Establish your nutritional goals
The next step in setting up your planner is to state your nutritional goals. This calculates how many calories you need and how many calories you'll need to burn. What's great about the guidelines is that they're just that: guidelines. You can change them to whatever you feel comfortable with.

For example, in the summary I was given, the Plan Wizard suggested that 55 percent of my calorie intake should come from carbohydrates, 25 percent from fat, and 20 percent from protein. However, I'm on the 40-30-30 diet, where 40 percent of my calories come from carbohydrates and 30 percent each should come from protein and fat. By simply moving the sliders, I adjusted the calories and grams I should eat each day, as you can see in Figure B.

FIGURE B


You can adjust your calorie percentages according to your diet. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Adjust your fitness plan
Once you complete the Plan Wizard, the next step is to adjust your fitness plan. All the suggested exercises are set up for you. This is great if you don't have a plan in mind already. If you do, you can edit whatever you need to. Just select the day and then select Edit. The software is flexible, so if you have your own plan to use, you can create your own circuits (a series of individual exercises).

Since I already have an exercise plan I use, I entered it into the Fitness planner. I went ahead and created circuits for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This can take a while to set up, but once you do it, you don't have to do it again.

Extras
A very cool feature in the software and one of my personal favorites is the video pop-up. If you're adding a new exercise to your circuit and you're not sure how it's done, you can click on Info, and a video will open and show you what to do.

Vivonic also offers downloadable plans from its Web site at http://www.vivonic.com. In association with the health and fitness Web site Asimba (at http://www.asimba.com), there are even plans available to help you train for your first 5K race.

Vivonic Fitness Planner on your Palm device
Okay, now it's time to step away from the computer and put the Palm software to use. The software installed without a problem onto my Palm device. All you have to do is HotSync to install the application on your device. You need about 500K of space on your device to hold the food and exercise databases.

The daily journal logs your meals
Once I tapped the Vivonic icon on my Palm device, I was taken to my daily journal. This is where you enter what you ate throughout the day and any exercises you performed.

While I was installing the software I ate a plum, as messy as that may sound. But hey, I was hungry. So, the first thing I did was to enter it into my journal. The food database already has hundreds of common foods listed. These include meals from fast food restaurants (you wouldn't believe how many calories are in a Big Mac!), to fruits, vegetables, and even some brand name energy bars.

What if something isn't in the database? Well, I came up with a few solutions when this happened to me. For instance, I ate a protein bar that wasn't listed in the database, so I saved the wrapper's nutrition label and entered it in the PC software. (You can't create new foods on your Palm device.)