meal plan project

meal plan project

BIOL 1322: Meal Plan Project
Due Date: 12/08/15 by 11:00 pm
Extra Credit Opportunity: To provide you an opportunity for an extra boost on this project grade, I am
proving several due date options for you to choose from. The project itself will be graded using the
rubric provided on the last page of these instructions, but you have the potential to start off with a few
extra points depending upon the date you choose to get your project submitted.
• Turn in project on or before 12/06/15: 4 bonus points (maximum project score will be 104)
• Turn in project on 12/07/15: 2 bonus points (maximum project score will be 102)
• Turn in project on 12/08/15: Project is on time (maximum project score will be 100)
• Turn in project on 12/09/15 20% penalty (maximum project score will be 80)
• Turn in project on 12/10/15 40% penalty (maximum project score will be 60)
• Projects WILL NOT BE ACCECPTED AFTER 12/10/15, therefore a ZERO will be assigned for
projects submitted 12/11/15 or later.
Submission Guidelines: The report should be submitted electronically as a single document to the Drop
Box titled Meal Plan Project, which will be located in the Lessons area of eCampus in the Food Logs
Folder. The file type should either be .doc, docx , or pdf.
Goal: Now that you have analyzed your diet to evaluate your nutritional strengths and weaknesses, it is
time to design a meal plan to try to correct the areas of your diet that need work and design a plan that
meets all dietary requirements.
How do I start? ……You need to:
1. Make sure your weight is updated in fitday (weight tab). You will need a screen capture of your
weight/BMI for your report .
2. Enter your information into MyPlate and determine the caloric plan you will be using when
designing your meal plan: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/myplate/index.aspx
Once you enter your data the web site will give you different results based upon the data that
you provide. If it perceives that you are at a healthy weight it will automatically generate a plan.
If it perceives that you either need to gain weight or lose weight it will give you the option to
maintain your weight or lose weight. If the data indicates that your weight current weight poses
a significant medical risk, it will only give you a weight loss option. KEEP IN MIND THAT THE
DATABASE IS ONLY USING YOUR BASIC INFORMATION TO MAKE ITS ASSESSMENT. You may in
fact be at a healthy weight (very muscular/little fat), but the database cannot take that into
account. Use your best judgment when choosing your plan if the web site gives you the option
to maintain or gain/lose weight. Sometimes weight lose/gain is warranted, but sometimes it is
not.
o Option 1: If you are at a healthy weight according to the database you will use the
plan it provides as your guide in helping you design your meal plan.
o Option 2: If the database preceives that a little weight loss will be beneficial for
you it will give you two options to choose from:
§ Maintain your weight: This option will allow you to design a meal plan to
maintain a healthy weight. In this case you will choose the plan “for your
current weight” and use it as your guide.
§ Lose weight over time: If you want to lose weight then you will click on the
“gradually move to a healtheier weight over time”.
o Option 3: If database perceives from the data that you have entered that your
current weight poses a significant health risk it will take you to a site that has errors
in the links. You will still be able to get a nutritional plan, but you will need a little
help to know how to find it. Figure 1 shows you the link to click on. By using that
link, you will be provided with a plan designed to promote gradual weight loss.
Figure 1: Image to help if you need to use Option 3
o Option 4: While most students want to maintain or lose weight, a few of you may actually
be trying to gain weight (usually intending to gain additional muscle mass). Unfortunately
MyPLate does not have any recommendations for this situtation. If you do want to gain
weight, you will need to use the MyPlate recommendation for maintaining your weight and
add 10% to the value recommended by MyPlate. For example if MyPlate recommends you
consume 2500 Kcal, you will create a meal plan that averages 2750 Kcal (2500 +250 = 2750).
Keep in mind that a positive energy balance may lead to an increase in both lean and fat
mass.
3. Make a Plan:
The plan provided to you by MyPlate will help you determine the average number of calories
and the average number of fruit and vegetable servings that you need to try to consume for the
one week meal plan that you design. The rest of the design process will rely on you applying
what you have learned about a healthy diet to make sure you meet the dietary requirements
outlined in the grading rubric. You will need to evaluate the way you are currently eating and
think about what does/doesn’t need to be changed. The meal plan you create will need to meet
rubric guidelines, but can be customized to fit your individual preferences.
Think about how you eat. Do you want to keep the same eating pattern or will you try to change
your eating pattern? For example, perhaps your current eating pattern is to eat a small
breakfast, small lunch, and a big dinner every evening. You can choose to use that same
approach when you design your meal plan or you can try a different approach, 5-6 small meals a
day, a big breakfast and smaller meals for lunch and dinner ect… There are many different meal
patterns that are recommended for one reason or another. In some cases there are valid
reasons for a certain pattern (like keeping your sugar regulated if you are a diabetic). You need
to try to choose a pattern that you think you could actually stick to. It will be helpful to start out
on paper and make a basic plan, before jumping into fitday.com to start entering meals/snacks.
