Cronometer results for March 2019

[Thomas G]

It has been a long time since I have consistently kept track of everything I have eaten for a full month (it looks like the last time was Sept. 2016).

At any rate attached are my results for March 2019. I welcome any feedback/critique.

A couple of things I notice:

1) In addition to logging everything in Cronometer I've also been trying my best to hit all of Dr. Greger's daily dozen. The daily dozen includes 390 g of cooked beans daily. Together with a modest amount of nuts and my other sources of protein ends up putting me a little high on protein intake. I would prefer to be doing some mild protein restriction, so maybe I will consider cutting back in the future. For now I'm not too worried about it because I've also been doing some more consistent exercise than I normally do.

2) I really had to fight to try to keep my Zinc, Calcium and Vitamin E up. It seemed like I was always a bit short on those three.

3) I'm a minimalist when it comes to supplements. The only supplements I take are Vitamin 3D (2000 IUs a day) and Vitamin b12 (2500 mcg once a week). In addition to this I take two pills that I have filled myself, one with powdered amla and one with ground turmeric (and a pinch of pepper). Each of these are in size 000 pills but that doesn't amount to much, roughly a gram each. But I take them just to make sure I'm getting a little extra in addition to what I'm mixing into my food throughout the day. I also will occasionally eat half a brazil nut which I sort of treat like a Selenium vitamin. All of these are included in Cronometer.

4) I don't measure out every single glass of water I drink. I put in 5 cups of tap water daily into Cronometer as a rough guess.

5) I don't measure every minute amount of spices I add to things. Sometimes I include spices in Cronometer (especially if they are part of a recipe) but I don't try to measure a dash of cloves I mix into my coffee in the morning or a light sprinkle of cinnamon added to oatmeal.

Other than the above exceptions I try to be ruthless meticulous in weighing and entering every last item.

Cronometer Report March 2019.pdf

[Clinton]

Hi Thomas,

I think it’s pretty typical to be low in zinc and need to supplement  (you want your zinc approx 10x that of your copper intake but not much past 40mg; less than 50mg should be ok).

The RDA for Calcium is difficult to meet eating vegan like Greger advocates; I include dairy in my diet to achieve this (or supplement).

Unless you eat more nuts it’s difficult to meet the RDA for vitamin E also.

On a personal note I am down to only a few supplements but still include the AOR multi basic 3 mvm to increase vitamin E, zinc and iodine along with some other trace minerals.  Each capsule also includes 333iu of vitamin D3, and some vitamin K2-mk4 and mk7; as well as enough vitamin A, Bs and C (very high quality forms of each) without mega-dosing.

Its worth considering,

Clinton

 

[TomBAvoider]

You have a lot of n6 compared to n3 - the n3 actually lower than your SFA. I assume what you call omega 3 is not long chain, but rather ALA? There's a school of thought holding that marine omega 3 is desirable. The other thing is that a lot of your mineral and vitamin requirements might be affected by your SNPs. For example, my MTFHR gene has a variant that's the lowest efficiency for folate, necessitating possibly increased need for choline, vit. B6, vit. B2, folate and B12. As happens, without taking any special measures, my homocysteine is low and I have not experienced any deleterious effects of low folate - but I get a lot of it from my diet, so who knows. In any case, as I've long maintained, there is limited conclusions to be had from general RDA intake, without reference to your very individual physiology. What might be adequate for one person might be overkill or insufficiency for another (particularly true of choline intake). That makes it hard to just look at reports like what you posted and draw very far going conclusions without knowing a great deal about your particular situation and physiology. YMMV.

[mccoy]

I Thomas, I found that eating almonds contributed significantly to vit E, whereas when eating vegan I used Ca-rich mineral waters to ensure an adequate content of this electrolyte. As written in other posts,  the Ca issue must be seen in the context of vit D3 and possibly K2 consumption.

I found unprocessed cacao powder a good contributor of zinc, which in your case is pretty good, RDA is already a safe reference.

Most people here, me included, take zinc supplements though.

As TomB implies, the best validation of your efforts you can have is from blood analyses.

[mikeccolella]

Make sure your all your foods are listing all nutrients. Many foods on cron o meter don’t have all nutrients -like brands. 

	Description	Amount	Unit	Calories
	Sam's Choice, Barley & Quinoa

 

Macronutrient Targets

Energy    160.0 kcal / 1509 kcal (11%) Protein    6.0 g / 85.0 g (7%) Net Carbs    25.0 g / 130.0 g (19%) Fat    1.5 g /

 

 

General Energy 160.0 kcal   11% Alcohol 0.0 g   No Target Caffeine 0.0 mg   No Target Water 0.0 g   0% Carbohydrates Carbs 31.0 g   24%     Fiber 6.0 g   20%     Starch 0.0 g   No Target     Sugars 1.0 g   No Target     Net Carbs 25.0 g   19% Lipids Fat 1.5 g   2%     Monounsaturated 0.0 g   No Target     Polyunsaturated 0.0 g   No Target         Omega-3 0.0 g   0%         Omega-6 0.0 g   0%     Saturated 0.0 g   n/a     Trans-Fats 0.0 g   n/a Cholesterol 0.0 mg   n/a Protein Protein 6.0 g   7%     Cystine 0.0 g   0%     Histidine 0.0 g   0%     Isoleucine 0.0 g   0%     Leucine 0.0 g   0%     Lysine 0.0 g   0%     Methionine 0.0 g   0%     Phenylalanine 0.0 g   0%     Threonine 0.0 g   0%     Tryptophan 0.0 g   0%     Tyrosine 0.0 g   0%     Valine 0.0 g   0%

