Foods, Meals, and Nutrients - Our Most Common Questions and Answers |
|
-
How do I record my daily foods and meals?
You can do this in the Meals Journal. To add a food or meal for the selected day, click the "New" button from the Meals tab (it's at the top of the list area).
A new window will appear, where you can select from one of the 11,000 foods or your own custom foods and recipes. This window was actually designed to stay open, until you are finished adding all of the foods to your journal for a day (or for a particular session).
Here are step-by-step instructions for recording your foods:
- Click the Journal button along the left of the program window and go to the Meals/Snacks tab.
- Click the New button above the list area.
- Find the first food that you've eaten and click on it. A quick way to find foods is to click on the "Find Food by Name Search" tab. Type part of the food's name and click the "Search Now" button.
- Enter the number of servings in the field to the left of the food item. You can also use the Serving Selector by clicking the "..." button.
- Now click the green checkmark button to the left of the servings field. This food has just been added to your journal. If you're curious, just drag the window over a little bit and you'll see the new food item in your journal.
- Find the next food that you want to record and then repeat steps 4 and 5.
When you're all done, click the "Close" button to return to the Journal. You'll see that all of your food items have been recorded in one step.
Overview of the Food Selection window
To top
-
What is the best way to find foods?
You might be tempted to look for a food by selecting its food group and scrolling through the list. With over 11,000 foods in the pre-loaded food database, this is definitely the hard way to do it. Consider doing a search instead.
How do you do a search? Go to the Meals Journal and click New to create a new food entry. Then click on the "Find Food by Name Search" tab. Type part of the food's name and click the "Search Now" button. A full list of search results will quickly be displayed and you can insert them into your journal just as you normally would.
To top
-
What is the "Recent Foods" list and how can I take advantage of it?
Most people eat the same things frequently (especially when on a diet). Weight-By-Date Pro automatically keeps track of what you're eating. So, as you record food entries into the Journal, Weight-By-Date Pro puts these items in the "Recent Foods" list.
 After just a few days of recording meals, this will be a big time-saver. Once you've used the program for a couple of weeks, you'll rarely have to search the food database.
How do you use the Recent Foods list? When you click the "New" button to make a new journal entry, click on the "Find Food by Group/List" tab (if it's not already selected). Then select "Recent Foods" from the "List" field right above the list of foods. You'll see every food that you've eaten for the last 14 days. Now you can select from this list instead of searching.
To top
-
Does Weight-By-Date Pro come with a database of foods and nutritional values?
Weight-By-Date Pro contains a database of over 11,000 foods, based largely on research from the USDA. Each food contains data for calories, carbs, fat, and over 20 additional nutrients. We also have the ability to update this list of foods in future program updates that you can download from the Weight-By-Date web site.
To top
-
Can I import foods from other sources into the database?
Unfortunately there isn't any way to import foods from another source. The problem basically boils down to standardization -- there is no standard file format that manufacturers agree upon, and many don't even list the nutrients in the same order.
We're not ruling the possibility out, but without any type of standardization, this makes it very difficult to create an import feature.
To top
-
How do I add my own custom foods and meals?
Weight-By-Date Pro gives you a way to add your own foods for use in the software, with no limit to the number of foods that you can add. So if you have the food label for a particular food that is not already in the list, just add it to the database and it will instantly be available in your food diary. Here's how to do it:
 1. Choose "Foods and Meals" from the Settings menu.
2. Click the "New" button and enter your new food's details and nutrient amounts in the "Amount" column.
3. Use "% Daily Value" column if you are entering from a food label and you don't know the actual amount. Enter the percentages and Weight-By-Date Pro will calculate the nutritional values for you.
4. Click the "Fat/Carb/Pro Calories" button to calculate the calories from fat, carbs, and protein, along with their percentages.
5. Click OK to save the new food's details.
6. Click OK when you're ready to close the Food Setup window.
To top
-
What restaurants are in the food database?
Weight-By-Date's food database contains thousands of items from many popular fast food restaurants, including: A&W®, Arby's®, Boston Market®, Burger King®, Chick-fil-A®, Church's Chicken®, Dairy Queen®, Hardee's®, Jack in the Box®, KFC®, Long John Silver's®, McDonald's®, Pizza Hut®, Sonic®, Starbucks®, Steak 'N Shake®, Taco Bell®, and Wendy's®.
As more data becomes available, we usually add to this list once or twice per year. They are made available through the free program updates.
To top
-
How do I delete a food for a day?
From the Journal, click on the food in the list that you wish to delete. Then click the Delete button. That's all there is to it.
