Nutrients - Who’s on first, What’s on second, I don’t know’s on third

Macro nutrients... I’ve heard a lot about them. Are there also micro nutrients? I’m not sure. The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not paying any attention to them.

In college, my most hated class was nutrition. Thank the good Lord that it was only one semester. My instructor’s name was Kitty - that was her given first name. And she had a doctorate....probably in nutrition. And that’s all I remember.

My first time on SparkPeople, I was only concerned with calories. So, many items I manually entered into the food tracker only had calories listed. Why did I need to bother with the other things on the label? My second time around, I was focused a little more on nutrition because my glucose was elevated. But that only meant that I made sure carbohydrates were included on the tracker. Even without knowing the difference between a macro and micro nutrient, I met my goal weight during both those journeys.

So, here I am again. Maybe this time I should learn more about nutrients.

At my work, it’s all about gaining weight. Babies are sometimes born too small and need to gain a lot of weight before they can even live outside their little incubator. Regardless of why an infant is admitted to our unit, one thing is for certain. They’re not going home until they show a steady weight gain. We make sure this happens by doing several things. We give a higher calorie formula or fortify breast milk to a higher calorie. We give liquid protein or MCT oil in addition to their milk. We do anything to pack the meat on those tiny bones. We also give calcium, vitamin D, sodium, potassium, iron, and multivitamin supplements both orally and intravenously.

I know why I do it for my babies at work, maybe I should learn how and why to do it for me.