Serious Nutrition TrackerTM Bookmark and Share

Helping you get serious about nutrition

I want to achieve a healthy lifestyle.

To better understand your body's energy requirements or the fundamentals of healthy eating, I highly recommend that you seek out sources such as Canada's Food Guide. It contains all the information you need to read nutrition labels, choose foods, and stay active.

I want to go beyond the basics.

There is an incredible amount of information floating around and sometimes it can be difficult to discern the facts from the myths/fads. I recommend reading "Nutrition for Serious Athletes"* by Dr. Dan Benardot PhD, RD. It is targeted at athletes, trainers, and fitness buffs. However, it is useful for anyone who really wants to understand how their body uses food as fuel.

*Please note that Nutrition for Serious Athletes is not affiliated, in any way, with the Serious Nutrition Tracker.

I want to get the most out of Serious Nutrition Tracker.

Serious Nutrition Tracker was designed to be fast, simple, and versatile. The following questions and answers are designed to explain and highlight many important features. Please note that I am in the process of updating these for v2.0. However, they are still helpful.

Do I have to use it every single day to benefit?

No. People tend to have similar eating patterns throughout the week (with some variance on the weekends). If you already eat clean, you can use it for a few days to analyze and adjust your diet according to your goals. However, if you are trying to lose weight, keeping a daily record of everything you eat (and actually thinking about the foods that you eat) can be very helpful. If you are trying to gain weight, it is very useful to track your consumption throughout the day because sometimes it is difficult to eat enough of the right foods to build muscle or increase athletic performance.

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What is the fastest way to transcribe a food label?

This section of the program was built with speed in mind. Blank spaces will automatically be turned into zeroes. All other numbers are formatted with one decimal place. This means that if you press 1, the number will be 0.1. If you want to enter a number like 22.4, you press 2, then 2, then 4. It seems cumbersome at first but, rest assured; it is the fastest way to enter numerical information.

When you are finished entering numbers, you can press "Done", or tap anywhere off of the field, to hide the keypad. If you have iPhone OS 3.0 or newer, you can tap the next field to start filling it in.

See an example (Note that the example references an old version. The UI was later upgraded.)

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I made a mistake entering Eat Food. How do I fix it?

If your mistake was that you ate too little, just eat more. If you record 50g of food A at 11:30 and then record 25g of food A at 11:30, on the same day, the system will combine them into 75g of food A at 11:30. However, if your mistake was that you ate at the wrong time, or ate the wrong thing, you will have to remove the entry. To do this you need to go to the Daily View for the day in question. Once there, click the Details button in the top right corner and look for the problem entry. Press Edit and then delete the entry.

See an example (Note that the example references an old version. The UI was later upgraded.)

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I want to change the serving size of an item, and I want everything to change with it. How do I do that?

You can scale the size of a food item using the combination item builder. Create a combination item with one ingredient. Set the ingredient amount to be the suggested serving size. Then set the combination item’s serving size to be the new serving size. The new item will be a scaled version of the old item.

See an example (Note that the example references an old version. The UI was later upgraded.)

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How do I create a combination item?

Creating a combination item is slightly different than creating a normal item. You create a combination item by assembling existing food items. Think of it as following a recipe. You add all of your ingredients together. Set their amounts to be the same as in the cook book. Then set the serving size to be the weight of what a normal person would eat (and not the total weight of the recipe).

Be careful when using ingredients like cooked rice or cooked pasta. Their nutrition labels generally refer to their dry weight, while recipes and the portions you put on your plate are cooked. The recipe ingredients should use water (a food item that you create using only a serving size and water amount) to make up the difference in weight.

ex. A recipe may call for 100g of uncooked rice. When you cook the rice, it could triple in weight (300g). Then, when you weigh your serving, the calculator will think that you are eating a greater amount of uncooked rice, rather than the heavier cooked rice. To make sure this does not happen, weigh the rice after it has been cooked. So, if the recipe calls for 100g of uncooked rice and the cooked rice weighs 300g, you must add water as an extra ingredient - with a weight of 200g or a volume of 200mL (1mL of water weighs 1g). This ensures that, if you weigh your serving later, the nutrition value will be accurate.

