Importance of Logging Nutrition

[Ravi]

I used to be meticulous in taking notes of my workouts and my nutrition/diet. Every day I'd write down in a notebook what I did for a workout, how I felt and what I ate during the day. For nutrition, I focused on the timing of the food, the items, the total calories and the protein quantity.

 

However for the past year or so I've taken a very laid back approach, which measn the notebook has been collecting dust while I continued trained but failed to make consistent gains.

 

So just last week, I decided to keep track of my diet again, just to see if my actual intake was somewhat reasonable given the strength/size goals that I have.

 

Turns out I was way off-base.

 

While I thought I was consuming about 120 grams of protein a day (I weight 150), I was really getting closer to 70 (yikes!)! I was also low on the calorie side (2200 cal/day) given I am super-active and looking to gain lean mass.

 

So I set a new goal to get my calories up to around 3000 cal/day (varied depending on activity, but this is a general goal) while keeping my protein intake at 120 grams/day minimum.

 

The past week has been eye-opening. My notebook never lies

 

Getting enough nutrition per day takes focus, prep and timing. That means no skipping breakfast, no eating late lunches (which prevents eating a pre-workout meal that I need to achieve my caloric totals) and no eating "junk" dinners of over-cooked carbs (if I do that I miss my protein quota for the day).

 

So the moral of this story is, no matter how much you hate keeping track of things, and no matter how well you think you "remember" what you are doing.....keeping a log (for a least a few weeks) is a great way to keep you honest about what you REALLY doing compared to what you THINK you are doing.

 

Namaste,

Ravi

[offense74]

Yeah, I use the cronometer to check my daily calories, vitamins, mineral and fat. Once I see where the big culprits lie (calorie wise) it's easier to cut them out since they're also (usually) are the ones with the least nutrients.

And like you said if I don't check I'm way off base!

[Fallen_Horse]

So the moral of this story is, no matter how much you hate keeping track of things, and no matter how well you think you "remember" what you are doing.....keeping a log (for a least a few weeks) is a great way to keep you honest about what you REALLY doing compared to what you THINK you are doing.

+1

 

You should at least be checking your diet for two or three days every few months to make sure you are still on track...