Staying in recommended daily intake for nutrition? How important is it?
I generally eat below 2000 calories a day, I know the nutrition numbers for everything I eat and constantly calculate it to try and stay within the 100% range for things like sodium, fats, sat fats, and carbs and sugars.
However I drink some things like vitamin water and snapple greentea (mango/asian pear) which have a lot of vitamin C. I probably get around 200% of daily value of vitamin C per day. Is this dangerous, will I get kidney stones or something?
Also I am a busy person and some days I just have to rely on fast unhealthy food, so some days I may for example get 130% of daily sodium limit, how bad is this for me? I try to make up for it by only eating 70% of the limit the next day, but I don't know if that really makes up for it.
And for some misc. facts, I am a 18 year old male, exactly 6 feet tall, weight is around 170 pounds. I run 1 hour a day 4 days a week. I know I am young so I can handle bad nutrition for now, but I want to have a good body when I am old too.
Wow, well done on being so clued up on nutrition.
You must remember that these are only guideline amounts and you may need less (or more) than this amount.
In fact, as you do so much running you probably do need more.
If your weight is staying the same, you must be eating the calories your body requires.
Excess vitamin C from food is excreted in your urine so you don't need to worry about overdosing. Kidney stones have been linked to excess intakes (but these are higher than you eat and tend to be in people already predisposed to developing kidney stones).
In terms of the sodium intake, the recommended intake of 6g (of salt) per day is a maximum. You are right to cut back if you have more one day, but try to eat less of this generally. You know that fast and processed foods tend to contain more salt, so try to avoid these. I would suggest investing in a simple cook book providing healthy quick meals (you'd be surprised how quickly you can whip up a stir fry or an omelette!).
Also as you are exercising lots, make sure you drink plenty of water.
Above all, try not to get too hung up on these figures and enjoy your food.
I hope this is helpful.
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January 17 2009 04:54 pm | daily nutrition
January 17th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Wow, well done on being so clued up on nutrition.
You must remember that these are only guideline amounts and you may need less (or more) than this amount.
In fact, as you do so much running you probably do need more.
If your weight is staying the same, you must be eating the calories your body requires.
Excess vitamin C from food is excreted in your urine so you don't need to worry about overdosing. Kidney stones have been linked to excess intakes (but these are higher than you eat and tend to be in people already predisposed to developing kidney stones).
In terms of the sodium intake, the recommended intake of 6g (of salt) per day is a maximum. You are right to cut back if you have more one day, but try to eat less of this generally. You know that fast and processed foods tend to contain more salt, so try to avoid these. I would suggest investing in a simple cook book providing healthy quick meals (you'd be surprised how quickly you can whip up a stir fry or an omelette!).
Also as you are exercising lots, make sure you drink plenty of water.
Above all, try not to get too hung up on these figures and enjoy your food.
I hope this is helpful.
References :
I have a degree in Nutrition, am a registered public health nutritionist and run my own freelance nutrition company (Salmon Nutrition).