Tech Blog

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As our American friends leave turkey-day behind them, and the food filled holiday season approaches, I thought I'd take a look at Lose It! a well made little iPhone app. that has much more under the hood than a first glance reveals.

Lose It! is the appropriately named app, available for the iPhone and iPod touch from Apple's app store. Basically it's a diet and weight tracking app with a host of good features:

• Set goals and establish a daily calorie budget
• Stay on track each day by recording your food and exercise
• Enter food and exercise easily using a searchable database
• Join together with friends for additional support and motivation
• Monitor your progress with detailed reports and metrics

Using Lose It! is really quite simple, allow me to explain, in a few easy steps:

Step one
Basically, you use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a personal food and weight tracking / monitoring device. First off, you set a goal, which consists of setting a target weight and target date to achieve that weight.

Step two
Then, after every meal or snack, simply enter what you ate from the incredibly complete food lists, and you can see your progress toward your goal. Oh, and don't forget to weigh in occasionally; a nice friendly graph shows your progress toward your goal.

Step three
I'd mentioned that the food list was incredibly complete, that's because it's really an online database (it seems to be updated frequently) containing most packaged food and meal combinations available in North America. That saves a lot of one-finger-ed typing.

Step four
If you're like me, and tend to have regular breakfast or lunch menus, then you can create food groups (menus) that consist of all the food you regularly eat for that meal. Then you simply enter that meal, and all your food values are entered for you.

You know the rest...
So, you enter all the food consumed at every meal and snack. But this isn't a one-way street. You also enter the calorie-burning activities each day too. I work at a desk job, so don't burn many sitting and keyboarding, but I do record my lunch-hour walks, and other activities. Tonight it was Snow Shoveling -- yes, that was in there, as is Housework, Vacuming, and a bunch of others.

So, as you enter activities and meals, you instantly see the calories remaining to be consumed  to achieve (or be under) your goal.

Old is new
The app. so far is cool, but the latest update brings your friends into the game, so to speak, and adds a whole bunch of new ways to display and report on your progress on the Lose It! website. If you and your friend both are using the app, then it's an easy matter to share your log details with them -- all the better to compete and share in the little victories, and your friends can help keep you on track too.

The one issue I have with Lose It! is the lack of Canadian measurements and some Canadian foods. Not too much of an issue, but a minor annoyance.

Really, Lose It! is just a modern approach on the old diet-log concept. Yet by bringing social interaction, data groupings and summaries all together, and by mixing in easy-to-use log entry software, there really is no reason why you shouldn't check Lose It! out if you're looking to lose a few pounds before, or after the holidays.

Oh, did I mention that it's free?