I want you to design a meal plan that you think you could actually use. I obviously will have no
idea if you ever try it, but I hope that you do, so I want it to be comprised of foods that are
nutritious enough to meet the guidelines of a “healthy diet”, but also be realistic in terms of
what you like and would actually eat. For example I know liver is a great source of iron, but even
if I was severely anemic, it would never be in a meal plan that I create for myself, because I can’t
stand liver.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to have the same number of calories
everyday. If you want to be really good during the week, so that you can splurge on the
weekend calorie-wise, then go for it….There are a few basic guidelines however:
a. You must eat at least 1200 calories everyday (Not your average…everyday day must
be at least 1200 calories)
b. You must have at least 3 meals planned everyday
c. Snacks/dessert are also allowed at your discretion
d. Each day should be different in terms of the meals/foods that you choose (if I
wanted you to eat the same thing everyday, I’d have you create a 1 day meal plan,
not a 7 day meal plan)
e. NO Protein shakes or supplements
f. NO vitamin or mineral supplements
Once you have a rough draft of you diet on paper, transfer the foods into fitday.com. So that I
know where to look for your Meal Plan foodlogs, the date range that you need to use for your
Meal Plan in Fitday is October 1st, 2015 to October 07th, 2015. Use your calendar tab to get to
October 7th to begin entering your data. Once you have your diet for the week entered, run
“one week” reports to evaluate the adequacey of the diet.
Once you get you rough draft diet entered into Fitday, you will need to keep manipulating
your diet in terms of food choices, portion sizes, ect…until you can achieve a diet that falls
within the recommended levels for different nutrients/calories. You can add, delete, modify
portion sizes as needed until you have designed a diet that meets the following criteria:
• Calorie Intake
o Average caloric intake for the week should be +/- 50 calories of the caloric value for
the MyPlate Plan that you use. If you are choosing to grain weight, be sure to
include your calculation to demonstrate what your caloric intake should be (ses
section 2-Option 4 above).
• Fats/Cholesterol:
o Total fat intake between 20% to 35% of calories in your diet
o No more than 10% of dietary calories should come from saturated fat
o Cholesterol intake should average less than 300 mg per day
• Carbohydrates
o Carbohydrate intake should average 45% to 65% of calories
o Diet should include adequate fiber
§ Average at least 25 grams per day women
§ Average at least 38 grams per day men
• Proteins
o Protein intake should account for 10% to 35% of total calories
• Vitamins/Minerals
o Intake should be at least 100% of RDA for each vitamin/mineral except sodium.
o For sodium, you need to average less than 2300mg of sodium per day
o Remember… You may not use vit/min supplements in your meal plan. A fortified
food (like cereal with vit/min added is fine, but not pills etc…)
o Hint: For vitamin D there is a glitch in the Fitday database. Salmon and tuna are
good sources of vitamin D, but it does not show up in fitday. If you are trying to use
fish to improve your vitamin D intake, instead of is using salmon or tuna choose
herring or sardines, which have accurate vitamin D data (remember you may or may
not use the in real life, so don’t freak out at the thought of using these fish options).
• Fruits/Vegetables
o Meets minimum recommended servings of fruits and vegetables from MyPlate
(averaged over the week). You’ll find details regarding fruit/veg recommendations
on your MyPlate plan recommendations.
o You must create a table which provides the following information:
§ MyPlate recommendations for fruits and vegetables for your caloric intake
§ The amount you consume each day based upon your meal plan
§ The average intake for the week (you’ll have to calculate this yourself…see
example table at the end of this document).
o Your fruits and vegetable will need to be highlighted in your actual meal plan for
ease in identification (see below item 4d. for more info).
4. What do I turn in for a grade?
I will be looking at your fitday reports for October 1st -7 th in addition to looking at the meal plan that
you turn into the drop box in order to grade this assignment. The information in Fitday needs to
match the information in your meal plan in order to receive credit for you work.
Common question: Students often ask if for a particular day …do the food items have to be
listed in the same order in Fitday as they are in the written meal plan your turn in. The answer is
that the items and portion sizes need to be the same, for a specific day, but the order does not.
