This is the first post in a whole series, which I call the ntandme.com story. This first post will be the about section, the introduction or preface. You get the picture about the intention of that site, its intended goals and why at all start a new nutritional site.
I am used to try new technologies with some kind of real life example. And nutrition has always been an interest of me, probably because my personal nutrition was rather bad. So at some stage a couple of years ago I did create a little desktop application with the personal C# edition of Visual Developer and thought this is a bloody good example and actually would work really well as a web application. And I already had a new interest, the symfony-project Framework which I wanted to give a try as I had read a lot of good things about. So I started with a short tutorial and found it really good. Additionally I had a real desire now to create my own nutrition website.
How it started
What I needed was an application that allows me to keep track of my Anti-Candida Diet, which I started a couple of month ago. This requires a pretty rigid diet with no sugar and simple carbohdydrates. That was my starting point, a tool to track my nutrition intake, a tool to help me plan my diet upfront. A little plus of course to track how many calories I used to eat and how many to loose while exercising. During the first versions (you can alway have a look at www.ntandme.com to check its current state) I implemented these basic functionalities, but soon found I needed a lot more. And so I changed some structures and made it as precise as possible with regards to nutrients and the calorie turnover in my diet. During that phase I learned a lot of new things about nutrition due to input from my Naturopath and other diet websites. Have a look around on this blog to read about my experiences of this specific diet. I also checked out some other websites such as calorieking.com and thedailyplate.com, but they were – at least at that time – mainly considering the weightloss side of diets.
Once you get your mind in a specific direction and actually start talking with friends about nutrition, you find how many people do suffer from nutrition related diseases, some becoming quite common (such as Diabetes, high blood pressure and food allergies), some not as common but with really heavy influence on your life style (such as Crohns Disease). And there is the biggest reason for our modern health problems, obesity. Today it is easier to eat industrial foods than to have a healthy and nutrition rich diet. Industrialized foods and dishes, which often are high in sugar and fat, are mass-produced to be cheap and enhanced with artificial ingredients to please our ill taste. So it became really easy to have a too high calorie intake and therefore unhealthy life style.
The education process
During my sessions with the Naturopath, the implementation of algorithms and the search for food information I learned a lot about nutrition. Since than it is, that I as well developed a natural feeling for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods. It was like an nutrition education course, that actually was not hard to do. The hard thing is to overcome habits. Cos these habits are driving you to what you are used to (the easy choice)instead of looking for healthy alternatives, which are more than plenty once you start looking for them. Just one simple example from my past month is the exchange of the beloved cookies in the afternoon with rice crackers and guacamole (self made Avocado spread). I love that stuff and still do not take in as many and especially not as ‘empty’ calories as before.
And there is one very obvious reward: The shrinking fat pads and better body feeling. I lost about 6kg in 2 month time (my BMI went from close to overweight 24.7 to a nearly perect 22.65), very steady over time and constant since. I now eat way more vegetables than before and try to cook my food as often as possible.
The goals for ntandme.com
Since I found it helped myself, I thought what this tool could do for others. This has become somewhat my general road map and I hope (depending on my spare time) I will be able to implement the according tools sooner than later.
- Help people learn about good nutrition
- Give true information about the contents of food (not for example based on some unrealistic small portions)
- Show nutrition information for a wide variety of food
- Show alternatives to ‘not-so-good’ foods
- Guidance for people with nutrition-related diseases
- Day-to-day diary to assist doctors and naturopaths examining diseases and nutrition related issues
That is very rough and though I have quite some ideas, I am hopeful people will read this post and think it is a good idea, just missing this or that. If you can think of something that would help you and others reaching a better lifestyle, don’t hesitate to post it in a comment.
