my pyramid has won me over!

Skeptic no more! What a tool for the anal retentive! Try it if you haven't yet — mypyramidtracker.gov.

Mypyramidtracker.com is a USDA boondoggle — I mean, tool — that lets people take stock of what they eat. It's basically an online food diary with all the calorie and nutrient calculations done for you.

To start, you have to create a login account, and if you're worried the feds are checking up on you to see what all you've been consuming, you might want to get a hold of yourself and realize none of this information has your name attached to it.

Then you input your height and weight and start entering all the stuff you've eaten. Today I have had: Frosted miniwheats in milk (definitely added to my frequent foods list) with strawberries, half a chicken sandwich with lettuce and tomato and "spread," which I guess is Euphamism for fake mayo, though there is not an option for chicken sandwich sans Miracle Whip nor one for chicken sandwich with mayo nor a "Dijionaisse" option, which is, coincidentally, what was on my little panini sandwich half. Also tea with evaporated milk, Snapple diet peach iced tea (I didn't realize it was aspartame in there until I read the label; I think my Splenda intake has softened me up for other fakey fake sweeteners), green pea salad (scroll down for approximate heavenly recipe) and I inputted in the tomatoes and lettuce seperately because the pyramid knows that most people don't put that slice of lettuce on their sandwich, do they?

Then you save and analyze your foods and there are a couple of different permutations to do this, which warms my heart, because Quicken has shown me the graphs n' charts light. I will list them in ascending order of preference. Option A is nutrient intake. Your calories and estimated vitamin, fatty acid and other micro and macronutrients pop up on the screen and you see how you're doing. Got a lot of calcium today? Yay! Got a lot of saturated fat today? Eek! Then there is the same list byt with recommendations and here, mis amigas, is where things get interesting. The RDAs aren't equitable, for we are expected to get above and beyond those numbers in Niacin, Riboflavin, B-Vitamins and Calcium. So you can really check up on what's going on.

Then there is the DG option, for Dietary Guideline. You get "emoticons" that let you see how you're doing nutrient wise. This is a little disturbing because I noticed my grains and fat and cholesterol emoticons were all smiley, but I haven't had near the meat or dairy intake they are pushing on me. That is an intake I know will shoot the cholesterol and saturated fat through the roof. Beans are an option, but, alas, I have no beans and they make me, er, intolerable to be around. However, it's a pretty good snapshot all considered. But it is the final option that has perhaps the best and most useful snapshot. The final option is the comparison with the USDA's recommendations, where you are shown bars representing how many fruits, veggies and other food types you are supposed to eat next to bars representing the portions you have actually eaten.

My "bars" look okay, but I can tell that tonight, for dinner, I should probably have some sort of stir fry or salad with meat and veggies, and, for dessert, some strawberries and grapes with sweetened, low-fat ricotta cheese. How healthy does that sound?

Also on mypyramid is a physical activity calculator. The standard option sounds fairly arduous for the input — you MUST input 1440 minutes per day of activities ranging from sleeping and showering to working to cooking to kickboxing. The other one sounds like a cop-out. However, there is a benefit to be gained over the long haul and that is a computerized graph of your level of physical activity and — this is the part that gets my heart all a-flutter — a *trend line.* Yes! A trend line! I can't wait to work out and watch the trend!