Have a look. Let us know what you think.

Related posts:

1. Investing in Superstars, part 3
2. Robin Hood Foreclosure Fund, part II
3. Robin Hood Foreclosure Fund

I’m a 42-year-old woman, 5’1″, and 113 lbs.. I work out 3x/wk. (cardio and weight training) and walk an average of 4 miles/day. Like Rafe, I am a Nutritarian — my diet is made up primarily of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains. I eat no processed foods, no sugar other than what occurs naturally in fruit, no added salt, and fewer than 10% of my calories from animal products. I eat eggs 2x/wk, salmon 1x/week, red meat 1x/month, and dairy not at all. I use almost no processed oils (I prefer to water-saute or steam my vegetables) and eat ~80% of my food raw. Recent blood work assures me that I am the healthiest that I have ever been in my life, and my general sense of well-being confirms this. I have only two minor issues:

Firstly, though I am not the least bit worried about my weight, I am concerned with my fat distribution — too much of it is abdominal, which is the most unhealthy place to accumulate body fat. Secondly, after eating this way uneventfully for 18 months, I’ve recently started experiencing intense cravings, particularly for fruit. I consulted with Dr. Joel Fuhrman (author of Eat To Live) to see if he had any advice. His recommendation? Add more healthy fats to my diet (specifically, 1.5 oz. of nuts and seeds, in addition to the flax seeds and avocado that I already eat). To offset this, I need to eliminate ~400 calories from my daily intake. Since I’d been eating 8-9 servings of fruit per day, he suggested cutting back to 3-4. We’re going to reevaluate things in 3 months.

I bought a scale to weigh the nuts/seeds, and started using Fitday to track my calories. Because I tend toward the OCD end of the spectrum, I started weighing and tracking everything down to the ounce. [An interesting side note: if you buy a bag of Earthbound Farm Romaine Hearts expecting it to contain the 12 oz. of romaine that it advertises, think again. For the last 10 days, mine have contained anywhere from 14 oz. to 23 oz. of romaine, with the average bag having 20 oz.]

Fitday tracks not only calories, but also nutrient intake. At any time, you can pull up a graph showing how adequately you’re meeting your RDA of more than 20 vitamins and minerals. On my ~1700 calories a day regimen, I tend to go into dinner with ~600 calories to spare. I now find myself checking to see whether I’m short on any particular nutrient, then modify dinner/dessert accordingly. [Selenium is almost always lacking, as is zinc. I fix that with a brazil nut every other day (literally, one brazil nut has 150% of the daily RDA of selenium) and some pumpkin seeds. When calcium is short, I eat bok choi.] Even within the bounds of my nutritarian lifestyle, I am making some very deliberate food choices.

So what does a typical day look like for me?

Breakfast:
Steelcut oatmeal with fruit and nuts – or - a blended salad
[Kim's Blended Salad: 18 oz. romaine, 1.5 cups frozen spinach, 1/4 haas avocado (37g), 1 tbsp ground flax seed]
Apple or 2 kiwi

Lunch:
Huge, colorful salad (mixed greens, red chard, purple cabbage, yellow peppers, tomatoes, carrots, sunflower seeds)
Quinoa and nut loaf – or – steamed brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower
Banana or melon; 2 squares (11g) dark chocolate (80% or higher)

Dinner:
Vegetable bean soup (includes split peas, carrots, onions, zucchini, kale, cashews, celery, mushrooms)
Baked curried sweet potato with lightly toasted pumpkin seeds
Mixed berries

On blended salad days, that’s roughly 3 lbs. of raw vegetables, another 3/4 lb. of cooked vegetables, plus a variety of fruits, healthy fats, beans and whole grains.

This is my average daily nutritional intake since I started tracking:

1. One can be 95% vegan and still get enough protein
2. One can eat NO dairy and still get enough calcium
3. One cannot, however, get enough B12 from a mostly vegan diet
4. Vitamin D is extremely difficult to get from food sources.
5. If I take a multi, I should look for one without Vitamin A

Perhaps most strikingly, even with a diet so rich in nutrient-dense foods and a bit of ‘gaming’ my meals to meet my RDA, I am just scraping by on 2 of my nutritional needs, and am actually short on 2 others. [I am excluding B12 and D from the tally because I don't expect to be able to meet those needs nutritionally.] I have been taking a B12 supplement ever since I made the shift to a largely vegan diet, and I take a D supplement in the fall and winter when sunlight is inadequate. I believe that these two supplements are unavoidable unless I change latitudes and eat more animal protein.

But what about a multivitamin? Should I be taking one? Should you?

I certainly should. This food tracking exercise is almost over — I now have a pretty good feel for what 1.5 oz. of nuts looks like, so the scale can go away. I also find that by eating when I’m hungry and stopping when I’m satisfied, I naturally gravitate towards my appropriate caloric range. And while I may have been hitting my RDA numbers for the last 10 days, I fear that when I no longer have the Fitday graphs keeping me vigilant, I will likely come up short on some nutrients on a regular basis.

Should you take a multivitamin? That depends. For one thing, you’re probably bigger than I am, and are likely to be consuming closer to 2000-2500 calories per day. Those extra calories can go a long way toward meeting ones RDA of everything. The real question is: How healthy is your diet? Are you eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, good fats, beans and whole grains? If not, your first priority should be to add more of these foods to your diet. [And while you're at Whole Foods scoring some kale? Pick up a multivitamin, too.] If you’re a fellow nutritarian eating anything close to a vegan diet, you may be able to skip the multi, but you definitely need B12.

One way to be certain of your needs is to track your food for a week. It’s an informative experience. (And you don’t need to be so exacting about it. Fitday and other websites like it offer many options for telling it what you ate and how much — no scale is necessary. If you need to track food on the go, there are iPhone apps for this as well.) If you’re game, it would be interesting to know how you’d rate your diet before you start tracking, then see how well your estimate matches reality. You might just end up as surprised as I was.

Related posts:

1. I’m a Nutritarian
2. Decrease Red Meat Consumption
3. The Problem With Processed Foods