I don't understand how to get an A!!!!

I know that I don't eat all my calories for the day and I do a lot of activity throughout the day but why am I winding up with Ds every day? Isn't the whole point of this to eat less calories, drink water, do some exercise and log your weight in? Why do I feel like i'm failing all the time????? I need major help..please someone break it down for me..its it just as simple as eating more healthy foods and less coffee and crap? Please walk me through...

The grade is based on your food choices, they may not necessarily be high calorie but if they're processed, high in sodium, fat or sugar then they will likely be lower graded. Most 'diet' foods will have a low grade. I eat mostly natural, unprocessed food and cook everything from scratch and get an A on most days

What keira said. Check the food as you are logging it. It will have its own grade. There is an explanation of why it got the grade it did. Check saturated fat,salt, and added sugar.

These are guidelines, not entirely accurate, but they are not bad ones.

Yes, your grade is referring to your food. When you log your food, most will have a grade assigned to it. As long as you have a higher percentage of A and B foods, you'll get a good grade for the day.

 

Edit: Oops, another answer was posted while I took forever to reply. Oh well. ;)

IMO when you are first starting off take baby steps. If lowering your calories is challenging do it the easiest way possible even if it means eating prepared packaged foods. Don't focus too much on the food grade. Once the lower calories become a little more comfortable start focusing on adding healthier foods into your diet and breaking your dependence on prepared foods. Start off adding fruit/veg to every meal.

I have only been doing this for a few days so I cannot say if what I am doing is going to produce long term benefits, but I can explain my process as I seem to be hitting the "A" catagoy well.

I think people crave nutrients that are lacking in our diets (the pregnancy cravings being the extreme example). As such, if you are low in salt for example, you may crave potato chips as your body feels better after eating them (because you got the salt!). Now if you were to supply the nutrients you need, you may find that you no longer crave the potato chips. So my approach is not to stop eating bad food, but rather to turn what I eat into good food.

I  use the analysis tab a lot!, For instance, my morning tea with honey scored a D,so I switched to a sugar substitute and now is records an A.

I have a base meal which I eat each day ( a stew as it cold at the moment). I have added and subtracted to make it as healthy as possible. I make up a lot and freeze it in one meal containers to last the week.

I started out taking 2 calcium and 2 vitamin tablets, now I have reduced that to one of each as my meals are getting healthier. For Lunch or Dinner I add something to spice things up a little. Last night I had fish for example.

If you browse around the foods on the site, you'll see that 'raw' foods; foods that are less processed; will score higher. For example, a boiled egg, a baked potato, and carrot sticks are all A or B scored, and don't have that many calories for the nutrients they contain. In comparision, a muffin from Tim Hortons averages 300-400 calories, has almost no nutrients, and tends to score C- or D. (That includes the 'healthy' bran and fruit muffins, too; there's almost no difference from the chocolate chip muffin).

Same muffins made at home with the correct ingredients will be between a B- and an A-