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Software Tools for Nutritional Tracking?
Deagol asks: "After reading about it several times on Slashdot, I decided to start the Hacker's Diet this month. I've even lost 3lbs so far. I'm looking for software tools to make this thing easier. So far, I've been using Nut to track my calories and see what nutrients I need to balance. Though Nut has been invaluable, it lacks a clean recipe and menu interface (it has them, but it's light on features). I did the usual google/freshmeat/sourceforge search, but turned up very little. gnutrition looks promising, but it's 2 years unmaintained and uses an old version of the USDA database. My requirements are: that it use the current USDA database; have a flexible recipe and menu functions which tracks calories and nutrients; and finally that it runs under Linux (prefer OSS). Multiple-user support and easy of use would be nice, but not required."
http://www.fitday.com
:)
I kinda liked fitday when i was trying to gain weight. It's also free. You don't get to export/import data, but as a temporal solution, it works.
As for tracking who you are, you can lie on most of the info. Worst of it possibly is, they'll track an anonymous person's diet. Is your intake that sacred?
Btw, last time i checked was a year ago. YMMV.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I've pretty much created my own "Hackers Diet" plan, here's how it pretty much works, Keep in mind that I've went from 230-235lbs down to 170lbs in only eight months..
So, how did I lose weight?? Subway... J/K!!
Actually I've just learned how to eat right more than anything, instead of eating hamburgers and fries (or panda express) I usually eat salad, most often without dressing, but sometimes I'll splurge and throw in a little bit of ham, or some fat free dressing. Once in a while I'll even eat a veggie sub.
Keep in mind that fat free != Calorie Free, and calories are what you need to avoid.. Most doctors will tell you to not go below 800-1200 calories per day, although I've been at under 500 for quite a while with no side effects..
And instead of eating a huge amount of anything I'll just eat a small amount of something, I've found that after doing this for so long my stomach has shrank so that it only takes about ten bites of something and I'm stuffed..
I've also cut down to eating no more than twice a day, in addition to that I fast at least one day a week. I've also started to excercise quite a bit (running, or swimming most often)..
As an aside, I noticed that I can start to see a 6-pack showing up, really cool because I've never been able to say that before.. Funny thing is that right now I weight 10 lbs less that I did in eighth grade..
It's pretty amazing how much better I feel too, I still smoke more than a pack a day, but for some reason I can run a few miles without getting really very winded at all (prob. partly because of the increased oxygen levels here).
But beleve it or not I really don't even think about "what" I'm doing anymore, it's just become normal.
So, if you can force yourself to do this, you too can lose an insane amount of weight in a short amount of time..
However, IANADoctor, so do this at your own risk, and don't be stupid about it, if you start to feel bad, eat something, just try to stay away from high fat- high calorie foods.. I'm the type to be a bit extreme about things, so this has worked for me, but a more moderate version would probably be better for most people.
If you like gnutrition, why not just update the included USDA Nutrient database? I took a cursory look at the source and it appears that the included database (in the 'data' directory) is simply a dump of the USDA's text files (available here). The developers even include a couple of shell script to convert the USDA files into the correct format for gnumeric (mostly it's just stripping illegal characters).
Another really good one (tho it's a few dollars a month) is the Men's Health online trackers.
:)
See: http://www.menshealth.com/weightloss2/index.shtml
It is really geared for men (obviously) but it's more professional, especially if you have exercise in your routine.
By the way, excellent magazine, IMO, and the web site also has a number of good articles on topics guys care about (sorry, no open source articles though
See for example 31 reasons why I'm still fat
I really don't understand why you feel you need some piece of software to keep track of your nutritional information. I use pencil and paper and it works fine for me. There are countless websites that list the macronutrient and caloric data for a wide range of foods. Isn't that all you really need? Dieting and nutrition isn't complicated. The bookeeping should be simple. Why do you need a specially-designed piece of software?
GMD
watch this
He's a fireman and a Jared fan from Subway!
He got real big on burgers and fries.
Now he's down to a smaller size.
He's Deagol, Clay Deagol
He gets his might from his... um... OSS nutrition tracker... or something.
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
The diet you refer to doesn't offer many suggestions about which foods to eat (focusing mostly on total calories), but I urge you do avoid the USDA pyramid you may have learned about in school.
The current USDA pyramid is flawed and promotes many unhealthy habits. Like much of the field of "nutrition", the pyramid isn't based on scientific facts, but rather conjecture and speculation.
Some of the main flaws with the current pyramid are the recommended amounts of complex carbohydrates per day, the dubious inclusion of potato as a vegetable, and the absence of "good" fats from the pyramid.
