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Lose Weight the Healthy WayThis is not just another wonder-diet! |
By Ioana Butnariu, Editor, Software Reviews
18th of June 2006, 13:41 GMT
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It's summer, although it hasn't started to show just yet, but just thinking of the hot, sunny days I get a feeling I'm not going to enjoy too many sweets too soon. The reason is obvious: along with the heat come the summer clothes.
With this reason in mind we throw ourselves at the mercy of the wonder-diets and exercise programs, saying good-bye to our usual morning coffee with sugar and cream, the lunch break at the restaurant, the TV-dinners, and the omni-present sweet-tooth.
A certain fact revealed itself to me: summer is the dead-line for all weight-loss diets. The mirror might lie, in the sense that it can be all in your head, but the scale never does. Don't get discouraged and start starving yourself and exercising like a maniac, get some help from your own personal desktop trainer/nutritionist: Weight-by-Date Pro.
To get an easy start on things, the program provides a wizard that helps you set up your personal profile. You have to enter your details and the most important thing: your goal weight. To help you set a healthy goal, you can get an estimate based on your BMI chart (Body Mass Index) which means a proper weight for someone of your height.
After setting your starting weight and starting date, you have a selection of diet plans from which to choose from, for your particular nutritional needs. You can track up to ten nutrients in your Meals Journal and define daily target values for each of them.
The interface of Weight-By-Date Pro is composed of 3 "Frames": the Navigation Frame that consists of the menu buttons which can take you to different screens, the Statistics Frame containing the changing values, as you loose weight and the Date Frame - where all the action is - your calendar, journal, planner and charts.
The Calendar is useful for the visual aid it offers. You can record your current weight and see the number of calories you can eat for the day. There is a quick link to your Journal and you can choose to show a daily loss and a nutrient.
The journal is the most complex part of the program because here is where most of the action takes place. It will keep track of everything you eat, the database contains about 6600 food items, so you can find almost anything. Each food item has a detailed nutritional information and calorie count. You just pick your food item and the number of servings you had (cup, half cup, etc.)
and Weight-By-Date Pro records it and reduces the number of calories you have left for the day.
To help you track even easier everything you eat, Weight-By-Date Pro has a recipe feature. If you have certain meals that don't differ composition-wise , this is just the thing for you. Program every food item you have for that meal and then just record the recipe every day instead of going through each food item day after day.
After all this talk about food it's time to be reminded about the working out part. In the Exercises/Workouts tab you can record any type of exercise or workout you do from the simple ones like taking a walk to the more complex like weightlifting.
As you add exercises to your Journal for a given day, Weight-By-Date Pro will automatically calculate exactly how many calories you burned. If you burn enough, who knows? Maybe you can have that piece of cake you've been dreaming about for a week now. That extra weight will not go away if you sit in front of the TV all day, so to the Planner button and schedule an activity.
If you would like to have a better view on your progress, you can access the charts panel. There you will find two graphs, one shows progress by day and the other one, by week. I think that you can really get motivated when you see that chart line going way down.
Another good thing about Weight-By-Date is the fact that you don't have to know anything about formulas for calculating daily caloric needs or the body fat percentage. You have it all at your fingertip or mouse click, in the Tools panel.
Weight-By-Date Pro can be used by more people at once, each of them having their personal profile, so if you want to keep yours a secret, you can protect it with a password.
If your need for information on the weight-loss process is greater, you can access the Links section where a massive amount of websites help you with everything you may need at a certain point, in your weight-battle.
The Good
Weight-By-Date Pro is a user-friendly application that can be of great help even if you want to lose just a few pounds. It makes you aware of certain aspects of your eating habits and can offer you a personalized solution to your weight problem.
The Bad
Although Weight-By-Date Pro is more a fitness software, it doesn't cover psychological tracking tools or medical condition monitoring.
The Truth
Weight-By-Date Pro offers an extensive database with a lot of weight related and fitness related information but takes away some of the navigation ease. It is of a real help for the ones that are looking to lose weight in a healthy manner, by eating right and exercising.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
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