RMRDIET (PALM) - Diet/Weight/Exercise Tracker
---------------------------------------------

USING THE PROGRAM
-------------------
RMRDiet is a user-friendly but powerful program that will aid you in tracking your food and calorie intake, your exercise and calorie expenditure, and your overall weight loss or healthy eating program.

When you start the program for the first time you will be guided through a series of
screens prompting you to enter:

Preferences : for height and weight units, number of decimal places.

User details : your name, sex, birth date, height, current weight, and the activity level that best fits your lifestyle from:
   sedentary - a quiet life mainly sitting
   light active - mostly desk work and travelling in a vehicle
   moderate active - some physical work activities or occasional exercise
   very active - demanding physical work or exercise several times per week
   extra active - extremely physical activities.

Targets : your Goal weight and the amount of weight you want to lose per week. From these the program will calculate the number of weeks it will take to meet your goal, and your required Daily calories - the two values show how many calories you need to maintain weight / how many calories you need to change to target weight.

In addition set the type of diet that you want to follow with the C/P/F ratio (Carbohydrate/Protein/Fat).  To maintain a healthy diet you need to obtain calories from a mix of these different sources.  Choose from 6 different diet types from 80/10/10 vegetarian through to 40/30/30 zone diet.  Each of these gives pre-determined nutrient breakdown targets for Calories, Carbohydrates, Total Fats, Fiber, Cholesterol, Sugar, Sodium and Protein, which are listed at the bottom of the screen.

If you want to change the calorie target for your total daily intake, enter a new value in the Calories field and press the [+] button next to it.  All other nutrients
fields will be recalculated using the defined C/P/F diet type.  The [+] next to the Daily calories field will copy the calculated calories value back to the Target Calories field.

You only need to set up these user details and targets once, but you can change the settings at any time through the Options menu.

Now you can start adding your data, which you need to do regularly. Note that there are 3 different screens accessed from the View menu, or directly from the Diet, Weight and Exercise tabs at the top of the screen. Select the appropriate view to add your food, weight and exercise details.  The date is also shown here, which defaults to 'today', but can be changed with the < or > buttons if you need to make entries or view the data for other dates.  In all the Add screens there is a Time selector which you can use to accurately record the time of eating, weighing yourself or exercising.


Diet Tracker screen:

Use this to record and analyze your food intake.  Along the bottom of the screen are 8 tabs.  The first 6 of these subdivide the day into meal periods for Breakfast, Morning, Lunch, Afternoon, Dinner, Evening (BMLADE).  When you want to record food eaten, select the tab for the appropriate period and use the Add button.  In the Add screen you have tabs that give the option of adding Food from the supplied database, or from Menus or Recipes which you create yourself to automate the food recording process (see later).

To add a single food select the Food tab.  Browse for the food by navigating through each of the dependent Category, Name and Type lists.  Alternatively type the name of the food (e.g. milk) in the Name or Type field and press the Find button, then select the appropriate one from the displayed list.

Next either accept the given Serving size and Serving unit, or change the value and select a new unit from the drop-down list (ml, tsp, tbsp, fl oz, cup, pt, qt).  The [+] button will recalculate the nutrients values for the new serving size.

Finally tap the OK button to enter the food details, when it will appear in the list for that day and time period.  Use the All tab to view a log of all the food you have eaten in the day.

Note that you can tailor the screen display to your requirements.  Tapping on the column heading titles allows you to select which of the recorded details are shown (date, time, meal, food, size, calories, total fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate, fiber, sugar, protein).  The column separators themselves can be dragged to a suitable width for the values.

At the bottom of the screen a coloured progress bar shows your consumption for the period compared to your target value.  Adjacent are three values (e.g. 950/1650/57%) giving the current total / target intake / percentage consumed.  By default these show the Calories, but you can select any of the 8 nutrients.  By selecting Show/Hide graph from the View menu, or tapping on the half arrow on top right of the list screen, you can reduce the size of the list to show all of the 8 nutrient graphs at the bottom.  View these after you have recorded individual foods, meals or a whole day's intake, to check your overall calorie and nutrient intake and make judgements as to whether you are getting a balanced diet or need to increase/decrease foods in certain areas.  The graphs will change to red if you have exceeded your target.

If the provided database doesn't contain your favourite foods, you can add your own. Use the Options menu to view the Foods list, or use the New button in the Add Food screen.  Select the correct Category, then as appropriate, tap in the Name field and write in the name of a new food, and then do the same for the Type field.  Correct the Serving size, units, Serving in gm or ml value, and all the nutrient details, and then tap on the Save button.  It will then be available for selection next time you Add food.

Menus and Recipes allow you to automate the food recording process by entering a collection of foods as a single entry.  A menu is typically an entire meal, while a recipe is foods combined together to make other foods.

To create an example Menu use the Options menu to view the Menus list.  Select a meal from the 6 day periods (e.g. Lunch), and tap on the New button to give the menu a name (e.g. lunchbox), then add a food using the normal selection process.  Repeat this using the Add food, Edit food and Delete food buttons as required to build up the contents of a meal that you have regularly (e.g. bread, ham, soda, chips, candy bar, apple), and then tap the Done button when complete.  Now you will be able to select the name of your meal in the Add Menu screen, and enter all these foods in one go.  The same principle applies to creation of Recipes, but for these you would typically build up a list of cooking ingredients.