There was a very nice article with real scientific/medial data behind it in Scientific American a few months ago. Take a look before heading into that new diet.
There is also a nice picture of the proposed new pyramid. For those using Lynx, the base contains whole grain foods and plant oils. The next tiers contain vegetables and fruit, with the emphasis on vegetables. The middle tiers consist of nuts, legumes, fish, poultry and eggs and dairy. At the top, under "use sparingly" are red meat and the hacker diet, white rice/white bread/potatoes/pasta and sweets.
Good luck. I hope you can keep the pounds off.
<?php while ($self != "asleep") { $sheep_count++; } ?>
I've even lost 3lbs so far
Interesting. Not that I have any idea how much a lb is.
Strange measurements systems aside, I found that the best way to lose excess weight is
I managed (a few years ago) to go from 85 kg to 77 kg and I'm now at about 78 kg: good enough, though I'd like to get back to 77 again.
JP
All I did was create a simple Excel chart that adds up the total calories, and use a new sheet every day, sorting through weeks in folders. You could easily expand that to include Nutrients.
You could also use any open source equilivant of Excel.
Where did I get the Nutrient information? There are several ways to get that:
Hope this helps. It sure helped me.
gnutrition looks like it's the best of the OSS bunch but unfortunately I can't as of yet get it to compile, but then again it's on my back burner at the moment (trying to learn MySQL by making a basic food database of my own).
My partner has lost 40 lbs using this method with Calorie Companion. Windows-only, VB app, but it lets you easily keep track of calorie intake, get reports, etc.
Hope this helps,
Paul
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
It seems pretty obvious that a database entry stating that a can of Coke has X calories and Y carbohydrates, etc. would not be in violation of any copyrights, but in these days one can never be too sure ("patenting the fork" and so forth).
CDC doing nutritional advice now, wow I guess we all change when we hit 30
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
My girlfriend said she really liked eatwatch, which is a palmos program written by the guy who did the hacker's diet. Is this what you've been using so far?
There sure seem to be graphs of people's weight if you search for eat-watch in google.
Here's a review that explains more details.
I wonder if there are scales that can transmit your weight back to a computer?
I don't think the solution should have anything to do with your computer. The computer is probably the major culprit to your weight problem in the first place. Just go outside and run or ride a bike or something. Its summer, dude.
"Computer geeks monitoring nutrition? What's next? A toolbar app for KDE to track Microsoft's press releases? "
Troll? Oh c'mon guys it was a joke! We've all heard a million times before here that geeks live on Skittles and Dr. Pepper.
"Derp de derp."
Your body needs fat.
You should get about 30% of your calories from fats, and since fats have 9 calories per gram, and carbs and proteins have only 4 your should get about 14% of your food by weight from fat.
Fat free foods often make up for the lack of fats with sugar. (a tasty but generally worthless food). Can you say sugar crash? diabetes?
Just get off the caffeine and sugar, and cut your calorie intake down to ~1500 per day, and exercise regularly.
(Every 3500 calories equals one pound, so if your weight is stable and you cut your daily intake by 500 calories (40 ounces of soda pop) per day, you'll loose a pound a week!)
I used to weigh 230 and I am now down to a much more muscular 200 (at 6'1") I think if I was as slim as I am now without the extra muscle it would be 180 or less.
What did I do you might ask...
I started running and lifting weights. I have always had a big appetite (about 3000 cal a day in the old days) and loved eating. I now eat 4000-5000 calories a day, I find the real secret was the marathon training. I lost some weight running no more than 3-5 miles 3-4 days a week, but the weight really started falling off fast when I added a longer run (10-20 miles) once a week. I now run 5-7 miles 3 times week and 13-20 once a week, and I lift for an hour 3 times a week (mostly because I don't like being too thin). I will be running my second marathon in about a week and a half, it is great!
I know a lot of people think I am crazy for running as much as I do, but once I started doing longer runs I really started to enjoy the actually running (I used to just run to stay fit, and I didn't really enjoy it).
ÏÐ
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I am 6'1" and a (mostly) muscular 200lbs. I eat 4000-5000 calories a day. I lift weights 3X a week for an hour, and I run 5-7 miles 3 times a week, AND (the important one from my experience) I run 13-20 miles once a week.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
...hunger kills 45000 children everyday in all the world...
I have always thought it would be a good idea to have software that suggests nutritional recipes based on what the local supermarket has for sale in a particular week so that I can eat healthy and save money at the same time. Is there any way that you could "scrape" sale items from say Safeway's page and use this to determine a recipe?
I think the problems with the food pyramid have less to do with "speculation" than with politics.