The game of weight gain/loss is an age-old one…some people weigh too much, while others (like yours truly) weigh too little. As body fat transfers have not been invented yet, sensible and strict dieting is the only thing one can do to regain control. iambic’s Health&Diet manager wants to make your life easier…but can it stack up?
Before the program can be used, a profile must be created. These contain diet goals, weight settings and other information, and allow multiple users to share one installation of HDM:
Once a profile has been activated, the program switches to “overview” mode. It lists your caloric balance for the day, among other things:
Calorie intakes have to be added - this is ideally accomplished via food already contained in the (well-filled) database:
Once your food of choice has been found, the exact amount must be entered:
Special activities (sports) deduct calories from your body. Thus, they must be entered, too:
Actual weight data can be added by hand to help the program determine your caloric needs:
The program furthermore contains a lovely BMI calculator - stop fighting around with tables and start getting meaningful results:
Finally, ideal training pulse rates can be computed:
Even though metric units can be activated in the prefs, some settings always remain in US units:
This review looked at version 3.01 of the program on a Treo 680. The program was stable in the reviewing period and needs about 3 MB of RAM.
In the end, diet managers lve and die by their users discipline and the database quality. While no software in the world can affect the first, the database always was a neuralgic point for this kind of program. iambic’s HDM is no exception - while its database is useful and well-filled, a slight “american slant” can always be felt. As the program is well-done otherwise, I consider it best-of-breed…get the free trial before deciding if its worth the 20$ for you!
