Too Busy to Track? Improve Your Nutrition by Monitoring These 3 Essential Nutrients

A minimalist approach of monitoring only fiber, added sugar, and protein can reduce the strain of micromanaging every nutrient when trying to improve your eating as a busy college student

By Brandon Hyatt, MS, CSCS
Master Personal Trainer

With Elizabeth von Klan, MS, RDN
Registered Dietitian

For many health and fitness goals, eating healthier plays a critical role. Often, college students turn to tracking calories, macros, and more on fitness and nutrition apps to help them stick to a plan, have accountability, and identify trends in their diet. These benefits can certainly be valuable, but research shows that for some people, especially female college students, this all-out tracking of everything can lead to mental health issues (1, 2, 3, 4).

Tracking everything can be a lot of work. Instead of scanning every barcode, measuring, and trying to estimate the best-fit ingredient when home cooking, try monitoring just a few nutrients. For most people, monitoring just fiber, protein, and added sugar can be enough to make significant changes. If tracking all three still sounds like a lot, start by focusing on the one that’s most important to your goals.

Meeting the recommended fiber intake can help you incorporate more vegetables, fruits, or whole grains into your diet. If you’re struggling to get enough protein or stay full, tracking your protein intake can help. Lastly, if you want less sugar, monitoring added sugar can help you distinguish naturally occurring sugars from added sugars.

Fiber

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), a government resource on nutrition recommendations, 90% of women and 97% of men do not meet the recommended daily fiber intake. Fiber plays an essential role in our body, including:

• Improves digestive health
• Supports heart health
• Helps manage blood sugar
• Aids in weight management
• Supports healthy gut bacteria

The table below (from the DGA) shows the recommended daily fiber intake. Remember that these recommendations do not cover medical conditions or specific populations, so consult with your healthcare provider for further guidance.

• 14 g/1000 calories per day

OR

• Age 19 to 30: Women 28g — Men 34g
• Age 31 to 50: Women 25g — Men 31g
• Age 51-plus: Women 22g — Men 28g

Easy swaps and foods for more fiber

• Replace some high-fat and highly processed meats (sausage, bacon, spam) with beans, peas, and lentils, which are all legumes
• Replace some refined grains (white pasta, white bread, white rice) with whole grains, such as whole-grain pasta, bread, and brown rice
• Have less fruit juice and more whole fruits
• Use bean-based pastas such as chick-pea pasta
• Have a fancy oatmeal with your favorite nuts, seeds, and fruit instead of cereal
• Add grains (quinoa or bulgar) or legumes (lentils or chickpeas) to your salad

Add more fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains to your diet to increase your fiber intake. Try to get these in their entire form. For example, instead of a juiced fruit or veggie, have the actual fruit or veggie in whole form. If you aren’t used to having a lot of fiber in your diet, slowly introduce more. Otherwise, your digestive system may not be used to it, and you could get diarrhea.

Protein

Protein intake is one of the food categories in which most adults reach the “recommended” amount. Depending on age, women are more likely than men to eat less protein or slightly undershoot the recommended minimum. According to the DGA, most people overconsume their protein from red meat and underconsume seafood and plant-based proteins.

The Recommended Daily Amount (RDA) of protein is 0.8 g/kg/day. Remember that this is the minimum amount and does not account for activity level. This recommendation has not changed in over 40 years, and research shows that higher protein intakes may be more beneficial (7, 8). Even the MyPlate.gov tool provides estimates closer to 1.29 g/kg/day when running a scenario for a 30-year-old active male (Weiler, 2023). The DGA recommends consuming 10% to 35% of calories from protein for adults.

Dietary protein intake according to activity level:

• Sedentary: 0.8
• Low-intensity activity: 1.0
• Moderate-intensity activity: 1.3
• High-intensity activity: 1.6
• Heavy strength training: 1.4 to 2.0

Easy swaps and foods for good protein sources

• Lean meats, poultry, and eggs; seafood; beans, peas, and lentils; and nuts, seeds, and soy products
• Replace some high-fat and highly processed meats (sausage, bacon, spam) with white or lean meats
• Introduce beans or legumes into salads, soups, burritos, bowls, etc
• Add a scoop of protein powder to smoothies or oatmeal

Added Sugar

Added sugar is an easy category to overshoot because sugar is added to many foods to aid in preservation, improve food’s viscosity, texture, body, and color, or improve the palatability of some nutrient-dense foods (DGA). The DGA has two compelling and easy-to-remember guidelines that can lead to a healthier diet. 

1. Limits added sugars to less than 10 percent of calories per day. Each gram of sugar has four calories, so a 2,000-calorie/day diet should have less than 50 grams of sugar.
2. Avoid foods and drinks with 10 percent or more of their calories coming from sugar. A 400-calorie food item with more than 10 grams of sugar would fit this scenario.

American adults consume sugar-sweetened beverages, desserts/sweet snacks/breakfast cereals, and coffee and tea are the top sources of added sugars. These three sources are great places to start if you’re struggling with where to begin monitoring your added sugar intake. If you identify high amounts of added sugar in any of these sources, you could find some healthy swaps with less sugar or work with a registered dietician for more in-depth strategies.

Brandon is one of REC's professionally certified personal trainers and can work with you to develop a safe and effective individualized workout plan to help you achieve your goals. Learn more about personal training and sign up for your first session today.

Elizabeth is a registered dietitian who offers 1-on-1 nutrition counseling. Take control of your nutrition today by signing up for a session with Elizabeth.

References

1. Cheri A. Levinson, Laura Fewell, Leigh C. Brosof, My Fitness Pal calorie tracker usage in the eating disorders, Eating Behaviors, Volume 27, 2017, Pages 14-16, ISSN 1471-0153, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2017.08.003.

2. Eikey EV. Effects of diet and fitness apps on eating disorder behaviours: qualitative study. BJPsych Open. 2021 Sep 24;7(5):e176. doi: 10.1192/bjo.2021.1011. PMCID: PMC8485346.

3. König LM, Attig C, Franke T, Renner B. Barriers to and Facilitators for Using Nutrition Apps: Systematic Review and Conceptual Framework. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2021 Apr 1;9(6):e20037. doi: 10.2196/20037. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34254938; PMCID: PMC8409150.

4. Messer M, McClure Z, Norton B, Smart M, Linardon J. Using an app to count calories: Motives, perceptions, and connections to thinness- and muscularity-oriented disordered eating. Eat Behav. 2021 Dec;43:101568. doi: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2021.101568. Epub 2021 Sep 15. PMID: 34543856.

5. National Research Council (US) Subcommittee on the Tenth Edition of the Recommended Dietary Allowances. Recommended Dietary Allowances: 10th Edition. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1989. 6, Protein and Amino Acids. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234922/

6. U.S. Department of Agriculture & U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2020). Dietary guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025 (9th ed.). https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/Dietary_Guidelines_for_Americans-2020-2025.pdf

7. Weiler M, Hertzler SR, Dvoretskiy S. Is It Time to Reconsider the U.S. Recommendations for Dietary Protein and Amino Acid Intake? Nutrients. 2023 Feb 6;15(4):838. doi: 10.3390/nu15040838. PMID: 36839196; PMCID: PMC9963165.

8. Wu G. Dietary protein intake and human health. Food Funct. 2016 Mar;7(3):1251-65. doi: 10.1039/c5fo01530h. PMID: 26797090.