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What do I do if I can’t find nutrition information on a food?

If the food is unlabelled and a common item, it will likely be in the common foods database. You can access this by pressing the + button at the top of the Food Book and selecting "Add a common item". Restaurants usually have nutrition data for their food and you usually have to ask for it (you’ll see why when you read it). If the food is produced by a company, it is very likely that there is nutrition information on their website. However, if the food is unlabelled and unmanufactured, it is very likely that you will be able to find information here. LanguaL maintains links to food composition databases all over the world. Since Serious Nutrition Tracker was designed to create your own nutrition labels, you are never without options.

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How do I remove an item from my favourites without deleting it?

To remove an item from the favourites list, without deleting it, turn off the "List in Favourites" option in the "Edit Item" screen.

  1. From the main menu select "Food Book".
  2. Select the food item (it can be from the favourites or the alphabetical list).
  3. Press "Edit" in the top right corner of the "View Item" screen.
  4. Press "Edit" on the menu that appears.
  5. Scroll to the bottom of the information and turn off "List in Favourites".
  6. Press "Save" in the top right corner.

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Why shouldn't I just track my calories without entering the nutrition data?

A calorie, or kilocalorie, is a measurement of energy. A total, independent of its source, is not worth a great deal. By simply counting calories, you miss out on something more important: where it came from and how your body uses it. A calorie from carbohydrate and a calorie from fat are not equal. Serious Nutrition Tracker is designed to be more than a calorie counter. This app is intended to provide, not just diet tracking, but revelations to those who understand nutrition.

Also, recording calories on some food items and nutrition data on others would create misleading statistics.

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How do I create custom food databases?

You can create a custom food database by pressing the "+" button that appears at the top right corner of the Choose Database screen. The Choose Database screen can be accessed in three ways.

  1. From Food Book, press "+" and select "Add from custom DB".
  2. From Utilities, press "Manage Custom Databases".
  3. From the View Item screen, press Actions and select "Add to custom DB".

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How do I add a food item to a custom food database?

  1. Go to the Food Book and select the manage mode.
  2. Select a food item (which will take you to the View Item screen).
  3. Press Actions and select "Add to custom DB".
  4. Select a database from the list and the item will be copied to that database.

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How do I add a custom database item to my Food Book?

  1. From Food Book, press "+" and select "Add from custom DB".
  2. Select a database from the list and its contents will appear.
  3. Select a food item from the list and a View Item screen will appear.
  4. Press actions and select "Save to Food Book".

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How do I manage food in my custom databases?

  1. From Food Book, press "+" and select "Add from custom DB".
  2. Select a database from the list and its contents will appear.
  3. Select a food item from the list and a View Item screen will appear.
  4. Press Actions to see your management options. You can edit, delete, or copy an item to your Food Book.

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How do I use SyncDocs to upload and download custom databases?

SyncDocs is a popular Java application that runs on Apple OSX and Microsoft Windows. You can download it here. SyncDocs was not written by me. It is an open source project created by programmer Christopher Evans. Open source means that you can download the code to see exactly how it works.

Your computer must be connected to the same wireless network as your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Remember that anyone can create a custom food database, so there is no way to verify the accuracy of the data. Only download data from sources that you trust.

To import a file to Serious Nutrition Tracker:

  1. On your computer, run SyncDocs. SyncDocs must be active to be seen by Serious Nutrition Tracker.
  2. On your computer, drag the desired .snt file onto the application screen. It will appear in the list.
  3. Start Serious Nutrition Tracker.
  4. Go to Utilities and press "Import Food".
  5. Select "SyncDocs".
  6. The first row of the list indicates the current status. If SyncDocs is detected, the status will be "Found service" and the service will be listed below.
  7. Press the service name to view a list of available files.
  8. Select the file name to download it.

