First Published: 17 January 2025
I just finished meeting with a nutritionist. In general, the advice was good, practical, and not particularly enlightening.1 That being said, I was advised to generally eat more often, which is absolutely a good idea. I’d like to plan to start eating lunch and dinner daily, along with two snacks of peanuts and maybe a fruit. The macro breakdown in draft one shows me that’s probably doable, and so now it’s time to make sure I get my recommended plants.
Red: lycopene containing. Examples they give2 are strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, tomatoes, cherries, apples3, and red peppers.
Orange and yellow: beta cryptothanxin4, which becomes Vitamin A. Yellow peppers, carrots, oranges, bananas, mango, pineapple, corn
Green: sulforaphane, isothiocyanates, and indoles5. Spinach, asparagus, alfalfa sprouts, collard greens, green tea.
Blue and purple: anthocyanins6. Blueberries, blackberries, concord grapes7, raisins, plum, fig, prune, lavender. This one might be a little harder, since the berries are generally available only in small quantities, and I don’t love any of the other options. I might need to start doing dry plums, though then I should look and see how many a day I might need.
White and brown: allicin8. Onion, garlic, leeks, parsnips, mushroom
Of course, frozen fruit is an equally viable option. The site claims I should shoot for about 4.5 cups a day of fruits and veggies9 The book I was using for macros does not provide specific guidance, so that seems like a reasonable enough goal. Writing my shopping list for next week, then:10
Rotisserie Chicken. Good source of protein, and I can just take chunks to work for my lunch.
Frozen meatballs11
Hard cheese for lunches12 Upon reflection, a soft or spreadable cheese could also be nice, because I will have bread with lunch
Frozen cherries or strawberries or fresh cherry13 tomato
Carrots
Spinach14
Dry plums?
Mushroom
Peanuts
Whole Wheat Flour
Vital Wheat gluten
Seeds for bread
Apples
My lunch each day will shoot for 30 grams of protein, and I’m hoping for it to include:
Chicken, about 100 grams15
Some hard cheese, probably 50 grams16
Some form of mushroom, ideally at least? Maybe make a little pate?
Spinach, one handful
One apple
Mug green tea
Carrot
The snack container, having just been measured, is about 3.5 oz, so my snack(s) will be:
3.5 oz peanut20
Piece of fruit? I think that I still may need to get in a red, in which case maybe strawberries.
Here we go!
Daily Notes:
Practiced guitar? Not yet today, generally decently though.
Twice daily stretching? It was going well until Tuesday
Poetry? Kind of completely stopped.
Blog? Lost track of time last Friday, stayed out too late, lost Saturday to that21, lost Sunday to that, and here we are.
Net cleaner home? I think so! I’m optimistic about going forward.
I only drew once, on Sunday, but I did manage to write and send out a letter22.
I just finished meeting with a nutritionist!24 In general, there was nothing particularly life altering about the advice she gave. I feel mixed about that, as I tend to when no easy solutions present themselves.
On the one hand, it’s nice to know that I wasn’t just failing to do the proper research or draw the correct conclusions. On the other, it’s kind of frustrating to go into a situation with a problem and leave the situation with the same problem.
That being said, though, there were three pieces of advice that she gave which I think may become helpful for me in the coming weeks.25
Make sure to be eating every 4 hours.26 I keep seeing different times for how often one should be eating, and while I know I’ve seen some data suggesting other timelines, 4 hours is a reasonable enough goal to keep.27
Break the protein up throughout the day, and in particular, make sure to eat snacks.28
Set timers to stop working and, even if I don’t eat anything, check in with myself to see if I do want to eat anything.
Other pieces of advice that I found useful, though less so:
Make sure to count the protein in everything I eat. I tend to do this, but I do sometimes think I might forget to when I’m ball parking the total consumption.
Don’t be afraid of premade meals. In particular, rotisserie chickens and frozen meatballs are my friend.
More fruits and veggies is never a bad thing.
Let’s see what peanuts29 are like in terms of their protein efficiency. Looks like it’s around 17030 calories per ounce, and about 7 grams of protein in that same space. Converting to grams, that means I’d need about 364 grams of peanuts a day, or about 13 oz.31 That’s really not bad!
So, assuming that I eat two meals32, if I’m awake for 16 hours a day, I should be eating at least two snacks. I’m going to start shooting for 3-5 ounces33 of peanuts at each of these snacks. That means I’ll be getting between 21 and 35 grams per snack, for a total of 42 to 70 grams per day. Oh, yeah ok if I can eat 10 ounces of peanuts a day, I should have no trouble finding the other 20 grams from somewhere. Looking at the price per gram of protein, it’s about 2 cents an ounce.34
Since I will generally be in my office from 8:30 to 535, I can do two snacks and a lunch36, which is great. Assuming that I can manage 25 grams of protein in the lunch37, I only need that much again for dinner! That’s so much easier, and if I make my lunch:
Wildly, apples are not red fruits in the sense of containing lycopene.
not in a bad way, just in a “oh good I’m not horribly off base with my estimations”↩
that I enjoy enough to consider having as part of a daily lunch or snack↩
though other sources disagree with that↩
which is not beta carotene, containing a hydroxyl group on one end.↩
cancer stoppers I guess.↩
make me life forever↩
I wonder why those in particular↩
onions, mmmm, keeps me from tumors↩
nine servings, I imagine, though Harvard seems to disagree Green, vitamin C, and beta carotene seem to be the important things for that. Ah, one cup of each is considered a serving, other than fruit juice and dried fruit, which are both halved.↩
this is more a journal entry than blog post, but↩
maybe↩
because I’m going for a snack board kind of vibe↩
I forget the specific term↩
I do also own green tea, which I should remember to consume during lunch↩
about 20 grams of protein↩
10 grams protein↩
probably prune↩
stuffed? I never know what it means when people say a loaf is studded↩
dietary info to come, might mean I need less of the chicken or cheese?↩
about 24.5g, 600 calories (wow that’s a lot of calories↩
and staying out too late↩
also on Sunday↩
did absolutely write 2024 at first, did have to correct myself↩
there are a number of unseen benefits to continuing education. This was absolutely one of them↩
no, “don’t worry too much” was not one of them↩
When awake, though I didn’t ask about what happens when I wake up in the middle of the night↩
I should also be eating breakfast, but that’s its own issue↩
nuts and seeds were examples of high protein snacks↩
the cheapest nut, by far↩
plus minus ten↩
I did not convert back, but I did redo the math without the conversion because I still consume my food in ounces, in general. Or, at least, I feel like I can estimate an ounce better than 30 grams, even though they’re the same amount↩
because shooting for two a day is a good starting goal↩
which is .75 to 1.25 cups, which might be FAR too much, but who knows↩
which I only now realize I calculated in the second posting↩
I feel like these hours are generally decent, and somewhat reflective of reality↩
starting next week, since I’ll be able to do my pseudo meal prep↩
I’m thinking part of rotissiere chicken, fruit, and probably bread (it took me far too long to remember that bread exists), which is a fun thing that is full of tactile sensation and also requires effectively no prep. Since I do also want to hit the other two kinds of vegetable (I don’t care about starchy, and peanuts are legumes)↩