Here's another change I made. I have a cup of coffee every morning with a couple of tablespoons of 2% milk and a bit of sweetener. Instead of entering these three items every day, I decided to create an all-inclusive item and call it "Morning coffee," as you can see in Figure C.

FIGURE C

Breakfast with my Morning coffee is the most important meal of the day.

Report generation
Vivonic also keeps track of reports on your Palm device. All you have to do is tap on Reports in the lower part of your screen, and a report will show up that says how many calories you ate and how many you burned. You can see this in Figure D.

FIGURE D

You can see how many calories you consumed and burned.

You can also get more detailed reports by tapping on the pull-down menu in the top right hand corner. For example, you can get a nutrition summary, shown in Figure E. This is a bar graph that charts how much protein, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, etc. you consumed during the day.

FIGURE E

The nutrition summary charts how much you consumed during the day.

There are other graphs available that chart how many calories you consumed and burned over the course of the past week or month.

Vivonic at the gym
With my Vivonic Fitness Planner installed and set up, it was time for the real test: I took my Palm device to the gym. Now I'm a true geek. Where's my propeller cap?

I've always carried a notebook to the gym with me with a check list of the exercises in my regimen, the number or repetitions I do, the weights I use, etc., so when I replaced it with a Palm device, it wasn't as if I had something new to carry. In fact, it's much handier because as I go straight to the gym from work, I often forget my notebook. My Palm device, however, I take everywhere, so there's far less chance of it being left behind.

When it was time to work out, all I had to do was to go to the exercise part of the journal and all my information was right there. Figure F shows the type of exercise that I do along with the number of repetitions.

FIGURE F

This is my workout.

If you want more detailed information, tap on the Circuits icon next to Reports and you'll be taken to the Circuit screen, shown in Figure G. The Circuit screen allows you to adjust the weight lifted and the number of repetitions completed.

FIGURE G

The Circuit screen allows you to adjust the weight lifted and the number of repetitions completed.

Another advantage of having your fitness plan spelled out on an electronic organizer rather than in a paper notebook is that fitness plans are flexible. As your skill level changes and you're able to increase weights and repetitions, you can easily modify it on your planner. You might also change your plan to reflect different parts of your body that you want to work on. With a paper planner, this would require a lot of crossing things out and rewriting, which is not only sloppy but also potentially confusing.

While it was nice having all my exercise information right at hand on my Palm device , I have to admit I was worried that it might get dropped, spilled on, or knocked down by someone else. This is the kind of thing that can take away focus from your workout.