I feel like I have died and gone to heaven. I'm still getting used to using this, but I am very appreciative of how easy and convenient it is to use. Thank you so much.

Hi Rick,

Thanks for being so responsive to our requests. It will be great to trend data over time. CalorieLookup is just a fabulous experience all around. The thoughtfulness with wich you develop and manage it makes it so. Thanks!

Hello -

I've been thinking about the request for access to reports from all time, not the last week. I decided that if users put data into the site, then they should expect to be able to get all the data back out of the site. It's your data after all.

Therefore, I followed up on some recent user requests and implimented a feature that generates a CSV file for your food diary for all time. A CSV file is kind of like a simplified spreadsheet. You can load it into Excel or other programs.

If you are logged in, the link below should generate the file for you.

Please note that this is a lot of work for the web server, so it takes a little while to load, and also please keep in mind that it may slow down the site for other users while it is being generated.

The file includes the date, the name of the food, the amount eaten, the portion, the total number of calories, and the calories from fat, protein, carbs, and alcohol.

I didn't create an exercise report yet because I am working on an enhancement to the exercise diary, so I'm waiting until after that to code up the CSV file for it.

Let me know what you think ...

Export your full food diary history

In that same vein, I'm curious to how many duplicate entries there are in the database, not in title but nutritional values content, i.e. how many different type of potato chips that are basically the same thing.

Maybe consider a couple of features to work toward consolidating the database and more re-use of existing entries? Perhaps when adding a food, suggest some entries that are very close value-wise to the one being added to use, with the option to have a personal alias list to enhance the search, where the aliases point to the real entries but only affect the search speed of the individual user? Might not do much for the current number of entries, but could help prevent entry list size growth later. I know there are several duplicate foods I've added that I didn't use a good search term for initially, and later ran into another existing food item that would have worked.

Also, an option to restrict entries to the vanilla USDA database entries might be useful.

Just some thoughts...

All -

I've made a small update which you may not notice. I changed the maximum number of searchresults from 150 to 50. That means for searches with a lot of results, there is now less work for the database, the program that turns the results from the database into HTML, and less work for your browser. It's also less data to transmit. This should make many of the searches go faster, but at the cost of limiting the results returned in a search.

Let me know if it turns out to be a problem, I can easily turn it back, or change it to someother number.

Cheers, Rick

Thanks SuniDayz, there was a little typo. It should work now.

Cheers, Rick

It seems to be acting funny.. looking to add enchilada Casserole! :)

Update Did Not Go Smoothly
First, I'd like to apologize to anyone who was trying to use the site this afternoon, but found it acting haywire. I spent a couple of hours putting up some pretty extensive updates, and the process did not go smoothly.

My hosting plan has added more functionality to make it easier for customers like me to manage applications like CalorieLookup.com. Unfortunately, I knew how to do it the old way, and thought I knew how to manage the new way, but didn't. All kinds of chaos ensued. I got that all straitened out.

Then, it turns out that the version of Rails (the platform that CalorieLookup runs on) is subtly different on my development computer compared to the server, so weird things happened that took me quite a while to track down.

Benefits for New Users
The good news is, that it all seems to be working well right now. So what changed?

The focus of this update was to ease the transition for unlogged in users to being logged in users. I wrote a lot of code to manage food and exercise entries as cookies for users who aren't logged in. So now:

1. If you use the site without having an account, when you come back later, the foods and exercises that you have added to the diaries will be there (assuming you are using the same computer). You can also switched from the food diary to the exercise diary and back again, and your food diary will still be there.

2. If you use the site without having an account, when you create an account, the foods and exercises you already added to your diaries will be added for you.

3. If you have an account but forget to sign in, when you do sign in the foods that you added to your diary when you weren't signed in will be added for you automatically.

Been Wanting To do This
I had to modify a lot of files across the site to get it to work right. Also, for all the regular CalorieLookup users, it probably won't have that much of an impact.

