Project Launch: Excel Project and Consumption Tracking

For the month of February, I am tracking a variety of health-related measurements and using this in an Excel project.

On a daily basis, I am tracking the foods and drinks I consume and their calories and macronutrients (fat, carbohydrates, protein). I’m tracking these on a RiteInTheRain notepad I carry with me everywhere, then typing the data into Excel once a week. My wife tracks her consumption and calories on a notecard that she carries with her. Since neither of us carries a phone consistently, we prefer these analog options.

Alternatively, you could use a notetaking system on your phone like Notion or use an app specifically designed for tracking consumption. In his video on counting calories, Matt D’Avella talks about using MyFitnessPal for his tracking. I regularly go to MyFitnessPal.com to search for the nutritional value of foods without labels, but I don’t use the app for my tracking.

On a weekly basis, I am measuring my weight using an Etekcity digital scale and am measuring my waist and hips using an old-fashioned fabric measuring tape. When I began, I didn’t know exactly where to measure my hips and waist, but WikiHow showed me the way in two simple articles (hips and waist).

Using these weekly measurements and some variables I am considering constants (height, age, sex), I am calculating my Body Mass Index (BMI), Body Metabolic Rate (BMR), Body Fat Percentage, Waist-to-Hip Ratio, and Calorie Intake Needs (to maintain current body weight, based on BMR). I found formulas for these calculations online. The BMI, Body Fat Percentage, and Waist-to-Hip Ratio all make judgments on health based upon the calculations, so I am noting these judgments, too.

At the end of the month, I plan to take the data amassed and use Excel to analyze the data.

I do not intend to change my consumption habits in February, I simply want to track and measure. However, based on previous experience, I know I may adjust my behavior because of tracking it. I suspect any trends to appear when analyzing the data at the end of the month.

Resources

• I use formulas from a variety of calculators that can be found online. I took the formulas from bmi-calculator.net.
• WikiHow provided helpful articles for measuring waist and hips.
  • Measure hips.
  • Measure waist.
• I frequently use MyFitnessPal.com from UnderArmour to estimate the nutritional value of foods without labels and Matt D’Avella talks about using the MyFitnessPal app in his video on counting calories.
• I use a digital scale from Etekcity.
• Every day, I carry a pocketbook from RiteInTheRain and use it for analog tracking of my consumption.
• There’s an article on Healthline, medically reviewed by Daniel Bubnis, that discusses the relationship between body fat percentage and abdominal exposure. It helped me understand body fat percentage in general and the numbers differ slightly from those listed on bmi-calculator.net.
• To learn Excel, I started a two-week free trial on ELearnExcel.com, recommended in a Praxis blogpost, then barreled through five of the courses during the free trial and suspended my account before my first payment.