The Benefits Of Using “My Plate”

My name is Allison and I have a blog called Allison’s Delicious Life.

I’m a college student in love with all things related to food, health, and adventure. Through my blog I hope to show others (especially college students on a budget) that a healthy, nutritious life can also be a delicious one. I am so excited to be doing a guest post for Matt, as I completely agree with his food philosophy and outlook. Like Matt, I consider "healthy eating" to be a lifestyle rather than a "diet".  I like to focus on balancing meals with protein, fat, and carbs and ensuring that I’m getting the proper amount for my body.  I emphasize getting a healthy dose of protein, fat, and carbohydrates because I know that it’s what my body needs. 

I recently came across the Livestrong website, which has a free program called My Plate. I enjoy the features of My Plate that allow you to…

Visualize the protein, fat, and carbohydrates in your diet. 

After inputting your height, weight, and level of physical activity, My Plate will provide you with target goals for grams of fiber, protein, sodium, etc.  You can easily input what you eat that day to see whether you are lacking in a certain area or overdoing it in another. It will also calculate the percent protein, fat, and carbohydrates based on your daily intake.

Keep track of the amount of water you are drinking. 

This is huge for me!  I am always trying to drink enough water, but I never know whether I’m meeting my daily quota or not.  My Plate makes it easy to keep track by using their visually appealing water pitcher.

Write in a "diary" for that day.

My Plate provides an optional diary that you can write in each day as you track your food.  I suffer from a lot of digestive issues, which is one reason that eating healthily is so important to me.  For this reason, I love the ability to have a diary in the same place that I keep track of my food.  This way, if I start feeling funky for some reason, I can take note of my symptoms and try to see if my food intake has anything to do with it.

Keep track of fitness. 

Based on your height and weight, My Plate will estimate how many calories you burned during your fitness. I don’t have a heart rate monitor, so it is nice to be able to see an estimate of this.

Create your own meals and recipes to refer to on a normal basis.

Rather than inputting each specific ingredient everyday, My Plate allows you to create a customized meal or recipe that you can refer to whenever you eat it. I eat peanut butter oatmeal nearly every day for breakfast, so I created a “meal” out of it to save time when inputting food.

I used My Plate for about two weeks to see whether or not I was incorporating enough protein and fiber into my diet, as these are my two main goals. Once I noticed that I was lacking in both departments, I tweaked my eating to include a little more Greek yogurt for protein and a little more whole grain bread for fiber. It was that simple. I don’t use My Plate everyday, because sometimes I forget and sometimes I just don’t feel like it. Life, like eating, is all about balance! However, if you’re interested in seeing the trends in your diet or in meeting certain nutrient goals, I would definitely look recommend trying My Plate!

Tagged as: Guest Post, My Plate