I've been wanting to get to this for a year or more. It always bothered me that when users used the site, they so easily lost their data. It seemed very disrespectful to them.

Let me know if anything is broken
I don't think I'm going to sleep well tonight, worrying that I missed something and something is broken somewhere. Please let me know asap if something bad happens!

Thanks for you patience.

Cheers, Rick

1. In terms of "less than 1 gram", you can either put in zero, or put in a decimal, like ".5". Less than sign doesn't work.

2. This is the second time someone has requested the ability to attach notes to a day. I'll add it to my list of things to add to the site. It doesn't seem like it would complicate the site too much to include something like that.

Thanks again for using CalorieLookup!

Cheers, Rick

I have entered a couple of food labels recently. Both had sugars of "less than 1%." Is there any way to add the < sign to that field - it didn't seem to take for me (although the percentages still came out ok in the end).
Also, on the excercise page or possibly somewhere else - is there any way to put a "notes" page or something like it. For example, a day when you did not excercise or excercised less than you wanted, you might be able to post a note to yourself stating "ill, or traveling, etc." Thanks. j

Thanks! - I will take your suggestion to print out the reports for now. j

Just a suggestion. You can always print out your weekly report and keep those in a personal at your house until Rick comes up with a way for you to go back and see farther.

I would love to be able to export the reports as you suggest. I think this will be quite useful for me and possibly my doctor to show an overall sequence over a few months. Would be grateful for whatever you can come up with! Love this site! j

Right now, the reports cover exactly the last week. The thinking behind that was anything older than that is "water under the bridge". Perhaps what I could do is set it up so that you can export all of your data, like eddefelt asked for below. Then you could pull it into a spreadsheet program or something and slide and dice it however you want.

Cheers, Rick

I just noticed that the reports only go back about 1 week. Is there any other way to track this farther back than that? I would love to have a continual tracking of this information. j

Awesome. I can do this on my crack berry now :)! This was the only feature missing from your site that really concerned me. So far I have lost over 40 pounds. Thanks for a great site. BTW, I am a huge data hog, would it be possible to get all of my data off your site in a report of some kind, (CSV would be fine), so I can spreadsheet my entire history?

Tried it out as well on the BB, in both the normal browser and Opera mini. Looks good. Found one typo for you, the "//" is missing from the web address in the bottom paragraph on the front page.

Ought to be handy the next time I have to hit the road.

Nice job!

Rick,

The mobile beta works great on my BlackBerry. I tested the functionality to ensure it appeared correctly on the live site and everything seems to be coming across just fine.

Although it's a little "stripped," I think that's the way to go with a mobile application. Otherwise it will become too cluttered and difficult to navigate as you mentioned.

The text-only interface is more than enough to use the mobile version on-the-go. It may be difficult, but if you need the practice you could try to capture some of the site graphics or create tables for the nutritional information.

Final ruling is a thumbs-up even without any enhancements (although #4 could be a potential issue). I think it's the perfect slimmed-down version of the site for a mobile device. Thanks for thinking of the traveler's on the site =)

Hello,

I've put up an initial version of CalorieLookup that should work from some mobile browsers. There are a few limitations in this initial beta version:

1. The app requires cookies for the diary function to work. Most mobile browsers, like on the blackberry, support cookies fine, but the site won't work right on some mobile phones that don't have cookie support in their browser. However, you can look up the calories in foods in any browser.

2. Only the food diary is implemented. You can't tack exercise on the mobile version. There's no clubhouse, etc... either.

3. You can't create an account on the mobile version, but you can log into an accout you've created on the main versoin.

4. The diary only shows the current day. Furthermore, it thinks the current day is whatever the current day is on the Easy Coast. So here in Seattle, at 9pm it thinks it's tomorrow already, and you can't see your diary.

I'm not sure how much of a problem the first three items are. Mobile apps benefit from having as few features as possible, because they canbe hard to navigate on the phone. I might just leave the mobile version that simple.

