Moore – Summer Observations HUMAN DIET

I have obviously always known that I love food. But it wasn’t until recently that I discovered how much happiness I actually get when eating certain foods. Not only this, but I have also recently become more aware of the types of food that I am eating. Is it healthy or organic? How healthy does a food actually have to be, to be considered healthy? What happens if I don’t eat healthy? All these new questions became apparent to me during my freshman year of college. Due to the lovely and oh so healthy choices – sarcasm intended – of our university cafeteria, I now weigh slightly more than I did when I began school. Not enough to notice but enough to where I can notice a difference in myself. This made me want to begin a new life in foods.

During high school, I could pretty much eat what I wanted, when I wanted it and I would maintain the same weight. However, during my first year of college I began to notice that lifestyle was beginning to catch up with me. I did not gain much weight, but I could clearly tell the food I was eating was not benefiting my body. So my plan for the summer was to watch what I ate and how often I ate. Luckily, I was working 8-hour days all summer so I did not have time to sit around and eat junk food like all the summers before. Due to my work schedule, I would eat breakfast within an hour of waking up, which is recommended to get your metabolism going – working out and weighing yourself is also best in the morning. During my work shifts, I would not have too much off time to eat lunch. I would usually pack a lunch and eat small portions of it throughout the 8-hour day. After that, I would go home to have dinner and then after dinner I would usually eat a light snack of either yogurt with granola or a bowl of cereal.

Side note: At work I had the odd opportunity to observe other people’s eating habits too. I would often have to go and pick up lunch for the office and I got to see first hand how certain eating styles affect you and your body. Let’s just say that packing your own lunch is a healthier and more cost efficient way to eat.

Here is a quick overview of a normal meal at my house:

(The above chart does not prove I ate very healthy. I did not say I was dieting. I just said I was being more conscious of my food decisions).

Rough estimates of when I ate breakfast/lunch/dinner:

I also noticed a difference in my eating patterns once I started working out too. Obviously, when you workout, your body needs nutrients more often. I would find I was getting hungrier faster than normal. I would not be consuming more food at one time but I would want smaller snacks more often throughout the day. I think working out combined with my actual work schedule of eating throughout the day, made me need smaller portions more often during a single day. There are many health professionals out there who say eating smaller meals up to 8 times a day helps your metabolism.

Even though I was not doing a perfect job of tracking my food and calorie intake every single day I noticed that my fitbit app would say I was burning a certain amount of calories based on my other data such as steps, floors and distance etc. Even when you are not being active you are still burning calories. Your body is using the food you give it to make energy therefore just are always burning calories. This is called your Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. Your BMR “is the amount of energy expended while at rest in a neutrally temperate environment, in the post-absorptive state.” According to the BMR calculator, my BMR is 1,541kcal per day. This almost matches the average calories I burned in the last month of summer according to me fitbit. According to my fitbit in the last month of summer my average calorie count burned was 1,676 cal a day. Something I really enjoyed documenting was my water intake per day. It became a challenge for me to drink as much water as I could every day. I have also heard that drinking water before meals can help rehydrate you but also keep you from overeating. According to a study done by the University of Birmingham UK, “[drinking] water 3o minutes before some or all [meals helped people lose] between 5 and 9 pounds over the course of about three months.”

Something else I used this summer to keep up with my eating habits was the App “YELP.” I usually document my food when I go out to eat at home in Texas. If you use the app enough it eventually becomes a place to keep all your photos and reviews of what you ate and what you thought about it. I plan to use this for future comparisons and analysis when looking at food in France versus the food in Texas and other US states I visited over the summer. Below are some photos of the food I ate while out and about. Usually, when eating out I like to splurge or indulge more so than I would at home. My motto is that if I am going to pay for food, it is going to be good and it is going to be something I do not or cannot make myself at home.

Dessert Waffle

Cupcakes (occasional treat)

Italian Cannolis (Florida)

Italian dish (Florida)

Tiramisu (Florida)

Breakfast crepes (Florida)

Breakfast (Florida)

French Toast (Austin)

Even though it is extremely important to watch what you’re eating and the health criteria of your food, food should be a happy thing. Food brings people together like few other things can. I want to look forward to eating. However, if I can do some research to figure out how and why my body is craving certain foods, maybe I can use this information to train myself not to eat every time I want to instead of when I need too. Due to this lovely fact that I eat what I am craving when I want, I hope to designate this blog to the following: I want to figure out the proximate and ultimate reasons for healthy and unhealthy eating. Also, I hope to find a pattern between Foodography and what we choose to eat. Presentation of food is probably the second most important thing after taste. Why would you eat something if it doesn’t look appetizing? Photography plays a major role in food and why we want to eat it. After that, I plan to analyze these two themes and compare how they apply to Angers, France and Texas. I want to personally be aware of why my body wants and needs certain foods to see if this will help me maintain a healthy body weight. And what better way to test that than to do it in France?

Example: Why do I LOVE chocolat glace SO MUCH!?

Barnes, Liza. Nichols, Nicole. ” Eat More Often, Lose More Weight.” Spark People. N.p., N.d. Web. 23 September 2015.

“Calculate Your Basal Metabolic Rate.” Bodybuilding. Bodybuilding, 22 September 2015. Web. 23 September 2015.

Dale, Heather. “The Healthiest Time of Day to Work Out, Indulge, and More.” Popsugar. Popsugar, 5 March 2012. Web. 23 September 2015.

Moore, Brianna. Yelp. N.p., N.d. 23 September 2015

Ramsey, Lydia. “There could be a super-simple way to lose weight that doesn’t involve diet or exercise.” Business Insider. Business Insider UK, 28 August 2015. Web. 23 September 2015.

Root, Wavery. The Food of France . New York : Vintage, 1958.