Vitamins B1 (Thiamine) 0.0 mg   0% B2 (Riboflavin) 0.0 mg   0% B3 (Niacin) 0.0 mg   0% B5 (Pantothenic Acid) 0.0 mg   0% B6 (Pyridoxine) 0.0 mg   0% B12 (Cobalamin) 0.0 µg   0% Biotin 0.0 µg   0% Choline 0.0 mg   0% Folate 0.0 µg   0% Vitamin A 0.0 IU   0%     Alpha-carotene 0.0 µg   No Target     Beta-carotene 0.0 µg   No Target     Beta-cryptoxanthin 0.0 µg   No Target     Lutein+Zeaxanthin 0.0 µg   No Target     Retinol 0.0 µg   No Target     Retinol Activity Equivalent 0.0 µg   No Target Vitamin C 0.0 mg   0% Vitamin D 0.0 IU   0% Vitamin E 0.0 mg   0%     Beta Tocopherol 0.0 mg   No Target     Delta Tocopherol 0.0 mg   No Target     Gamma Tocopherol 0.0 mg   No Target Vitamin K 0.0 µg   0% Minerals Calcium 0.0 mg   0% Chromium 0.0 µg   0% Copper 0.0 mg   0% Fluoride 0.0 µg   0% Iodine 0.0 µg   0% Iron 0.0 mg   0% Magnesium 0.0 mg   0% Manganese 0.0 mg   0% Phosphorus 0.0 mg   0% Potassium 0.0 mg   0% Selenium 0.0 µg   0% Sodium 0.0 mg   0% Zinc 0.0 mg   0%

[Todd Allen]

12 minutes ago, mikeccolella said:

Many foods on cron o meter don’t have all nutrients

When I click on "Add Food" and then type something in the search box the list of matching choices appear to be sorted based on number of listed nutrients.  Left clicking a choice highlights it and at the bottom left displays macros and the number of listed nutrients.  I try to find items with 76+ listed nutrients even though that often means I'm picking things that are an imperfect match for my foods.

[Clinton]

I do the same thing Todd; I’d rather input a ‘generic’ food such as ‘rolled oats’ and have all 81 micronutrients accounted for than enter the actual brand name and end up with only for example 21 micronutrients accounted for.

[Thomas G]

14 hours ago, mikeccolella said:

Make sure your all your foods are listing all nutrients. Many foods on cron o meter don’t have all nutrients -like brands.

This is true, but I don't think it is an issue for me. I eat very little branded food. This is one advantage of eating a whole foods plant based diet. The big exceptions are plant based milks, and in the month of March, the dijon mustard that I got a little addicted to in adding to my daily salad. In fact even though I've been using Cronometer for three years now, I only recently started using the barcode reader feature when I couldn't find the particular brand of dijon mustard to enter. That is a handy feature! But since I almost never need to use it, I completely forgot it existed. The other big exception is that I also eat a mix frozen berries. Even though the berries are whole foods, I'm relying on the branded info in Cronometer for the nutrients.

Here is a typical day's worth of food for me:

 

[Sibiriak]

Only 6g of avocado!  That's some serious DR.

[Thomas G]

22 hours ago, Sibiriak said:

Only 6g of avocado!  That's some serious DR.

Lol, I remember that. My partner had used most, but not all, of an avocado for her sandwich. I couldn't just throw it away without scraping out the last 6 grams 🙂

[BarryR]

Thomas thanks for your post.  I have been using cronometer for a few years, weighing all of my foods.  I find this to be the only way to systematically reduce my calories in a consistent matter.  Only with the slow moderate controlled decrease in calories, can I train my body to get by with fewer calories, without starving myself in the process.  Here is my chart from today.

[Thomas G]

Thanks for sharing Barry. One of the reasons I like using Greger's Daily Dozen is just as a reminder to get a few different kinds of foods each day. Granted it is hard to tell from just one day, but it looks like you are eating a lot of bananas and dates without any legumes and not much fat (besides the olives). Is this a typical day for you? Is there a strategy you are following on this front?

One thing I've been doing in Conometer that I find useful is to use the groups feature (if you click the gear box, and then choose "Diary settings..." you can define the groups). That way I can have different ways to group my diary entries under things like breakfast/lunch/dinner without having to add notes to designate this.

[mccoy]

1 hour ago, BarryR said:

Thomas thanks for your post.  I have been using cronometer for a few years, weighing all of my foods.  I find this to be the only way to systematically reduce my calories in a consistent matter.  Only with the slow moderate controlled decrease in calories, can I train my body to get by with fewer calories, without starving myself in the process.  Here is my chart from today.

Heck, Barry, are you able to get along OK in the long run with so few proteins?  Your regimen looks very healthy but fats are low and protein might be below even the average requirement, to top it off they are all plant-based. 

[mikeccolella]

We need about 14 grams of omega 6 and about 500 or so milligrams of the omega 3 and that amounts to about 125 calories of fat. A few walnut halves and a teaspoon of safflower oil will do that.