Nutrition Health Center

Get a Calorie Counter Plus

By Terry Dunkle*

By “calorie counter plus” we mean a website or software that not only keeps track of your calories, but does a lot more. My company’s product (see the ad on this page) certainly qualifies, but so do many others. This page lists the most important features to watch for when shopping for such a tool.

Calorie counter try free or buy Download and run DietPower's free trial Purchase DietPower risk-free

A Comprehensive Diary

A true calorie counter plus is a diary that lets you log your foods and exercise and shows you, in real time, how these affect your weight and nutrient balance. Ideally, it deposits each day’s uneaten calories in a “bank” so you can eat them tomorrow -- or withdraws them from the bank on days when you overeat. The idea is to keep your bank balance near zero, so that you are losing weight at precisely the rate you planned.

A Large Database

This is extremely important, because most of your time in a calorie counter plus is spent logging your meals and exercise. Choose a counter that offers at least 20,000 foods, and make sure the number hasn’t been inflated by listing the same foods under multiple names. As for exercises, the database should cover at last 500 kinds -- including not only sports, but occupational and leisure activities.

Based on 20 years of research by DietPower, Inc., this calculator is accurate to 5 percent for most users. (It's not for people who are pregnant or have metabolic disorders. Always see a doctor before starting a diet.)

Birth Date

Sex

Tobacco user?

Height

Weight

Goal Weight

Target Date

Email Address

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?

ft. in.

lbs.

lbs. ?

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Close Goal Weight
Your Goal Weight is the weight you want to achieve. (If it's a lot different from your current weight, you might want to set a goal that represents only the first step. Even a 10-percent weight loss will significantly improve your health.)
Close Target Date
Plan on losing no more than a pound or two per week.  Otherwise, you may eat too little for good nutrition and your weight loss may be temporary.
Close Lactating?
If you are breastfeeding, check this box and the calculator will add calories for producing milk.
Close Tobacco User?
Nicotine speeds your metabolism, making you burn calories faster. (That's why people who quit smoking gain weight.) Check this box if you average more than one cigarette, one-half pipeful, one-quarter of a cigar, or one dip of snuff or chewing tobacco per day.
Close Email Address
Once a month, DietPower will send you the most important nutrition news of the past 30 days, selected by national award-winning editors covering hundreds of medical journals. You can cancel this free, no-obligation service anytime with a single click. We produce it only to promote our weight-loss software. It won't put you on other mailing lists—We're Not That Kind of Company™.

Ease of Use

After a few days’ practice, it shouldn’t take you more than five to ten minutes a day to log your meals and activities. Test-drive your candidates to see if they meet this criterion. If they don’t offer free trials, that’s a bad sign. Walk away and try another brand.

Intelligence

My company’s calorie counter plus not only calculates your calorie budget, but adjusts it daily by comparing your eating and exercise history with your weight change. This guarantees reaching your goal on your target date. In addition, DietPower shows you a Nutrition Quotient™ -- a single score reflecting how well your nutrient intake matches your ideal. It also shows you, in real time, which of your favorite foods will do the most to raise your NQ.

Although other programs offer neither of these features, many have others that are impressive. Read their descriptions carefully -- you may find one that does exactly what you want.

Support

The average calorie counter plus offers poor technical support. Many offer no phone support at all; most reply to emails the next business day or even later. Because learning such a tool usually involves a lot of questions, look carefully at support methods and hours, and test the online knowledge base to see if it is clear, complete, logically organized, and easily searchable.

Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of DietPower, Inc.