New and Improved Food Diary - Marcella

As promised to our friend Tony from the cruise, here's my new and improved diet tracking sheet! Save it to your computer by selecting File (top left), then Download as, then Excel.

I've included a daily calorie needs calculation (Katch-McArdle formula) at the top right, based on your weight, body fat %, activity level and goals and you can either use that as your guide, use your own calorie target, or ignore calories entirely and focus on your percentage of total calories from protein, fat, and carbs as that's really what we're interested in. We certainly don't count calories or restrict them, the real concern is where the calories are coming from...a diet of 3,000 calories/day from Fruit Loops and potato chips and a diet of 3,000 calories/day from steamed vegetables and lentils are not created equal and that quickly becomes apparent when you look at the percentages. I've even added a % of carbs from fiber to give you an idea of how much whole versus refined grains you're eating. And sodium and sugar tracking by popular demand.

This is really an evolving project of mine - eventually I'd like to build it into a full-on free nutrition program in Excel more like a software program. In the meantime, if you have questions or need help getting this sheet to work, you can e-mail me at marcellam.torres@gmail.com