How to Calculate My Meals & Nutrition

Eating a healthy, nutrient-rich diet is an important part of losing weight and maintaining optimum health. While counting calories is a valuable tool for people interested in losing weight, calories are only a small part of overall nutrition comprehension. Keeping a food journal and using an online tracking tool to calculate the amount of vitamins, minerals, fats, sugar and salt in your diet will help you to have a more comprehensive understanding of your dietary needs; as well as how your eating habits meet them.

Instructions

• 1

  Keep a food journal. Write down everything you consume every day. Include how many glasses of water, any other beverages, any snacks and meals as well as portion sizes. If you cook for yourself, include the amount of oil or fat you use in your cooking. Be as detailed as possible with your records.

• 2

  Keep track of the amount of exercise you get. If you briskly walk to the bus stop, track how many minutes it took you each way. Include all of your physical activity and how long you did it for. Write this alongside your food journal each day.

• 3

  Create an account on the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, MyPyramid Tracker. This site was designed as a tool for tracking nutritional needs and determining whether or not your diet is satisfying those needs. It tracks exercise as well. The nutritional tracking is more comprehensive than many websites that offer seemingly similar services. Many sites track only caloric intake. Basic registration will require that you to create a user ID and password, asking for your age, gender, height and weight. Click the button labeled "Save Today's Changes."

• 4

  Click on "Proceed to Food Intake" and enter the food you consumed for that day. Type in only the type of food, not the amount, into the search box and press "search." MyPyramid Tracker will populate a list of foods that match words in your search. Click the most accurate match to add it to your personalized list of foods on the right-hand side of the screen. Return to the search box on the left-hand side and enter the name of the next item you ate until you have a complete list of foods without quantities on the right-hand side of your computer screen.

• 5

  Click "Select Quantity" located near your personalized list of foods on the right-hand side of the screen. This will take you to a new screen with information on how to appropriately select the amount you ate. To the right of each food you ate will be a drop-down menu offering options for how large a serving size of that food is. Select the correct serving size as given by the manufacturer. To the right of the serving-size menu is a box where you will type in the number of servings you ate that day. When you have completed the form, click "Save & Analyze."

• 6

  Click on "Nutrient Intakes" to be shown how much of each recommended nutrient you ate that day. The analysis also provides information about how much of each nutrient is recommended for you based on the information you provided about yourself when signing up.

• 7

  Look at the top of the page for "Physical Activity Entry" on the menu. Click on it. Use the standard option to enter all of your physical activity for that 24-hour period. When you have entered all of the activities for the day, click on "Select Duration" and enter the number of minutes spent doing each activity. Select "Save and Analyze" when you are done and then press "Analyze" to see your analysis options. These function to show you how much energy you burned versus how much energy you took in by the food you consumed.

• 8

  Enter your food-intake and physical-activity logs online every day. MyPyramid Tracker will analyze up to a year of information at a time to show you how healthily you eat, as a whole, in addition to the single-day analysis of your nutrition.