Custom Variables, Setting Up Your

Custom variables are special measurements that you can record daily in your Body Log, which can then be graphed on your Home Screen. Examples:

• Waist, hip, chest, bicep, thigh, or other body measurements

• Blood pressure, glucose reading, cholesterol level, or other physiological variables.

• Hours of sleep, number of cigarettes smoked, or other habitual variables.

You can set up and graph as many as six custom variables. All must be expressed as decimal numbers, however. This means that you won't be able to log 35-1/2 as your waist size—you'll need to enter 35.5. Similarly, 7:30 hours of sleep must be logged as 7.5, and a blood pressure of 120/80 requires two logs—one for the systolic pressure and one for the diastolic. (You can plot them on the same graph, however. See "Two-Variable Graphs," below.) In addition, all numbers must be positive (zero or higher).

To set up custom variables:

From your Home Screen:

1. Open the View Menu (by clicking the word View).

2. Click "Choose Home Screen." The Choose Home Screen dialog will open.

3. Click the "Set up My Custom Variables" tab.

4. Under "Variable Name," enter a name of 30 characters or shorter. This will appear above the graph on your Home Screen.

5. (Optional) Under "Goal or Ideal Value," enter any number. This, too, will appear on your Home Screen, along with a blue line drawn across the graph at that level. (You can enter the figure to any number of decimal places, but Diet Power will round it to the nearest four significant digits.)

6. Click OK. The Choose Home Screen dialog will vanish, leaving you back at the Home Screen.

Two-Variable Graphs

You can plot two variables on the same Body History graph:

1. Enter the names of the two variables in adjacent Variable Name fields.

2. (Optional) Enter each variable's goal or ideal value.

3. Check the "Plot both of these" box.

4. If you also want to plot the sum of the two variables on the same graph, check the "and their sum" box.

5. Enter a title in the Graph Title field.

6. Click OK.

To choose a custom variable as your Home Screen...

...click the Choose Home Screen tab.

To leave the Set up My Custom Variables tab:

If you want to save your work, click OK to return to the Home Screen, or click the Choose Home Screen tab to select a new Home Screen.

If you'd rather discard the work, click Cancel or press the Escape key. Diet Power will discard any work you've done in the Choose Home Screen dialog and return you to the Home Screen.

(Note: If the OK and Cancel buttons are not visible, see Taskbar, Hiding to Make Screens Deeper.)

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Last Modified: 1/28/04