Saturday, July 23, 2011

Food: Considering Beachbody's P90x Nutrition Plan, 2

So, over the last hour I've been playing around a bit with a "What's in Your Food?" calculator supplied by the USDA. From the point of view of the concerned consumer of food, the basic idea is to better understand the number of calories in food and how many of those calories come from protein, carbohydrates and fat, and as a "fat shredder" for the next thirty days I want to decrease fat and carbohydrates while increasing protein.

First, I took a look at a typical P90x breakfast (p. 20), as recommended for a small person like myself:
1_Mushroom Omelet
1 cup_Fresh strawberries
8 oz_Cottage cheese, 1%
Using the USDA tool plus information listed for the omelet in its recipe, I calculate the nutrients as:

calories = 191+ 69 + 163 = 423
protein (g) = 32 + 1.45 + 28 = 61.45
carbs (g) = 7 + 16.59 + 6.15 = 30
fat (g) = 3 + .65 + 2.31 = 6
By contrast, just now I made some steel-cut oats and had two small bowls, one with maple syrup, and the next with a drizzle of olive oil and a hard-boiled egg from the fridge. Healthy, right? But consider, using the USDA tool (oatmeal + syrup + olive oil + egg):
calories = 143 + 104 + 119 + 68 = 334
protein (g) = 4.98 + 0 + 0 + 4.4 = 9.4
carbs (g) = 25 + 26.84 + 0 + 1.58 = 53
fat (g) = 2.46 + .08 + 13.5 + 4.92= 21
I've had fewer calories than the p90x omelet breakfast, but I've already take in almost double the carbs recommended, over three times the fat, and less than 1/6 of the protein recommended.  So I can see I have a lot of work to do if I want to follow the P90x advice to raise protein intake and lower fat and carbs. This will be quite a challenge!

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