92 Part II: Enjoying Total-Body Health: Eating Well and Staying Injury-Free
rather than as your main course. Sprinkle meat on your spaghetti or top your
salad with strips of grilled chicken rather than planning your entire meal
around a slab of steak. If you find that you’re not getting enough protein
because you fear the fat, focus on the plant sources, such as dried peas and
beans, lentils, soybeans, and black beans. Also, turn to dairy foods like fat-
free cottage cheese and fat-free plain yogurt. If you’re a vegetarian, even a
vegan, you have plenty of protein-rich choices.Analyze Your Eating Habits ..........................................................................
Do you have any idea whether you’re even in the ballpark for how much
saturated fat, protein, and other nutrients you need each day? Do you know
whether you’re consuming enough fiber or calcium or carbohydrates? One
of the best ways to enlighten yourself about your diet is to track it for a while.
Now, we’re not suggesting that you write down every morsel you eat on a
daily basis for the rest of your life. But we do recommend that you keep a food
and beverage diary for a few days every now and then to get a handle on
where your eating habits need improvement.The simplest, low-tech way is to buy books that list how many calories and
how much fat, saturated fat, protein, fiber, and other nutrients are contained
in pretty much every food or drink you can think of, from Brussels sprouts to
Japanese fish paste cake — whatever that is. (You can also find several online
sources, but their locations change frequently. Search on “calorie counter”
and see what pops up.)If you want to compare the number of calories you’re eating with the number
of calories your body burns each day, you can use the following formula. In
general, the number of calories you need to eat each day depends on how big
your body is and how active you are.We carry through the math for a man who’s 5'10" and weights 180 pounds
and is trying to maintain his current weight, not lose anything:- Change your weight to kilograms by dividing your weight in pounds
by 2.2.
For our sample man, we divide 180 by 2.2 and get 82.- If you’re a man, don’t do anything. If you’re a woman, multiply the
result of Step 1 by 0.9. - Multiply the result of Step 2 by 24.
This calculation estimates your resting metabolic rate, the number of
calories you’d need to consume if you did absolutely nothing but lie
motionless in bed 24 hours a day.
For our sample man, we multiply 82 by 24 and get 1,968.