Archive for year: 2015
Heart Healthy Diet
Today, only by luck, I consumed a low salt and low fat diet, which is not necessarily normal for me. I love the taste of salt, and prefer it over the flavor of sugar, so I do find myself searching out snacks and foods on the savory-salty side when given a choice. Today I consumed a scrambled egg/tofu/zucchini breakfast with a side of potatoes. In order to check my salt intake first, I used the www.heart.org website to evaluate my breakfast and used their sodium tracker form. The scramble had 105 mg of sodium. If I had used a salt substitute, it would have been 75mg. The potatoes I prepared had four shakes of the salt shaker=40 mg of salt. For lunch I had a salad with salad dressing. The label indicates another 30mg of sodium, plus www.fatsecret.com indicates 16mg of sodium from the salad itself.. For a snack I had 3 cookies at 150mg of sodium each.Since I plan to have the same salad for dinner, my total sodium for the day would be 1787mg of sodium, under the recommended maximum amount of 2,000mg/day. This is fortunate since I try hard to keep my sodium intake as low as possible. I also looked into my fat consumption. The recommended allowance is 78 grams of fat per day. I came in at 55 grams, even including my cookies! If I were to try and reduce these numbers, I would first try to educate myself in finding healthy alternative substitutes. In the past I have enjoyed using different spices and herbs, and for the fat substituting healthy fats (coconut, olive oil) for bad ones. If I were to make cookies, I could also substitute apple sauce for the fat. This option actually tastes good! I think these kinds of adjustments are ok as I like to experiment with ingredients, but if I were to eat out more often or if someone else cooked, I would probably be in trouble. To monitor one’s sodium and fat intake, it takes diligence and awareness to track amounts and to adjust accordingly. At least it looks like I am on the right track, however too bad I like smoked salmon so much. From hereon I will need to be more conscious of how much I consume of it, as it is full of sodium. Maybe preparing smoked salmon myself from fresh salmon and liquid smoke would be better, and eliminate the sodium.
Sodium Content Fat Content
Scramble w/coconut oil: 105mg 7g
Potatoes w/coconut oil: 40mg 14g
Salad Dressing (x2): 60mg 14g
Salad (x2): 32mg n/a
Smoked Salmon (in Salad x2): 1100mg 5 g
Cookies: 450mg 15 g
TOTAL: 1787mg 55g
Heart Healthy Diet–Could I Adhere to One?
Today, being a holiday, I started out my day with a late breakfast after sleeping in until 9:30am. I was in the mood for a pizza for my “brunch,” and had 4 slices of Trader Joe’s Four Cheese pizza at 380 mg of sodium and 1.5 grams of fat. I had water to drink with it.
I skipped lunch because this was quite filling and I was busy all day. For dinner I had a moderately-sized beef meatloaf from Trader Joes with 332mg of sodium and 4.6 grams of fat. I drank a Limonata San Pelligrino, which contained no fat and no sodium.
For dessert, I had 4 Milano Dark Chocolate cookies with 180 calories, 80 grams of those calories coming from fat, and sodium at 60 mg.
My total sodium consumption for the day: 772 mg
My total fat consumption for the day: 146 grams
I consulted WebMd, and If I were on a “heart healthy diet,” I would need to have less than 2,000 mg of sodium daily, ideally down to 1,500 mg if possible. I would also need to keep my fat consumption down to 78 grams of fat in a 2,000 calorie diet. Today was rather unusual in that I did not eat that much, and I have to admit, I do enjoy eating “junk food” from time to time. So it would be quite tough for me to keep my fat consumption down if put on a heart healthy diet if today was a “light” eating day for me, seeing as I am way over the recommend grams of fat. My sodium fortunately, was under control today but like I said, I know on other days of week, I would certainly be in violation of the 1,500-2,000mg restrictions if I were to have cardiac problems and need to go on a diet. I enjoy salty, fat-filled chips, cookies, and many nights, I look forward to an ice cream bar after dinner.
It is so easy to be judgmental of patients who are in violation of their diets and who do not adhere to exactly what you want them to do, but with tempting snacks galore, particularly in this society, it helps to take a step back and mentally walk a mile in the patient’s shoes.
Oh, the Places You’ll be Found (on the Internet)!
This week’s assignment was to Google your name in an incognito browser window and see what you find of yourself on the Internet. When I read this assignment, I felt that this would be a very boring search for me. My name is very generic, so going into this I didn’t expect to find anything about me.
My first search was just my name (and my nickname, which I tend to go by on social media). On that initial search, I came up with nothing pertaining to me; I even scanned multiple Google result pages, and nothing showed.
I then went and searched [“(my full name)” Camarillo], and finally a result showed! And these two results were things I didn’t even know were up. The 6th link down was a link to my old Goodreads account that I forgot I had. The 7th link down was a link to an ebook of a compilation book I participated in (and was published in) during middle school. I didn’t know that that book was available as an ebook so it was a surprise to see that there. Other than that, I only found news links that were about other people with my name.