To export a file to your computer:

  1. On your computer, run SyncDocs. SyncDocs must be active to be seen by Serious Nutrition Tracker.
  2. Start Serious Nutrition Tracker.
  3. Go to Utilities and press "Export Food".
  4. Select the database to export.
  5. Select "SyncDocs".
  6. The first row of the list indicates the current status. If SyncDocs is detected, the status will be "Found service" and the service will be listed below.
  7. Press the service name to upload the database to your computer. A .snt file will appear in the SyncDocs downloads folder. Please be aware that if you export files with the same name on the same day, they will overwrite each other.

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How do I input water amounts?

The suggested water amount includes the water contained in food. Any food that you add from the common foods database will have a water amount listed. However, any food that you create on your own should be filled in with your best estimate (Press the ? button next to the water field for help creating an estimate). To record glasses of water, you can create a food item called "Water" and fill in its water amount accordingly.

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I can see my SyncDocs but I cannot see my files.

There was an error in v2.0 where the first file in the list will not be displayed. This has been fixed in v2.0.2.

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How do I access the common food database?

You can access this by pressing the + button at the top of the Food Book and selecting "Add a common item". Selecting a category will load all food in the category. Selecting a category prefixed by the words "Quick Search" will allow you to do a search before data is loaded.

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How do I create a food database using a spreadsheet and import it into Serious Nutrition Tracker?

The easiest way is to start with a template. You can download one here. This is an example .snt2 file that contains only one entry.

These files are tab-delimited text files that can be imported into a spreadsheet program. They have the following schema:

The first line is the database version number - currently 1 - followed by a newline character.

The second line is the database name followed by a newline character. The name may or may not appear in quotes.

The remaining lines are the food items. You may enter up to 1000 items. If you enter more than 1000 items, the app will only import the first 1000.

The column structure is as follows:

  • Column 1: The food name. This may or may not appear in quotes.
  • Column 2: The serving description. This may or may not appear in quotes. This is also the only column that may be empty.

The remaining columns cannot be empty and, unless otherwise specified, cannot be surrounded by quotes.

  • Column 3: The serving size in grams or milliliters.
  • Column 4: The energy in kcal.
  • Column 5: Total fat in grams.
  • Column 6: Saturated fat in grams.
  • Column 7: Trans fat in grams.
  • Column 8: Cholesterol in milligrams.
  • Column 9: Sodium in milligrams.
  • Column 10: Potassium in milligrams.
  • Column 11: Total carbohydrate in grams.
  • Column 12: Fibre in grams.
  • Column 13: Sugars in grams.
  • Column 14: Protein in grams.
  • Column 15: Calcium in milligrams.
  • Column 16: Iron in milligrams.
  • Column 17: Water in milliliters.

  • Column 18: Special character indicating the food rating. This may or may not appear in quotes.

    Ex. SC998_0.0 or SC998_value

    A value of 0.0 is a neutral rating; 1.0 is very poor; 2.0 is poor; 3.0 is good; and 4.0 is very good

  • Column 19: Special character indicating whether the serving is measured by weight or by volume. This may or may not appear in quotes.

    Ex. SC999_0.0 for weight and SC999_1.0 for volume.

  • Column 20: Special characters indicating food groups. This may or may not appear in quotes.

    The food groups are:

    • 1 – Vegetables and Fruit
    • 2 – Grains
    • 3 – Dairy
    • 4 – Meat and Alternatives

    If no food group is specified, the column will contain "FG". Food groups are comma separated values and the order is not important. So an item classified in both grains and dairy could appear as "FG,2,3" or "FG,3,2".

After you save your database as a .snt2 file, open it in a text editor. Ensure that the first two lines do not contain any tabs and that the newline character appears immediately after the version number and database name. Save the file.

Once this is complete, you can upload it as if it were any other database file. .snt files are binary files and .snt2 files are the text files.

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Copyright © 2009 - 2010 Steven Smith