Personal Diet Assistant for Windows ReadMe document 8/21/95 ======================================================= ************************************** * HOW TO ORDER THE FULL PACKAGE * ************************************** If you would like to legally maintain your copy of Personal Diet Assistant for Windows 1.0 send $9.95 to the address below. You also will receive updates to the program and any and all enhancements make to the next version (Personal Diet Assistant 2.0). Your cost = $9.95 U.S. Mail to: Software Innovations 303 10th Ave S. Suite 301 Kirkland, WA 98033 What is Personal Diet Assitant? ============================== Personal Diet Assitant is a Windows application that will allow an individual to get meaningful information about the foods he\she eats during a day. Are you eating to much fat? Is sodium high in your diet? These items can be answered in the data that Personal Diet Assitant will keep and display back to you. Personal Diet Assistant does not recommend what foods you should be eating, but does give you valuable information on the foods you do eat. Personal Diet Assistant can then take that information and accumulate it up to a 30 day period. This will allow the user to: 1. See a numeric and graphical representation of the macro nutrients (fat, protein, carbohydrates) to determine if they are getting enough (or to much) of a specific nutrient. 2. View a graphical respresentation of the caloric intake compared to the projected basal metabolic rate (BMR) for that individual. (This can give you an idea of whether you should be losing, gaining or maintaining weight.) 3. Check their fat and sodium intake against the US Recommended Daily Allowance (US RDA). 4. Keep a running total of the average number of calories as compared to the BMR. Frequently Asked Questions. ========================== 1. How can I set the Gender and Activity level options so that they are as I left them when starting Personal Diet Assistant? In your Windows directory you will find a DIET.INI file that you can use any ASCII text editor (e.g. NOTEPAD), to modify. For example, if you want to change the Gender setting to reflect "Female" replace the Gender=1 in the DIET.INI file to Gender=2. For the activity level, the options are 1, 2, or 3. Where 1 is low activity, 2 is moderate, and 3 is high. For example to reflect a high activity level, modify the DIET.INI ActLevel parameter as such: ActLevel=3 2. What do the activity levels represent? Low activity = less than 1/2 hour a day of sustained cardio workout 3 times a week. Moderate activity = less than 1 hour of sustained cardio workout at least 3 times a week. High activity = more than 1 hour of sustained cardio workout at least 3 times a week. How the BMR (basal metabolic rate) is calculated. The general formula used for calculating the BMR for men is: BMR = Weight * 12 The general formula used for calculating the BMR for women is: BMR = Weight * 11 This is for moderate activity levels. The BMR will increase when activity levels increase. Therefor, I used the following simplistic formulas when moderate activity is achieved. BMR = (Weight * 12) + (BMR * .15) and for higher activity levels... BMR = (Weight * 12) BMR = BMR + (BMR * .25). and for the moderately active woman... BMR = (Weight * 12) BMR = BMR + (BMR * .12) and for higher activity levels for woman... BMR = (Weight * 12) BMR = BMR + (BMR * .26) Therefor, a man weighing 175 pounds with a moderate activity level will burn approximately 2225 calories per day (225 more calories than the normal inactive man). NOTE: These figures are by no means intended to be absolutes, or to be construed as actual BMR’s for a particular person. Until more information is provided to me based on BMR’s and activity levels, I will use these very conservative estimates as merely a guideline for the Personal Diet Assistant user. 3. What is the format for the DIET.DAT food item entries? The format is as follows: Food Item (description), Fat, Protein, Carbohydrates, Sodium Where... All comma’s must be included in the appropriate places. Food Item = An alpha-numeric description of the food item. This item is mandatory description = A description such as type, amount, etc. This item is optional Fat = A numeric value, in grams, for the amount of fat in the food item. Protein = A numeric value, in grams, for the amount of protein in the food item. Carbohydrates = A numeric value, in grams, for the amount of protein in the food item. Sodium = A numeric value, in milligrams, for the amount of sodium in the food item. 4. How do I remove a food item from the master list? You can use any ASCII text editor (such as notepad) to remove entries from the DIET.DAT file located in the DIET directory. The entry must be removed completely and no blank spaces should be left in the file. 5. Why are the percentage totals for nutrients in the daily graph not equal to 100%? The macro nutrient totals (Fat, Protein, and Carb) are in whole numbers. The resource that I got most of the food items are in decimal point numbers (such as 6.2 grams of fat or 1.5 grams of protein). These fractional numbers have been rounded (rounding up for .5, so 1.5 grams of fat would equal 2). The percentage breakdown displayed with the graph should still provide a pretty fair representation of the various macro-nutrients and there distribution. Food measurements. Most nutrient food values were obtained from "The Complete Book of Food Counts" by Corrine T. Netzer. The remainder of the food item nutrients were obtained from the packaging associated with the respective food item. Errors and Problems You May Encounter ===================================== 1. Error message: Illegal function call. Resolution: DIET.DAT has become corrupt or has an invalid entry. Restore the file with a backup version available from the install diskette (DIET.BAK) or use a text editor to fix the offending line. The format must be precise. What Future Versions of Personal Diet Assistant Are Expected to Provide ========================================================= If all goes well for Personal Diet Assistant, future versions will most likely include. 1. More nutrients recorded such as: Simple and complex carbohydrates. Saturated, unsaturated fats, and cholesterol. 2. Diet record tracking for up to 20 individuals. 3. Advanced printing features for the diet records. 4. Extensive help information and suggestions.