Are you getting what you need?

Whenever I start working with a new client, I gather the information I’ll need at www.mypyramid.gov to come up with a starting place in determining their calorie needs.  I encourage them to visit the same site and follow their curiosity around it, answering questions they might have about such things as portion size–what counts as an ounce of grains??–what fits into which food group–are beans a ‘meat’ or a ‘vegetable’?–and on…

In addition to breaking daily calorie needs down into how much is needed from each food group, your plan will show you how many cups per week of green and orange vegetables you need, and how many cups of beans and starchy vegetables a week you need.  I have to admit that it took me a while to consider these “extra” recommendations and incorporate them into my own life, but the more I learned about their role in supporting a healthy lifestyle and efficient metabolism, the more motivated I was to incorporate the routines and new habits that would set me up for success.

I’ll be the first to admit that some weeks, for example, I’ll focus on getting the ideal amount of dry beans in my diet so much so that I come up short on my orange veggie intake.  It is not easy to keep all of these nutrition balls in the air, so I have decided to look at it this way:  If each week I focus on not only getting what I need on a daily basis from each food group, and one of the weekly goals is accomplished, I’m doing pretty good.  And if those weekly goals keep rotating, I’m doing even better.