Weight-By-Date™ Pro

Reviewed by: Lianne Reitter, send e-mail
Published by: ProVariant Software, go to the web site
Requires: Pentium or equivalent AMD Processor (Pentium III or Duron recommended), Windows 95 or higher (Windows 98 recommended), 16MB RAM, 20MB of free disk space, dialup or broadband Internet connection
MSRP: $39.95 (download)

It’s something a lot of us have to face at one time or another. Your jeans haven't really shrunk in the wash - you have grown in the hips. It happens to me every year, just after New Year's Day and I have to toss aside my cavalier “it’s the holiday season” attitude and take on a more serious “summer is coming” mind set. Each year it seems to get more and more difficult to get rid of the pounds I put on during the holidays. But this coming New Year’s resolution is going to have a lot of help by way of some modern technology and Weight-By-Date Pro, a new calorie counting, nutrition watching and exercise logging software from ProVariant Software.

You might think that this is just another diet gizmo that somehow uses a computer to sell you yet another useless diet book, or drags you to a late night TV infomercial for a portable gym. But some of us have gone through enough weight induced aggravation every year to know that the key to losing weight is keeping the calorie intake below the calorie burn rate every day. What Weight-By-Date™ Pro does is help you track every calorie in and every calorie out.

The software begins by gathering your personal statistics. Now for heaven's sake be honest, don't suck that gut in while you are taking your measurements, and don't lie about your weight. Without an honest starting point Weight-By-Date Pro will not be able to properly track your progress and you will just be wasting your time. Once Weight-By-Date Pro knows what you are starting with, input your goal weight, then estimate how long you want to take to get there. Weight-By-Date Pro will calculate how many fewer calories you need to take in, in order to reach your goal. Right off the bat, Weight-By-Date Pro has probably helped you because now you know that you can't possibly loose those five pounds in a week and you have been saved a lot of frustration and disappointment.

So, with all your vital statistics recorded and a realistic goal set, the real fun begins. Weight-By-Date Pro’s interface is simple yet robust. Down the left side of the program window are buttons for the Calendar you will use, a Journal in which to list all your food items, exercise programs and notes, a Planner to record future meals and workouts, charts to show your progress in weight loss, your Body Mass Index and the like, a Tools button to easily access the Weight-By-Date Pro calculators and a Links button to get to pre-selected web sites (or those that you choose) which will provide you with even more help in reaching your goal weight.

Access the calendar within Weight-By-Date Pro and you will find a familiar interface. As with the calendar hanging on your wall, you record your current weight in today’s box. Also showing for current date, is the number of calories you can eat for the day and a quick link to your journal. The journal is where most of the action takes place. Here is where you will record every morsel of food you eat and with over 6000 preloaded food items, it shouldn't be too hard to find everything. Each food item is detailed with its nutritional information and calorie count. You may want to just watch your salt or fiber intake; Weight-By-Date Pro can track as many as ten different nutritional items. Track saturated fat and calorie intake along with your Vitamin B or alcohol intake. You can get down to the dirtiest detail of your eating and drinking habits. Pick your food item and the number of servings you had (cup, half cup, etc.) and you're done. Weight-By-Date Pro records the food item and reduces the number of calories you have left for the day. Just that fast, just that easy. Now if you are like me, you have the same breakfast every day. Using the Recipe feature in Weight-By-Date Pro you can program every food item you have for breakfast and then just record the recipe every morning instead of going through each food item day after day. Using the recipe feature takes a lot of the tedium out of tracking the foods you eat too.

But you are not just eating all day, you are working your butt off too. Even that walk around the block with the dog must count for something? Well of course it does. We know that increasing ‘calories out’ is just as important as sensibly reducing ‘calories in’ and Weight-By-Date Pro allows you to easily record those too. From the same Journal menu, record your workout for the day. Maybe you did a 30 minute aerobic workout (take 297 off your net calorie intake for the day) or maybe you just puttered around in the garden (that’s a cool 184 calories gone). If you keep your statistics up to date, Weight-By-Date Pro will calculate exactly how many calories you burned by measuring the work load against your body weight. The heavier you are the more calories you burn doing the same amount of work. You need that kind of detailed information to accurately track your net calorie loss in order to loose the weight you want, in the time you want to loose it.

Weight-By-Date Pro can be used by the whole family. Each family member can log on to their personal profile (password protected of course) and record their daily progress. And Weight-By-Date Pro is totally programmable in that you can add any food or exercise item that might be missing from the lists. Are you using a point system diet? While not preloaded, such items can be tracked by customizing the nutrition list. Weight-By-Date Pro is flexible enough that anyone on any regimen will find it a great companion.

Weight-By-Date Pro does not stop with you sitting in front of your desktop computer. You can also go mobile. Weight-By-Date™ Pro has an accompanying add-on program called Weight-By-Date Mobile. Load this onto your Palm powered PDA and you can record your meals and exercise programs outside the house, wherever you go. When you get back home just sync the PDA to your desktop and all the day's information is updated to your desktop software instantly.

Even if you only have a few pounds to lose, Weight-By-Date Pro can be of enormous help. The more aware you are of your eating habits the more likely it is you'll reach your weight reduction goals. Recommended.

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