Make Love, Not More Food Pyramids

The basics: breakfast was 2 eggs, lunch was Lentil/Rice Pilaf, snack was Fage 2% yogurt. Dinner was some Upper Crust BBQ Chicken Pizza with 1/2 the cheese they normally use and portobella mushrooms. I tried to track that on Sparkpeople but the closest I could find was Pizza Hut Thin n' Crispy pizza, which was probably an overestimation, but it's not really important. Still within my calories for the day. Tomorrow is dinner at my dad's, so I'll be having a lot of vegetables then.

I walked for 35 minutes this morning, and did some push-ups.  

Harvard University has come out with a new food pyramid. Exercise is now on the bottom, "good" fats are in the middle, protein is higher. It also doesn't specify serving sizes, but is rather meant to serve as a guideline. I think this is helpful because the "servings" listed always seemed so skewed. It used to be 6 to 11 servings of grains. Now, the normal person thinking of a serving would probably think of a bagel, or a cup of pasta or a whole bun. But, a serving is actually half a bun, half a bagel (or even a 1/4 bagel) or 1/2 a cup of pasta. I wonder how many people heard "6-11 servings" and thought they were eating that much but were really eating 12-22 servings. i always thought it would be better to make the serving sizes more realistic and just have fewer of them. Same with veggies. 5 - 7 servings of veggies per days seems huge, until you realize that a serving is 1/2 a cup of veggies, 1 cup leafy greens, and can easily be met. I think when I make fajitas I eat all my vegetables at dinner.

If you don't like Harvard's pyramid, there is the Oldways Mediterranean Pyramid.  Oldways lists fruit as "olives, avocados, grapes" which strikes me as interesting, since most Americans (and Harvard's Pyramid) count olives and avocado as fats.   Oldways lists your activity options as "walking, house cleaning, running, soccer, tennis, golf, swimming, hiking, scuba diving, basketball, baseball, football, skiing, surfing, yard work, rollerblading, dancing, weight lifting, love-making." Gotta love those Mediterraneans (and you'll be earning activity points while you do!)