Diet & Weight Loss - Towards more effective communication

W

WinstonWolfe

I consult to several personal training and corporate health groups, and have been evolving a spreadsheet that auto generates diets.

However, I am still not happy with the format, syntax, output etc.

If anyone wants to peruse these two examples,

Ex. 1
Ex. 2

and give me feedback on how they think a diet can be more easily laid out and expressed, I would be very grateful.

One of the goals is to restrict the diet to one A4 page, though a second page for explanatory notes would be acceptable. This presents a challenge in how to make the syntax more concise yet readily comprehensible.

Note they are more portion guides than culture specific recipes.

The general approach for dietary advice now is to give reasonably concrete guidance on the good stuff, and allow for a small % of discretionary Calorie intake. However, some people need a lot of guidance on interpreting the discretionary.
 
Just opened both of these, and definitely find the Omnivore page SO much easier to read, take in, digest :D and understand.

I really only just opened them, haven't read them properly (as I have to make dinner now) but format-wise (for me) it is an easy choice.
 
The second one that is the pdf works for me. But to throw a curve ball, some people will work better from the spreadsheet style one, they just can't make decissions, you need to spoon feed them.

So for those that can select the foods and make something out of a choice the pdf is good. For those that need you to tell them what to do the spreadsheet style one is better.

The hard part is working out which kind of person they are.

Personal preference is the pdf.

cheers
Graeme
 
Thanks a lot. You're confirming the feedback I've had from corporate health workshops.

The pdf seems to suit more people, probably because menu items can be scanned and a choice that appeals made quickly....whereas the xls offers no clue on how the ingredients might be prepared, and there's no flexibility.

However, the pdf is harder to program with variable portion sizes.
Eventually, I'll have to outsource the coding cos it is getting beyond me.

I use the xls when athletes want to make weight for competitive events, and there's no margin for error. But this is too rigid for general weight loss.



I've been trying to persuade the govt to create a free website where you punch in your vital stats and activity, some dietary preferences, and you get a diet plan like the pdf. Though no luck yet with Ms Roxon.

No govt anywhere has anything like this yet, but with the right programmers I have the backend modules ready to rock n roll.
And I firmly believe medically endorsed diet plans should be made free and widely available. There's too much misinformation and confusion.
 
WW, I prefer example 1. I use something similar in Excel myself as a diet planner. I like having it in excel so the breakdown of each food item can be seen and portions tweaked if necessary. Also very easy to chop and change, add new items to a meal or insert an extra meal etc.
 
Thanks Steve. The first example is how I first developed the diet planner.

There's a database of ingredients that an index/match is done against, and the measurement and no. of Cals returned. So it allows one to adjust portions and mess with the FPC ratio and AM/PM/Ev split.

The second example requires a fixed database of menu items of varying size, which is less flexible for meeting the needs of various cultures.

And ultimately, I have it in mind to optimize a product that any govt in the world can use to provide free culture specific dietary/portion guidelines via a website. Once I start using menu item names, culture specificity is required.
 
WW, sounds like a good idea. More information for people on healthy diets would always be useful for people to take up.

If you have an iPhone, there's an app. I found yesterday. Haven't really played with it much as it's a lot of effort to type all the specifics in, but check out 'iKeepFit' - there's a paid and free version in the app store. It also has a diet planner on there where you can insert meals plans, it calculates your recommended dietary intake based on variables you input such as personal measurements and activities (haven't looked into what method they're using for it), plus has a database of foods to insert into your meals or create your own food items.
 
Steve, there's a plethora of stuff on the net and for phones that calculates energy expenditure and Cals of various meals.

Trouble is, energy expenditure is generally based on the same ridiculous estimates used by the majority of dietitians and health authorities.....usually harris benedict or schofield equations to estimate resting energy expenditure, and then 1 of 4 or 5 multipliers for activity levels. These are notoriously inaccurate for well controlled and predictable weight loss.

Generally, general practice dietitians slot you into one of the categories and if you haven't lost weight after 2 weeks, they suggest you drop your intake 2-300 Cals. This fuzzy approach helps their business model by making clients dependent on repeat consults. But really, there's no need for it.