To top
-
How do I select foods that I have planned in advance (in the Planner)?
From the Journal, click the "Today's Plan" button above the list area. A new screen will pop up, where you can click on the check box next to each food that you want to insert into the current day of the Journal. Finally, click OK when you are finished.
To top
-
Can I copy and paste foods from one day to another in the Journal?
Yes, you can. Here's how to do it:
1. Select the meals that you want to copy by clicking and dragging your mouse over the little gray square to the left of each food entry. When you do this, the rows that you have selected will be highlighted.
2. Put your mouse over the selected rows, right-click, choose "Copy Rows", and then "Normal Copy".
3. Advance the journal to the date where you want to paste these food entries.
4. Right click anywhere in the area where the food entries are normally listed, and choose "Paste Rows". You should see your new meals have been copied over to this day.
To top
-
What are the "Over or Under Target" numbers at the bottom of my meals journal?
Chances are, you have some sort of daily goal (or target) that you want to maintain for some nutrients. For example, you may need to limit yourself to 2000 calories per day or 20 carbs per day. Or you might want to make sure you have at least 60 mg of Vitamin C per day.
For each nutrient that you are tracking, you can define a daily target, and the "Over or Under Target" value shows you how close to that target you are.
To top
-
How do I change my Nutrient Targets?
To select or edit your daily nutritional targets, choose Nutritional Targets from the Settings menu. You can define a daily and per-meal target for each nutrient.
The list on the left is the nutrients that you are tracking in your journal. On the right side of the window you will see the rest of the nutrients in the database, should you wish to define targets for any of these nutrients as well.
Entering the nutrients is much like entering the nutritional values for a custom food, except that calories from fat, carbs, and protein are not automatically calculated for you. You're not required to have target values for every nutrient in the Journal. If there are nutrients that do not have a target, simply enter an "N" for the value or leave it blank.
To top
-
What are Net Calories?
Net Calories are the difference between the calories that you consume and the calories that you burn. In other words:
Net Calories = Calories In - Calories Out
Calories In = Calories that you consume throughout the day from food.
Calories Out = Calories that you burn through exercise as well as the calories that you burn at rest (your BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate).
A positive number for Net Calories means that you ate more calories than you burned. A negative number means that you burned more calories than you ate.
The technical formula for Net Calories is:
Net Calories = Calories Consumed - Calories Burned - BMR.
If you prefer to keep it simple and do not want the BMR to be factored into the calculation, there is an option for this. Choose Program Options from the Settings menu, Click the Journal tab, and then Deselect the "Factor My BMR into the Net Calories Calculation" option.
To top
-
Can I record my recipes and see nutrient totals for each recipe?
Yes! You can use recipes in the classic sense (for when you're preparing something) and you can also use recipes to group food items together in a meal.
Here's how to create a recipe:
1. Choose "Recipes" from the Settings menu.
2. Click the New button next to the "Select a Recipe" field at the top of the window.
3. Type in the name for this recipe, enter the number of servings (or portions) that this recipe contains, and click OK.
4. To add a food or ingredient to this recipe, click the New button above the "Ingredients/Foods Used" list.
5. The window that appears is the same window that you use to select foods for your Journal. Find each food that you want to add to this recipe, enter the servings, and click the green checkmark button. The foods will be added to the Recipe as you go.
6. When you're finished adding foods, click the Close button at the bottom of the food selection window.
7. Click OK when you're through adding recipes or return to Step 2 to create additional recipes.
To top
-
How do I change the nutrients that are shown in my Journal?
Not only can you change the nutrients, you can reorder them from left to right, so your most important nutrients appear first. To do this, choose Nutrient Selections from the Settings menu. From here you'll see the ten nutrients that you're currently tracking. Pick a row and open up the nutrient field in that row to change the nutrient. Click OK when you're ready to close the Nutrient Selections window.
To top
-
Can I print my food diary to show to my doctor, dietitian, or personal trainer?
Yes, you can easily print each day of your food diary by clicking the "Print" button above the list of foods in your Journal. Your doctor, dietitian, or trainer will be able to see what you've eaten each day, along with your daily nutritional totals.
To top
-
Can I keep track of the nutritional supplements that I'm taking?
Yes -- these are treated as foods that you log into your food diary. The pre-loaded foods database doesn't come with many supplements, but you can add them to the database yourself very easily.
To top
-
Can I keep track of my water intake?
Yes. Near the bottom of your food diary there is box where you can enter the number of glasses or cups of water that you have had. You can also use the buttons to the right of the box to increase or decrease the value.
To top
|