I will fix #4 though. Not being able to access your diary at night is very annoying.

Otherwise, anyone with a mobile browser who wants to try it out, let me know how it works, or if it works at all. It might be on and offline now and then as I tweak it and what not.

Cheers, Rick

http://mobile.calorielookup.com

"I can't believe it's not butter" has a spray and a spread. Both have 0 cholesterol. Good luck!!

I have been using this site for about 2 weeks and really love it. The additions to the exercise board are terrific. My goal is not just weight loss but I am also trying to reduce my cholesterol - it is slightly higher than it should be. The doctor says that I should cut out cheese and butter. If anyone knows of a good substitute for the butter that is lower in cholesterol, I'd love to hear it. I welcome any other suggestions for the cholesterol issue also. Thank you again. j

Is the term "impact" the same as "intensity" when describing an exercise? Please clarify. Thanks!

thanks for another added benefit. I walk my dog and your numbers help me.
The biking is also very helpful. We biked 125 minutes today and your moderate numbers are very close to our estimates.
thanks a bunch.

thank you rick, for all the added walking exercises. now i can get a more accurate count of calories burned.

Rick, Thanks for adding all of the new exercises. I was happy to see fencing on there!!! Wonderful! Thanks for all the good work you do on the site!

I finally got my copy of _Healther and Fitness Through Physical Activity_ today. I used it to add in a slew of new exercises, and added some nuances to existing exercises, particularly walking.

Cheers, Rick

I want to thank you Rick for creating such a great site. I have been working out and dieting for about a month now, and two weeks in I found this site. This site has made it much easier for me to keep up with my exercise and calorie in take. This is an AWESOME site! Thanks!!

thanks for the info on the hearts.

Hello,

This moring around 1:00am Eastern time, some bad guys attacked CalorieLookup. What they tried to do was to inject links to malware into the database. I am still investigating, but as far as I can tell, the defences that I put into place against such an attack were effective in keeping the data clean. However, they did knock the site offline, and I didn't check it until noon today Eastern Time.

Sorry for the troubles if you were trying to use the site today :(

Cheers, Rick

The bulletin board only shows the last 50 or so postings, and the posting explaining the hearts dropped off the bottom :(

Anyway, you get hearts for using the food diary and exercise diary. Also for use the clubhouse. You also get hearts when you enter a food, and especially when someone else uses a food that you entered.

You can have 1-5 hearts for each level, and the levels go White, Red, Blue, and finally Gold. When you get enough hearts you can delete offensive postings on the bulletin board. When you have five gold hearts you can access the "Admin" tab, which lets you delete foods nd tags.

Cheers, Rick

"Welcome to CalorieLookup. The hearts represent a kind of 'user rating' based on how much a user uses and contributes to CalorieLookup."

This is what Rick told me about a week or two ago when I asked the same question. He attached a link from an earlier posting about it, but I cannot get it to open anymore. I have put in several food items and used other people's items, and my little hearts seem to multiply.
Hope this helps!

what are the stars for and what do they mean or do?


:-)

this site is easy to use not confusing with all the exact amounts and very precise


GREAT JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i have already lost a couple of pounds

i have been on this about 3 weeks and have already lost 10 pounds. adding this to my previous weight lose and i have lost 14 lbs in just over a month. i am so excited. I love this site!!

All -

I'm about to leave to take the wife and kids camping for a few days. I'll check in and make sure CalorieLookup is still running when and if I get the chance (we're just going to a Washington State Park near Wintrop, so I'll probably be able to get wireless access from time to time while we're driving around, etc...).

I don't expect any problems with the site or anything, but in case something happens, that's were I am ...

Cheers, Rick

PS: Assuming the weather is nice, this is where I'll be..

Pearrygin Lake

Mrs T:

Depending on how much effort you put into it, one of the bicycling activities might be a good proxy for it. If you really pump one of those things, you burn a lot of calories on them. If you do it slow, it's still exercise, but you don't necessarily burn a lot.