The software offerings to construct diets are also ubiquitous. However, the more prescriptive diets are generally US centric, and the self construction approach is very time consuming. My angle is to encourage the govt and health professions to remove much of the confusion by endorsing one website that puts up 1 week eating plans representative of the main dietary preferences - omnivore, vegetarian, vegan, diabetic, gluten free, etc, all at an appropriate level of Calories for weight loss and maintenance.

It could be so easily done. Just no political will or insight into how effective it would be.
 
Too true. On the site I frequent there are widely varying method/results depending on who's writing the article as to calculating energy expenditure and resulting diets.

Good luck with it WW, as I said it sounds like a good idea. Now if there were some votes in it, I'm sure you'd get all the support you want from the govt. next week - you'll just have to wait until the political cycle moves from the current environment focus to our waistlines and health/eating. :rolleyes:
 
calorieking.com.au has great diet planner software built into it. Maybe look into their format and see what you think.
 
luckyone said:
calorieking.com.au has great diet planner software built into it. Maybe look into their format and see what you think.
Click to expand...

Hi Lucky, yeah it is amongst the best on the market. But it still takes a lot of time to put a weekly menu together.....and most aren't sure whether their plan meets macro and micronutrient criteria adequately. I am still in favor of the govt putting out balanced plans endorsed by health professionals, and making free on the internet. it would be a better value add than free plasmas and insulation.
 
Oh, I totally agree. Something really needs to be done about the ever expanding waistlines in this country. I've done something about mine (and still have a looooong way to go) but it's been very difficult without any real support. I hate that smokers get so much support to quit smoking, yet overweight people seem to get nothing. Where's the education about healthy eating?
 
RumpledElf said:
Primary schools, where it is least useful. Kids don't cook or buy food, and they don't understand any of it so they interpret it completely wrong.
Click to expand...

absolutely agree with you there elfy....it is all about the parents.

When I was young, 99 times out of a 100 we said "what's for dinner Mum?"

Nowadays too many Mums say "What do you feel like for dinner kids?"
 
WinstonWolfe said:
Nowadays too many Mums say "What do you feel like for dinner kids?"
Click to expand...
Not in THIS house. I'm mean :D

But that healthy eating subject only taught my offspring that fat is bad. Visible fat. Thus, steaks and chops and roasts are bad. Chips and crisps and sausages and pies and sausage rolls and lollies and chocolate are good. She did bring home some very condescending photocopied healthy eating brochures too, with food pyramids on them, none of which helps if you live on prepacked junk food.

It took about a year for the questions of "what has more fat, an apple or a banana?" to go away when she was raiding the fridge looking for snacks. Been over 2 years now and she's still neurotic about visible fat, but it's dropped off. Should see the look of horror on her face when she eats crackling and we tell her what it is *evil grin*

2 years on and we haven't changed our diet at all - still fairly high calorie by Biggest Loser masterclass standards, but all made from scratch with plenty of vegetables and very little processed stuff, and the fat parents with fat kids are still having generic brand meat pies, chips and 2 minute noodles washed down with coke. And we're still thin, they're still fat.

They should hand out free nutrition classes - as in, you do hands on stuff not just a brochure - when you turn up pregnant if you can't pass a basic nutrition questionaire. Even more so if that routine bloodwork they do says you're deficient in a bunch of vitamins.

My other half got that routine bloodwork for something and they said he was drastically low in vitamin D and folate, of all things ... had to forcibly make him leave the house and get sunlight ...
 
steveadl said:
WW, sounds like a good idea. More information for people on healthy diets would always be useful for people to take up.

If you have an iPhone, there's an app. I found yesterday. Haven't really played with it much as it's a lot of effort to type all the specifics in, but check out 'iKeepFit' - there's a paid and free version in the app store. It also has a diet planner on there where you can insert meals plans, it calculates your recommended dietary intake based on variables you input such as personal measurements and activities (haven't looked into what method they're using for it), plus has a database of foods to insert into your meals or create your own food items.
Click to expand...

Don't have a iPhone, but had read about Lose it!

Succeed at weight loss with Lose It!

Set goals and establish a daily calorie budget that enables you to meet them. Stay on track each day by recording your food and exercise and staying within your budget.

Enter food and exercise easily using a searchable database. Quickly re-enter foods and meals you’ve had in the past. Lose It! together with friends for additional support and motivation. Setup motivators to help keep you on track. Use detailed online reports to track your progress.
Click to expand...

Here's a couple more

Free iPhone apps to Lose Weight

Dieting web-apps
 
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