FIGURE E

The Nutrition Facts screen lets you make sure that you're choosing the right food.

I did find that some pre-packaged foods did not seem to be listed correctly. My favorite cereal, for example, had completely different information on its package. I'm in Canada, and BalanceLog comes from the United States, so this may be the cause. It has left me checking each food when I first use it, though, which is somewhat bothersome. I also found that the order of the nutritional information entries (fat, calories, and so on) is completely different from the order of those things on my food packages. Again, this is not a huge difficulty, but it does slow me down while adding new foods.

On the handheld, once you select and add a food, you're returned to the food search screen again, apparently under the assumption that you want to add another food. If not, you can simply tap Cancel. The desktop, however, always returns you to your food log screen instead, which is disorienting. I've found that I use the desktop less and less now for entering foods and exercise, relying on it only for reports.

Recording your exercise
The exercise tracker (shown in Figure F) works exactly the same as the food tracker.

FIGURE F


The exercise tracker works the same as the food tracker. Roll over picture for a larger image.

I have noticed some problems with the search. For example, I'm learning to belly dance (don't laugh, I'm getting better). I was thrilled to actually find it in the exercise list. However, when I search for "belly" using the "name contains" search, I don't find it on the desktop. However, I do find it doing the same search on my handheld. It's a minor glitch, but it can be annoying sometimes.

I really like that the exercise screens show how many calories you would've burned at rest. This can be very comforting when you didn't feel like exercising. If you enter the exercise before doing it, you'll be motivated to get it done.

Reports and profile information
The reports screen has some very valuable information. You can print out lists of everything you've eaten, all of the exercises that you've done, or a summary of how well you met your various nutritional goals, as shown in Figure G.

FIGURE G


There are many reports available through BalanceLog's desktop. Roll over picture for a larger image.

You also have access to the profile that you created during the initial setup. Playing with the profile, however, is risky, because BalanceLog won't let you make any changes to anything that you logged before your last profile change. It's best to leave it alone once you've set it, unless you know that something major has changed. If you've changed careers and gone from computer programmer to lumberjack, for example.

Advice
There's one very important piece of advice that I can give you: log everything. If you went out for dinner and had lasagna, find it in the food list, estimate the amount that you had, and track it. Don't worry about whether or not you're entering exactly the right foods; just be sure to enter everything that you eat. Somehow, neglecting to enter one food seems to lead to leaving out lots of foods. I have many days where BalanceLog thinks I've eaten only 1,000 calories for just this reason. Keep tracking!