Weight Loss Software Food Diary
Food Explorer Explained

In order to log foods and meals into your food diary, you need to be able to select foods from a database of foods.  The tool that allows you to select foods and to handle the huge food database is the food explorer.

Below is a picture of the food explorer.  To get to this screen, login into to the weight loss food diary software.  And click "add meal".

Food Explorer Screenshot - Category View

There are two main options to the display the foods.  One in a category view. The second is the alphabetical view. 

On the left you see a panel with the main food diary food categories.  These are main food categories such as beverages, beef products and baked products.

You can hide any category you do not want to see by clicking manage food groups.

When you select a food category from the left, the food diary log program will display the food on the right.  In the sorted view, you will see an alphabetical listing of all the foods.  In the category view you will see the foods groups together by common name.

So all red wine, will be categories under alcoholic beverage, then under wine, then under table, then under red, and then the specific such as Claret.

 Sorted – Alphabetical Searchable View

In the alphabetical view, you select a category food from the right panel such as Beverages, then you might select the specific food makeup as shown above in the alphabetic view. 

On the bottom of the food explorer, the food journal displays the measure, and servings.  A measure is just the way you count the food amount. 

For example, ounce, or cup are example of a measure.

Serving is how many servings of the measure did you eat.  So if the measure is 1 ounce, and you eat 5 servings.  The you ate 5 ounces.

If the measure is 1 cup and you ate a half of serving.  So you eat 0.5 cups of the food.  That is all.

Once you select the amount of food are about to eat by selecting a measure and a serving amount of that measure.  You click add food to meal.  That's all.

Hide Food Groups Not To Your Liking

 Limit Which Foods Are Shown

Adding New Custom Foods

Clicking on the Add New Custom Food button in the food explorer (above), brings up the dialog below.

This dialog allows you to add or edit custom foods that you don’t find in the lists already provided in the Food Diary database.  All you have to do to edit in this dialog is to click in a field and change the numbers or text. 

To create a new food item you place the cursor in each field and insert the proper values.  These values can be found on most package labels.  After clicking on Apply, Food Logger will take this information and place it in the food database.

Clicking on the Show Complete Nutrients button will bring up the dialog to the bottom.  This shows an expanded list of values from the numbers you have entered above.  You may edit any of the numbers in this list by double clicking on that number. 

Back at the Explorer View, Searchable View you can press on the Show Entire Meals’ Values button.  This will show you the complete nutrients for the meal you have selected.  The Diet Software calculates these values for you.  With this information you can see specific areas where you might want to adjust your diet.  Maybe you are in taking to much Calcium, or maybe not enough.  By seeing the values here you can make changes as needed in your meals.

The Close button will close this display. 

Pressing the Print button will print this information to your Windows default printer.  It will be printed in the same format you see it on the screen.  You will first see the Print Preview screen to the left, letting you view what is going to print, and then you can hit the printer icon button to print the document.  You may also zoom and scroll the print preview to make sure everything will print correct.  The Close button will close the dialog without printing.

Selecting the Graph Daily Values option will take your meal and graph it for you.  You will be able to visualize the numbers you are seeing.  In this screen you can manipulate the graph in several different ways with the tools at the top.  The options at the top perform the following:

Those options are:

• Normal – This will take you back to normal view of the graph if you have changed it.

• Rotate – You can click on and drag the graph with the mouse to rotate the graph.

• Move – This lets you move the graph to a different position.

• Zoom – This will let you zoom in closer or out depending on the direction you drag the mouse.  You might think of this as re-sizing.

• Depth – You can drag to shrink or broaden the depth of the chart.

• 3D – Lets you toggle between 3D and 2D.

• Edit – You can edit several aspects of the graph design.

• Print – You can print the graph using your Windows default printer definition.

• Copy – Copy the graph to the clipboard so you can insert it into another program.

• Save – This option lets you save the graph to a file to be imported into another program.

• Close  button – Will close the Daily Graph screen.

The last editing option you have in the Add Foods To Your Meal tab is Delete Foods/Measures button.  When you click on this button the dialog to the left will open.  Un-checking any item in the list, and then clicking on the Close button, will remove them from the meal database list.  If you have deleted items from this list, and want to put them back in the list, you can check the option Show Deleted Foods.  This will show deleted items un-checked and you can check the box and click on Close.  This will add them back to the meal database list.

If you un-check the item for Show only custom foods the screen to the left will appear.  You will now see a list of all the food items in the food database list.  Un-checking any item in the list and then clicking on Close will remove items from the food database list.  You may want to pair down the list of foods you have to choose from.  This is how you can do this.  Remember that you can go back into this screen and add food items you might have deleted, and want to add back to your list.

 Manage Entire Meal 

After you have created meals for the day you can edit them, and see how they are working for you.  Above we went through the Add foods to Your Meal tab.  Now we will go through the Manage Entire Meal tab.  This screen helps you analyze your meal and make sure it is what you want to eat.

The first thing you will notice on this tab is a graph of your Proteins, Fats, and Carbohydrates.  This graph display will depend on the Chart Type you have selected.  If you select the Entire Meal radio button the pie chart will display your whole meal percentages.  If you select the Food Selection radio button you will see the values for the food item you have selected.   With this radio button selected you can also use the mouse to select each food item.  Food Diary will change the pie chart view dynamically.  Note: if you don’t select a food item in the list, the pie chart won’t be able to display anything. 

Using the Copy Recent Foods button allows you to create, and edit a meal from items you have used in the past.  We all know we are creatures of habit, and eat the same food items we like often for our meals.  We also like to use those foods that work for our body type and makeup.  All you need to do is select a food item and click on the Copy button.  When Copy is pressed the item or items selected will be added in the Meal tab. 

You can select multiple items by clicking and dragging down or up with the mouse.  You can also use the Shift or Ctrl keys to use the Windows standard options for selecting multiple items.  You are also able to choose from meals of other users you may have set up.  This can come in handy if someone tells you that a meal they had was really good and you should try it.  Select that user and you will see their meals.

Back at the Manage Entire Meal tab there is a button for Save As Recipe.  Clicking on this button brings up the dialog to the left.  Type the name you want for this Recipe and click on Save Recipe.  You will receive a message telling you the recipe was saved and you will be taken back to the Manage Entire Meal tab.

You can also delete recipes from this screen.  Select the item from the list, and click on the Delete Recipe button.  You will get a confirmation message requiring a Yes or No response.  Yes will remove the item, and No will cancel the operation.

The Load Recipe button will allow you to create meals from your saved recipes.  Click on the button and the dialog to the left will load.  You can select a recipe from the list, and click on the Load Recipe button.  This will add your saved recipe to your meal in the Manage Entire Meal tab.  Close will close this screen without adding a recipe to your meal.  You can create your meals really fast using saved recipes.