Weight Tracker screen:

Use this to keep a record of your weight loss (or gain!).  Use the Add button, select the date and time, and enter your current weight.  If you wish you can also record your Body measurements to track these.

At the bottom of the screen a coloured progress bar shows your weight change compared to your starting weight on the left and target weight on the right.  Additional values are given for the / weight remaining to reach the target / percentage achieved so far.  The bar will change to red when you exceed your weight target.  After a longer period of adding data, tapping on the Display selector at the bottom left of the screen allows you to filter the entries to see only the details for various time periods.

By selecting Show/Hide graph from the View menu, or tapping on the half arrow on top right of the list screen, you can reduce the size of the list and show a line graph of your weight instead of the bar.

As before, tapping on the column heading titles allows you to select which of the recorded details are shown (date, time, weight, weight change (from start), chest, waist, hips, bicep, forearm, thigh, calf, bodyfat).  The column separators themselves can be dragged to a suitable width for the values.


Exercise Tracker screen:

Use this to record and analyze your exercise program.  Use the Add button to bring up the Add screen where there are 2 tabs for adding Exercises from the supplied database, or for Routines which you create yourself to automate the recording process (see later).

Select the Exercise tab and browse for the exercise by navigating through each of the dependent Category, Name and Type lists, and then use the hour and minute selectors to record the length of time you spent doing it.  The total calories burned by this exercise will be calculated at the bottom of the screen. Finally tap the OK button to enter the exercise details, when it will appear in the list.

Note that you can tailor the screen display to your requirements.  Tapping on the column heading titles allows you to select which of the recorded details are shown (time, exercise, exercise time, calories burned).  The column separators themselves can be dragged to a suitable width for the values.

At the bottom of the screen the Intake values show your current total / target intake / percentage consumed calories for the day, copied from the Diet screen.  Under this are the Burned calories resulting from your day's exercise shown as a coloured progress bar. The three numeric values show calories burned today / calories needed to burn to achieve your weight target / percentage of the first over the second.  The bar will change to red if your calories burned total exceeds your calories needed.

To explain further the calories needed to burn to achieve your weight target.  On the Target screen you calculated or entered the daily intake calories required to reach your weight goal in xxx weeks, for your SELECTED ACTIVITY LEVEL.  This means that without any additional exercises you would normally achieve the goal in xxx weeks if you eat exactly the "daily intake calories".  If you eat more than this, you will need to take additional exercise to reach the goals, as this example sequence indicates:

For a daily intake target of 2000 calories, this means you can eat 2000 cal before you need to perform exercise.  At the start of the day the bar will show:
  Burned: ======== 0/-2000/0%
After eating a lunch of say, 600 calories, you still don't need exercises:
  Burned: ======== 0/-1400/0%
For an afternoon snack you eat 10 pieces of cheese cake = 1800 calories.  Oops! - you overeat and exceed your daily intake by 400 calories:
  Burned: ======== 0/400/0%
Time to exercise! Your target exercise value is 400 calories to compensate for the extra food. You jog at 7min/mile for 10 minutes = 234 cals.
  Burned: -----=== 234/400/58%
You walk fast for 40 minutes = 277 calories. You burned all the calories you have to, and even more:
  Burned: ++++++++ 511/400/127%
You need to eat again (to reach the target goals).

By selecting Show/Hide graph from the View menu, or tapping on the half arrow on top right of the list screen, you can reduce the size of the list to show a running daily graph of your calories burned.

If the provided database doesn't contain your favourite sports or exercises, you can add your own. Use the Options menu to view the Exercise list, or use the New button in the Add Exercise screen.  Select the correct Category, then as appropriate, tap in the Name field and write in the name of a new exercise, and then do the same for the Type field.  Add the MET value (metabolic equivalents) for this exercise, then tap on the Save button. It will then be available for selection next time you Add food.
NOTE: METs are a way of expressing rate of oxygen utilization and hence calorific burn.  One MET is the rate when your body is at rest (sitting quietly).  An activity that uses oxygen at twice the resting rate is equal to 2 MET, and so forth.  The MET level will stay the same as long as you do not change the intensity with which you are working.

Routines allow you to automate the exercise recording process by entering a collection of activities as a single entry.  To create an example Routine use the Options menu to view the Routines list.  Tap on the New button to give the routine a name (e.g. morning exercise), then add an exercise using the normal selection process.  Repeat this using the Add exercise, Edit exercise and Delete exercise buttons as required to build up the contents of your regular routine (e.g. warm up 5mins, walking 10 mins, jog 30 mins, walk 10 mins), and then tap the Done button when complete.  Now you will be able to select the name of your routine in the Add Routine screen, and enter all these activities in one go.



Disclaimer

Before starting any diet, weight management or exercise program, it is advisable to consult your doctor.  The instructions and advice given here, and the use of this program, are in no way intended as a substitute for medical counseling.
