8/365 Dear Food Diary...

Friends and Fitness Enthusiasts,

In my Nutrition class, we were instructed to keep a food diary to analyze what we're eating. We used Livestrong's website to track it for free. It has a huge database of food and food products that you can put in your log. It may be difficult to start but, once you begin, it's hard to keep yourself from updating what you just ate. Also, it enables you to factor in your work outs and how many calories you burned doing that. Last thing, the site will set a calorie goal for you based on your weight, age, and fitness goals. How sweet!

I found it extremely beneficial and eye opening. You may be surprised to find out that you're not eating enough calories. By doing this, you are actually making yourself susceptible to gaining more weight than you would like.

Tips:
- Your caloric intake should be divided into 3 parts: 60% carbohydrates, 30% fats, and 10% proteins.
- Your fats should definitely come from healthy sources like almonds, fish, lean chicken, etc.
- For women, you should have 25g of fiber/day; men need 30g fiber/day.

Try it for 3 days and see how you do!

In health,

Lauren