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."

Comments

fitday?

[sporty]

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.

Losing weight fast

[coryboehne]

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.

Re:Losing weight fast

[nlh]

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)..

This is the one part of your "crash diet" that I'm going to strongly advise against, based on my own experience and the advise of others.

If there's one "magic" thing I discovered over the past few years, it's that fasting is the absolute worst way to get in better shape. Yes, it's counter-intuitive, but in reality when you fast (i.e. starve yourself) you're telling your body that food is scarce and to go into "famine mode". When the body is in this condition, metabolism slows, hunger decreases, and you can only eat two times a day and not even notice it.

The key is that metabolism slows -- so you're not going to burn calories even remotely as fast as you would if you ate properly, and your excercise is basically non-productive. Yes, you'll lose weight, but that's because of brute force -- 500 calories a day is dangerously little.

What you should be doing is eating 4 - 6 small meals a day, or as some people put it, "keep a steady stream of fuel on the fire". I'm not saying to stop eating healthy foods or low-calorie foods, but space them out throughout the day (every 2 - 3 hours).

What you'll find is amazing: You'll double (or triple) your food intake, you'll get stronger (your excervise will be more productive), and you'll lose weight faster.

--noah

Update the Database?

[rubinson]

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).

Watch out for the USDA Pyramid

[Paul Burney]

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.

I just used Excel.

[cheezerman]

I have been keeping track of my caloric intake for almost a year now.

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:

• You can search the USDA Nutrient Database Website (A bit inconvenient)
• Download the Raw database and search it through your favorite Database program.
• Download the Windows or Palm Binary of the Database

Hope this helps. It sure helped me.

Calorie Companion

[vallee]

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