Nutrition app: Cronometer

The last few years my view on weight and body image has changed a lot. Where I used to focus on a quite random number on a scale and count how many calories I consumed, I am all about body positivity now. I am realizing more and more how important it is to love yourself and your body. So, it might seem weird that today I am sharing a nutrition app, since this usually means losing weight and counting calories. But no, this app is different. Today I want to tell you about Cronometer: an app for healthy nutrition.

Body Positivity
As I learning more and more about body positivity, I still find it hard to ignore the health-side of it. Of course it’s all about mental health, since loving yourself is very good for your mental health and hating your own body can lead to terrible things. It is not our fault in my opinion, these mental problems. Magazines are fake, models are fake, advertisements are fake, everything is fake, but yet we are to believe that it’s perfection and that everybody should be ‘perfect’. Fat shaming is a serious issue. Now that I am aware of all these things, I don’t compare myself to others (I know that can be a hard thing to learn) and realize that I am made to believe I am ugly and fat by the media every single day. I threw out my scale and so I don’t know what I weigh right now, but that is fine. Weight does not define my value. I do sometimes weigh myself on a more advanced scale, to see my fat percentage, muscles, water, bone weight etcetera. That makes more sense to me because the numbers actually tell you something, a normal scale does not. Realization is key to me and it’s a proces of learning. But I find it hard to ignore the physical health, nutrition wise. These days I just eat whenever I feel like it. That might mean I have breakfast at 1 pm or maybe I’ll have yoghurt for dinner, it is all about feeling now. What do I feel like eating? You might think that it would make you fat, since almost everybody loves fast food too, but the opposite is happening to me. I am feeling better and I feel like I have lost fat too. Having no limits, it was a bit scary at first. But as it turns out, it is a great thing. Sometimes I refuse things which I normally love, like a piece of vegan chocolate or a desert. I just ask myself, do I feel like it? I sometimes just crave a salad or fruit and veggies, and then I’ll have those. My experience is that you’ll feel better mentally, and the cravings for unhealthy food gets less. Anyway, as I was saying, I am a bit worried about the nutrition. So, that’s why I want to share this app with you today, since it fixes that problem.

Cronometer
The past apps I had always had focus on counting calories. They do sometimes measure the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat you eat, but it’s always very shallow. Cronometer is different. This app focuses on nutrition as I said. So, every vitamin, protein, carbohydrate, mineral and other basic needs are measured. So, as a result, you can see whether you meet your daily intake of all those things. I would recommend  using it when you’re vegan, but also when you’re not. Are you getting enough omega 3 everyday? Or vitamin K? Or Lysine? Everything you need everyday is measured. This to me is amazing, it’s the definition of health to me. Are you getting all the substances you need on a daily basis to be healthy? This way you also learn a lot about nutrition, you learn what food contains certain vitamins, mineral etcetera. That’s amazing! So when I see I am low on Omega 3 today, I know I can eat some chia seeds and I’ll be good. That does not mean you have to thrive for perfection though. You don’t need to be perfect everyday (that can cause mental stress too and as I said we don’t want that), but at least you know where you stand. And I don’t use this app daily either, just from time to time to see where I stand.

Now, this is my overview from yesterday. I’ve included some things which aren’t in there standard, like Biotin and Fluoride, but I thought the more I could see the better. Mine is not balanced at all, since I am struggling with my protein:carbohydrates:fats combinations, I still don’t know which percentages to use (you can choose that yourself and then all the targets change slightly). I am now using 50% carbohydrates, 35% fats and 15% protein. I don’t know what’s right for me just yet and so I’ll have to figure that out in the coming weeks. Anyway, this overview is just to show what Cronometer looks like. I feel like I did quite okay yesterday, and now it’s time to find some balance.

Yours sincerely,
Romee