HTH

Cheers, Rick

Someone suggested that I create a facebook fan page for CalorieLookup. For what it's worth, here it is:

CalorieLookup Facebook Fan Page

I use my elliptical 5 days a week for 30 minute sessions and average 8 minute miles. With the exercise options given...what do I post myself under...aerobic exercise? running? walking?

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Dietary Guide for Americans (http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/default.htm), total fat intake should be between 20% and 35% of total calories, and carbs should be 45% to 65%.

THe US Dept. of Health doesn't list a specific guideline for protein on their website, but the Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-diet/NU00200) recommends that 10% to 35% of total calories should come from protein. Their recommendations for fats and carbohydrates are similar to the U.S. Department of Health's.

I was glad to find "miscellaneous" in the food list. I found it useful for times when grazing occurs and you need to lump calories together. Going to Costco and having samples is an example. It is much easier than creating a food when you do not have the nutritional information. Thanks again for the site.

I've checked out several sites for calorie counting and food tracking. Compared to the others, this one is great. My compliments to the developers! Nice and simple, this does exactly what I need it to. I'll definitely recommend it to other folks.

Can I take your question a step further? What percentage of your diet should come from protein? Fat? Carbs?

900-1000 is too little , especially if you are training. I have been tracking since July 15th, averaging 700-900 calories per day and have lost 19 lbs. The difference is that I am not training, in fact not even exercising. You will defiantly need more calories per day than that with your activity level. I would think you should aim for 1400-1500 per day to continue to lose.

How many calories a day should you consume? I am trying to lose some more weight...I lost 16 pounds from april 1 to august 1 just exercising and counting carb exchanges. I am now trying to keep track of my calories as well to make sure that I am getting proper nutrition to aid me in losing more weight. I am also training for a 5K that is on Sept 7th so I want to make sure that I don't get run down by not eating properly. I have heard to eat 1600-1800 a day??? But in the last week since I have been using this site I have only been getting about 900-1000 a day...is this too little?

Hi everyone. I just wanted to say that writing down calories never worked for me, but this seems easier due to the fact that it more so calculates everything for me. A bit of advice to everyone, I just starting taking kick boxing classes and they are so much fun! I hated going to the gym and sitting on a treadmill for an hour. The classes are more of a socialable environment and you can really feel it the next day. Try it!

Tonight I uploaded a few tweaks to the site.

1. I added the faq to the links at the bottom of each page, and moved the links around a little.
2. I took out links to the video page.
3. I did some SEO stuff. Basically, I modified the links directly to foods to include the name of the food in the URL. The site works fine without the name of the food, but when Google comes along and crawls the site, it helps to have more informaton in the title than just the id number of the food. Nnow when someone searches for nutrition information for a particular food, it is more likely that Google (and other search engines) will suggest calorielookup.com.

Cheers, Rick

Congrats to both of you on your success, and I really appreciate you posting about it here. My sincerest hope is that you find life more enjoyable as a result of increased awareness about your diet and exercise, and increasing or maintaining your fitness level.

For me, once I started understanding where the calories were coming from and where they were going, I could start to really take pleasure in things like having a cookie at night instead of feeling guilty about it.

Cheers, Rick

i've been using this site 5 weeks and only lost 4 pounds. Congratulations on YOUR WONDERFUL weight loss. now i'm off on vacation, and the Hampton Inn has wonderful cookies every evening. I figure it would be rude not to eat one, or two.... :)
At least i take the stairs up to my 4th floor room.

I have been on this site for 4 weeks and have been posting what I eat and I have lost 7 lb.I love this site.my doctor wanted me to write in a book I could not do it .This is much better them a book.

I am brand new to this site and calorie counting in general. I am not dieting per say just trying to get a handle on what my food world looks like. I just wanted to say this is great and I am so glad that I popped in here.