bought groceries? Do you even know how to cook?" is not going to really have the hard-hitting impact Byron was looking for, so I went into "mathemadietitian" mode and crunched some numbers. The fact that Byron eats virtually all his meals out made it a little easy, but I also had some help from the USDA National Nutrient Database (in Canada we have the Canadian Nutrient File), CalorieKing and MacGourmet. (Quick legend: No fill = Nutrition info from product/restaurant website. Green = USDA. Red = Other website. Yellow = No data.)

Byron gave me his height, weight, age and activity level, and using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, estimated his calorie needs to be 2000 per day (i.e. the "average"). Byron is also within the healthy BMI range so there would be no health advantages if he lost weight. The recommended fat and carb intakes are calculated as a percentage of the total calories, the protein intake is calculated as a minimum of 0.8 g/kg of his weight (or 0.4 g/lb... so much for hiding how much he weighs) and everything else is based on the DRIs. Obviously the Percent Daily Value (%DV) for Vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron should ideally add up to 100.

So now that I've suddenly made nutrition really confusing, when I return in two weeks after sweating it out in Thailand. I will post mini-blurbs about what all these numbers mean, what Byron is doing to produce these numbers and what Byron (or even you!) can do to develop some healthier habits.