by Geof Newton
[The Article - Part I] [The Article - Part II]
The data in the table below should help you make a quick comparison of the functionality of some of the programs we tested and indicate how much time you'll spend entering meals each day. For a typical day, we entered our meal items and exercise, noting how long it took to enter a meal, how many food items were not found in the database, and the various statistics which the program produced. Variations in the various calorie calculations are indicative of the differences in the formulae used by the programs, in the amount of a normal serving, and in the way levels of activity are defined. It's interesting to note that while the raw numbers fluctuate from program to program, the relative percentages of the various nutrients are very similar since most of the programs evaluated are drawing off of the same US SR data. Our test day consisted of:
Meals
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| Breakfast | 1 Nutrigrain Cereal Bar | 1/2 cup of dry roasted peanuts, salted | 1 glass cranberry juice | |
| Lunch | Tossed salad, no dressing | 1/2 cup of mandarin oranges in syrup | 2/3 cup of baby carrots, raw | 2 graham crackers |
| 1/4 cup of dry roasted peanuts, salted | 1/4 cup of seedless raisins | |||
| Afternoon Snack | 1/2 cup wasabi peas | 4 Hershey's Kiss | ||
| Dinner | 1 chicken hot dog topped with a slice of American cheese and salsa | 1/8 cup of pasta | 1/2 cup of canned corn | |
| Dessert | 1/4 cup chocolate chips | 2 cookies |
Exercise
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Running, hill repeats, trail, paved road course of 10.5 mile in 74 minutes.
A few of the programs exhibited unique problems which are annotated below.
| Software Program | Meal Entry Time (mm:ss) | Food Item Database Misses | BMR | Suggested Daily Intake to Maintain | Calories In | Fat, Carbohydrate, Protein Breakdown (grams) | Calories Expended |
| Crosstrainer | 9:15 | 2 | 1683 | 1753 | 2262 | 98 289 67 | 872 |
| Diet Power | 8:58 | 1 | 1974 | 2922 | 2856 | 138 368 76 | 1077 |
| Do It! | 13:13 | 7 | 1764 | 3033 | 132 450 63 | 1140 | |
| FitDay | 9:56 | 3 | 1567 | 2585 | 2951 | 105 469 63 | 975 |
| Food Smart | 9:58 | 5 | 3295 | 2881 | 112 446 66 | 1484 | |
| French Diet | 7:35 | 5 | 1900 | 3220 | 2369 | 81 347 62 | - |
| Fuel | 9:001 | 2 | 1629 | 3456 | 973 | ||
| Heart Smart | 5:11 | 4 | 2188 | 2462 | 120 310 62 | 1079 | |
| Kathleen's Diet | 8:332 | 2 | 1472 | 2765 | 1167 | ||
| Life Form | 5:20 | 1 | 1567 | 3118 | 2728 | 126 370 71 | 971 |
| Nutrition Wizard QT | 5:28 | 33 | 2360 | 2300 | 43% 42% 14% | ||
| Nutribase EZ | 15:00 | 2 | 2353 | 1899 | 62 313 39 | 1107 | |
| Nutribase IV Plus | 12:09 | 3 | 2623 | 2168 | 88 321 41 | 1049 | |
| NutriGenie Athlete | Failed4 | ||||||
| NutriGenie Calorie Counter | Failed4 | ||||||
| NutriGenie Optimal Nutrition | 7:58 | 43 | 2442 | 2121 | 100 253 57 | ||
| Paraben Diet Tracker | 15:33 | 6 | 1833 | 78 261 49 | |||
| Performance Diet | 7:54 | 3 | 2755 | 127 341 85 | 846 |
1: Estimate - program crashed mid-way through entry and corrupted one of its
databases.
2: The evaluation version is limited to the entry of 5 food items per day.
3: Partial database in evaluation version.
4: Evaluation copy printed white text on white background making it
"challenging" to enter any data or get back any meaningful results.
Columns represent the opinions of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the attitudes of the club.