Track calories and analyze your diet

Aurora BayCare Medical Center -  

Your diet and your health
Diet plays an important role in your health. It can be one of the factors leading to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. A less than ideal diet can lead to diseases that stem from not getting enough of certain nutrients. For example, anemia can be caused by not getting enough iron, folate, B12, B6, or Vitamin E.

Some diseases can even come from getting too much of certain nutrients.
Very few people have a good idea as to whether or not their diet meets the recommended guidelines. It’s not easy for all of us to study our diets in that kind of detail.

A website to help you
To help people take a closer look at their diet and activity, the United States Dietary Association (USDA) has set up a web site that is free to use. It can help you track and study what you eat and how much energy you expend over the course of a year. This site can be found at http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov

Once you open your free account, you will be asked to enter your age, sex, height and weight.

This is to ensure that you are given information and advice that are right for you.

The website will help you to:

Track your food intake:
• You can enter your intake by searching for and choosing the foods you eat.
• You can save a list of the foods you eat often, to make the process easier and faster.
• You will need to watch serving sizes and enter how much as well as what you eat. Keeping measuring cups and a food scale at hand will be helpful.

Analyze your intake – see how it compares to:
• The USDA dietary guidelines
• Your recommended nutrient intakes (vitamins, minerals, etc.)
• The food pyramid
• The healthy eating index

Track how much energy you use up
• This is based on the data you enter for body size as well as the physical activity you report.

Analyze how much energy you use up
• This compares the calories you take in to those you use up, to predict if you are going to maintain, gain or lose weight.

All of this information can help you make changes to improve your health!