After this first find, I was excited—and nervous—to see what else I would find. I went on to search both my full name and my nickname in quotes along with different social media platforms that I know I use and am active on currently. A series of searches ensued, and I couldn’t find my Facebook, YouTube, or my Tumblr. However, I did find my Instagram! It was the 6th link down on my search of [“my nick name” Instagram]. Normally, I wouldn’t be surprised to find my social media accounts on Google, because I’m very active on the Internet, but I didn’t expect to see my Instagram on a website that wasn’t Instagram! It was on some weird website that claimed to be the “Instagram Web Viewer.” Though, I guess it makes sense because Instagram is only for smartphone users, really.
Now that I’ve completed my online audit of myself, I’m not too surprised to not find anything of myself on the web. Although, after these searches, I think I do need to spend some time to make my name stand out among the hoards of people with my name. It’s important for my future employers, and even friends and family, to be able to find me easily if they need to get in contact with me! I’m considering making a LinkedIn profile for my professional side, and I’m looking into different ways I can make my name known.
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
Week 3 Update: Assignments due tomorrow!
Hello, folks!
Your websites are looking fabulous! All websites that were submitted to us are now actively linked on the Student Blogs page.
Reminder! The Week 3 assignments are due tomorrow, Tuesday, 4:15pm. As we discussed in class last week, all of your weekly assignments are now due on Tuesday (instead of Thursday).
Some of you have already written your Challenge 1: Digital Footprint Audit post and they’re great. We’re looking forward to digging deeper into this topic on Thursday. Don’t forget to bring your screenshots of any surprising findings to share with the class.
Also, if you are interested in getting text message updates about our class (only 1-2 per week), please follow the simple steps available here: http://univ349.brocansky.cikeys.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/invite.pdf
See you Thursday!
Michelle & Jill
My first Assignment
Here is the final version of my first assignment.
Digital Footprint
An audit of one’s digital footprint can be quite the eye-opening process. One can easily stand out in the digital realm or can be obscured underneath millions of others. I personally found that I can fall into either one of these categories. During an in depth search with just my first and last names, I found that those who share my name have much more of an online presence than I do because I couldn’t find myself in the first several pages of Google results. When my middle initial was included, however I jumped to the top of the results in a Google search. That discovery came as a relief because I decided a couple of years ago to include my middle initial as a part of my professional name. I decided to make sure that I continue to use my name with the initial and to increase my online presence.
One surprising finding was that pictures of me only appeared on Google Images when my full name was used and that the images that came up were only thumbnails of profile pictures from my social media accounts. I have been very strict on privacy settings when controlling my image on social media, so I was gratified to see that diligence has paid off. On the flip side, there should be more positive and carefully crafted pictures of me out there that can lend a face to my name and that is definitely something that I will be incorporating in the near future.
My social media results on Google painted a mixed picture. I realized that some things, such as URLs and biographical sections needed to be changed because they reflected a version of myself that I no longer want to be associated with. Specifically, I found that my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook handles reflected my high school self and would no longer be conducive to the image that I want for myself. I also found outdated information about myself on accounts that I no longer use. The danger of this is that these reflect little to none of the accomplishments that I am most proud of and put my future at risk. I sought to edit or remove these immediately and hope that they will soon be filtered out of searches so that I can have an online presence that I can be proud of.
That said, not everything that I found made me cringe in embarrassment. I did find that in association with my middle school, a top result that comes up is coverage of an event (shown below) during which I was recognized in my 8th grade year. I had long forgotten this event, and that just goes to show that nothing written about you ever truly goes away even if it has in your mind.
MGH, Professor in Training
LAXceptional Students article
Heart-Healthy Diet
I picked a day when I had my regular meals to evaluate my diet. I like to use Choosemyplate.org website because it provides many options of how to analyze the intake of nutrients and calories. Here is what I had on that day:
Next, I looked at the food groups to see if I had adequate amounts of grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, protein, and oils. This break down also allowed me to see how much sodium and fats were in my meals that day:
FoodGroupsMaryna (click – it’s a link)
This website allowed me to create a nutrient report to see a little bit more detailed report on all the nutrients. I could also see all the minerals and vitamins I consumed. This report provided the information about the status of intake of each category: sufficient, insufficient, or excessive amount.
NutrientsReportMaryna (click – it’s a link)
The most convenient feature of this website is that I can click on each nutrient and see which particular food item contributed to the excessive amount of my sodium, or other mineral/nutrient intake. For instance, when I clicked on sodium, I realized that my mashed potatoes and ham contributed the most to the excessive amount of salt during that day. They also give recommendations about how to reduce the sodium.
SodiumIntake (click – it’s a link)
Next time when I buy ham, I will look at the label and chose a low sodium kind. I will also bake my potatoes and add no salt.
I had too much saturated fat and was able to see that it was the cheese that caused the excessive amount. Next time I will chose reduced fat kind of cheese.
Saturated fat (click – it’s a link)
Choosemyplate.org is a very convenient website that I recommend to all the patients who are struggling with planning their meals. It can be very frustrating and confusing for people to plan their meals. This website is a great resource, which also gives you an option of tracking your activities and see how balanced is your intake and expenditure of the calories. I hope you find it useful, too! Thanks.