You are writing out your “meal plan” like you would expect to find it if you were looking a for a
diet from book or magazine…The foods will be categorized by meals/time of day ect…
Example: You might have created your meal plan, ran your reports, and then were looking for
changes that you need to make in your diet. One report indicates that you are not getting
enough Vitamin C. To correct it you decide you could add an orange as a “snack” between
breakfast and lunch on May1st. You enter the orange in Fitday and it automatically puts it at the
bottom of you foodlog. You add it to your written report as as a snack in between your breakfast
and lunch items. Even though the food are not in the same order, content is the same.
The following information needs to be included in your meal plan report that is turned into the
eCampus drop box:
a. Bio Cover Page: You need to include the following information:
i. Name
ii. Age
iii. Height
iv. Weight
v. Meal Plan Type (Weight Maintenance, Weight Loss, Weight Gain)
b. Reports/tables for the week (7 day average) of the meal plan (make sure you crop the
images to make them look professional):
i. Calories Eaten Pie Chart Screen Capture
ii. Total Nutrition Screen Capture
iii. Calories Eaten Versus Burned
iv. Fruit/Vegetable Table (you create this table yourself….it is not a fitday.com
report)
c. Screen captures showing your Fitday BMI and your MyPlate Recommendations (this is
described in items 1 & 2).
i. For the MyPlate recs, make sure that the calorie recommendation and the
fruit/veg recommendations are visible. An example is provided toward the end
of this document.
d. 7 day meal plan: This plan will list the foods that you will eat each day in organized
meals/snacks Portions sizes should be included. Each day should be different. If I wanted
you to eat the exact same things for seven straight days, I would have you make a 1 day
meal plan. Don’t just paste in a screen capture of your foodlogs for this. Once you have
manipulated you food logs to design the best diet that you can, you need to write out
the meal plan with intake broken up by day and meal ect…(see example below).
i. Within your meal plan each serving a fruit should be highlighted in yellow and
each serving of a vegetable should be highlighted in green.
e. Summary:
i. Describe the approach that you took to designing this meal plan and the
category/goal (section 3) you chose and why? Did you try to develop a plan that
is similar to your normal routine eating patterns or did you intentionally design
a plan to change your eating patterns ect …Why did you choose the approach
that you did ect….
ii. Based upon your known diet weaknesses (things you identified in your Diet
Analysis Project), discuss the challenges you faced in making your diet fit within
the guidelines.
iii. What were the hardest 3 variables to meet recommendations for (saturated fat
content, a certain vitamin, fiber ect….)? What specific food modifications did
you have to make to improve your plan, so that you met or came close to
meeting criteria?
iv. Do you think that you could actually stick to the diet that you have designed for
a week? If you were to fall off the meal plan, where would you have problems,
which types of foods ect…do you think you wouldn’t eat enough of …or which
do you think you would overconsume ect….
Examples of some of the visual images that will need to be created or captured
for your report.
Example Meal Plan
Day 1
Breakfast
1 small orange
1 cup rice chex
½ cup skim milk
1 banana
Snack
1 cheese stick
6 baby carrots
Etc…
Example Fruit/Veg Table:
Comparison of Recommendations to Intake for Meal Plan
Food Category Fruits (cups) Vegetables (cups)
Recommended Amount 2 3
Day 1 1 3
Day 2 2.5 4
Day 3 2 3
Day 4 2 4.5
Day 5 1.5 3.5
Day 6 2 2.5
Day 7 3 3
My Average for Week 2 3.4
Example MyPlate screen capture…MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT CROP OFF THE CALORIE
RECOMMENDATION
Example BMI page
Here is a screen shot of the rubric I will be using to grade your project:
MEAL PLAN RUBRIC (out of 100 poss) Section Number
Closeness to Calorie Goal (10 points ) Possible Deductions
+/- 50 calories 0
+/- 51-75 calories -2
+/- 76-100 calories -4
+/- 101-125 calories -6
+/- 126-150 calories -8
+/-151 or more -10
Lipids (12 Possible)
not 20-35% -4
not <= to 10% sat fat -4 not Cholesterol <300mg -4 Carbs (8 Possible) not 45-65% -4 inadequate fiber -4 Protein (4 possible) not within 10-35% -4 Vitamins/Minerals (25 points) for each less than rec -1 up to -20 Sodium over limit 2301-2400 -1 Sodium over limit 2401 to 2500 -2 Sodium over limit 2501 to 2600 -3 Sodium over limit 2601 to 2700 -4 Sodium 2701 or greater -5 Fruits Veg Table (6) Veg (rec, daily consumption, and avg listed) -3 Fruits Veg (rec, daily consumption, and avg listed) -3 Formating of Project fruits and veggies highlighted in plan -4 required screen captures/reports present (5 total) -10 7 day meal plan -14 Summary -5 bio page provides required info -2 TOTAL

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