Nutrition Health Center

The Ultimate Diet Planner

By Terry Dunkle*

No diet planner is perfect, but some are far better than others. I've tested hundreds in the two decades years since I began building my own. Here's what to look for:

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

Before You Accept Any Diet Planner...

...make sure it calculates an accurate calorie budget. Test it against this tool:

A Good Diet Planner "Learns"

It should remember your favorite foods and make them easy to find. It should also watch how your weight changes in response to your calorie intake, and adjust your calorie budget accordingly.

A Diet Planner Should Track More Than Calories

It should monitor at last the dozen or so nutrients on food labels, and preferably many more. Reason: As long as you're counting calories, you should also be watching sodium, fats, vitamins, minerals, and protein to help lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis, and other nutrition-sensitive hazards.

A Diet Planner Should Have Reliable Support

Can you phone a live expert if you strike a snag while logging a midnight snack? Will your emails be answered promptly? Do the people on the other end of the line speak good English and actually use the program themselves? Are they there on Thanksgiving Day? If all the answers are "yes," you've found something rare.

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

- -

?

ft. in.

lbs.

lbs. ?

- - ?

?

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™.

Is That Diet Planner Guaranteed?

Many aren't. Some don't even offer a free trial.

One planner, DietPower®, has a one-year refund policy and can do everything described above. It's not for everyone, but for many it's worth a free trial. (If you don't like it, DietPower will help you find another brand.)

Founder and Chairman, DietPower, Inc.