Marisa Schoepflin
Basic Nutrition
Dr. DiRosa
Project 1: Diet Analysis
The Diet Analysis was easy to enter and allowed me organize everything I ate over the seven day period. I learned different nutrients found in common foods that I ate.
I think the best thing about my diet is that every dinner meal consists of four of the five food groups. The reason for this is because my mom grew up in an unhealthy household, so she wanted to make sure her family ate the correct foods. Unfortunately she does not cook every night, which is how some of the saturated fats, monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats came in to play. My mom also buys the food that I eat which causes me to eat them daily until they are gone so I do not waste them. By doing this foods are repeated often in my diet. Something else that was a good part of my diet was my protein intake. Although it could be higher, it was very close to the recommendation of 46 gm. I consume protein daily by eating things such as peanut butter and chicken. The worst parts of my diet are my vitamin A, C, E and calcium intake. After analyzing the data I notice that they were all far lower than the recommendations. I do not have much calcium in my diet because I do not like dairy, so I have to get it from other things like juice.
Carbohydrates are a nutrient that I never have a problem eating. It is something that I eat more than any other nutrient and I would choose it over others. Two nutrients that are below recommendations are calcium and potassium. Overall I do not think I am well nourished. My intake is not equally balanced between the five pyramid categories

and there are many nutrients that I should increase. Although I drank water with many meals, my water consumption could also increase. Usually when I am thirsty I choose something sweet, but theoretically it only makes you thirstier, so water would be a healthier choice. In my diet I tried to improve my fiber intake by eating things like corn and certain fruits. I was interested to see that my fiber intake could increase a little bit.
After looking at my diet to the MyPyramid recommendations, I noticed that of the five food groups none of them were close to the recommendations except my fruit and vegetable intake. Although they were close I could still increase the amount I consume of the two groups. Something that I was not surprised to see was how low my milk intake was. Growing up I never really liked any dairy products because of the texture except ice cream and a splash of milk in my cereal, so I had to find other ways to incorporate calcium in my diet. Besides my milk intake being very low, my meat and bean consumption was also depleted. I found this interesting because most nights for dinner I had some kind of meat or legume. Something that I did not find shocking was how high my grain intake was. For every meal I had something that included a grain, which could be the reason for such the increase. Another thing I noticed was that for all but one of the days I was under a typical 2000-calorie diet by an average of 400 calories.
Because I am an athlete, eating fewer nutrients can have a negative effect on my body.
Due to being epileptic, I am unable to consume alcohol. This allows me not to waste calories on useless things like beer. I thought that choosing spring break would be the best week to track my diet because I would have the most time to eat an adequate meal. I noticed that mood and whom you are eating with have a big effect on the food you consume. Most meals I ate in the past week were with my family, so the meal was

somewhat nutritious. I also went out to dinner with my boyfriend, who is a big eater, one of the nights and had something I would not usually eat. Because I was on break I was not stressed, but during school my level of stress causes me to eat anything that I find at large amounts. Rating each meal showed me that when I am hungry I eat more nutritious stuff them when I am bored and snacking.
This diet project allowed me to gain a better understanding on portion size and different nutrients found in foods that I commonly eat. I also learned that my mood and the people around me could have an effect on what I consume. After learning many things from the diet analysis, in the future I may try and change some of my eating habits.
Now that I know things that I need to improve on I will try to find foods that have those nutrients in them to advance my diet.