CNET Editors' review
Anyone who has tried to lose weight knows that two things work: diet and exercise. Hiring a personal trainer might help motivate you to exercise, but studies show that keeping a journal actually helps dieters stick to the plan. That's where Calorie Balance Diet comes in. It's a free utility that makes it entirely too easy to figure out just how many calories you need to achieve your dietary goal, and what foods you should and shouldn't eat to help you stay on track. It also helps you keep useful schedules and records.
A simple wizard lets each user configure height, weight, gender, age, activity level, and other variables, and it automatically calculates caloric intake for a range of goals, including maintaining current weight or targeted weight loss. It will tell you just how many calories you need to cut out of your daily diet to achieve your weight loss goals based on an activity level slider that essentially ranges from sluggard to dynamo, so you can get real results even if you're stuck behind a desk every day simply by cutting out certain foods. The Calorie Balance Tracker is a spreadsheet-style database of foods, calories, and other data that makes your food intake abundantly clear. A scheduling tool helps you keep up your diet journal. A recipe editor and shopping list tool make it easy to make positive changes.
Calorie Balance Diet is designed for multiple users, so everyone in the house can take advantage of it. Best of all, it's free.
Publisher's Description
From Calorie Balance Diet:
Research has shown that keeping a journal makes dieters almost twice as successful as those who do not. This program makes keeping a diet journal easy, fast, and accurate. The program features a full fledged calorie counter with over 30,000 foods. Enter in your foods with grams, or use easy units. The program can convert between almost any units automatically. To make keeping a journal even easier, you can create meals, meal plans or even download plans from the Internet. The search will learn your preferences and makes searching even faster. You can balance your diet with your exercise. The program features hundreds of activities, in a powerful, easy to use calculator. You will also be able to track your progress with the journaling function, and see how your body works with powerful progress reports. Also included are a recipe editor, and a tool to make shopping lists. You will have complete control of your diet. Version 4.0.8 fixes add food dialog, improves wizards.
What's new in this version: Better installer and various bug fixes
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All versions:
2.5 starsout of 41 votes
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Current version:
2.2 starsout of 31 votes
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My rating:
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"Not for you or me"
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
None because U immediatly uninstalled.
Cons
Hijacked browser when I tried to install and again when I uninstalled.
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"It could use a graphing function"
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
Keeps track of daily calori monthly calories vs weight.es, has a food database. Is easy to use.
Cons
I could not find a graphing function to get a general idea of
Summary
A good program, but could use a graphing function.
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"Good Potential but NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME"
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
This program has all the bells and whistles that would be useful in a program with this focus. There is a lot of potential here. Generally remembers data entered before a crash.
Cons
I have never experienced such a buggy program from CNet. Frequently crashes after every entry. Many calculations are simply incorrect (but sometimes correct). So far, haven't been able to determine the pattern for crashes or incorrect calculations
Summary
More than anything else, I am disappointed with the CNet editor review of this s/w. This program is, at best, a first prototype - not a version 4. There is tremendous potential here but a great amount of work needs to be done to fix all the bugs. All but unusable now but I think people should watch for later versions - unfortunately, if they are on v4 now we might need to wait foe v24.
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"The Diet Software That Beats The "Norm""
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
This program is easy to use and amazingly accurate. I had to begin to count my Carbs, calories and other essential numbers but I found with this program the ease and reliability that I can always count on with CNET. Thanks folks! Good Job!!
Cons
I was really bothered by the fact that I cannot flow between days. It seems that if I don't remember to fill out my chart properly (or at all) the program won't let me back up to yesterday to fix my "record."
Summary
With a little work this program would be a real winner and accepted and encouraged for use by most weight loss programs.
This is a really good program for someone who is serious about losing weight. I have some minor disagreements about some of the programs totals --- but it's not significant enough not to use the program. It will also keep track of things that maybe you shouldn't eat. If you are serious about losing weight this is the program to use. You can also make it tell you what vitamins that you are taking and if you are doing too much IT will tell you.
Updated on Oct 12, 2011
Updated on Nov 6, 2011Excellent program especially for those who, like me, have diabetes and need to count carbs. We need to be so careful not just about our sugar consumption but also about how many carbs we take in our diets because carbs become sugar in our systems. Thank you for this program, it really helps to keep me on target. -
"Okay for most things needed."
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
Wide food assortment.
Cons
Needs easy directions included on how tos.
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"Hijacks browser."
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
Never got deep enough in to find any
Cons
When ever the program started up it opened a browser window that went to some random advertiser. Anything that has that much control over my laptop is a potential hard drive crasher.
Summary
Stay away.
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"It works fine for my needs."
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
A large assortment of food. Easy to use.
Cons
Need to get use to the crash, but easy to work around.
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"Too Buggy to Use"
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
Free and loaded fine
Cons
I just couldn't enter one recipe
Summary
I was so motivated to use this program since it would calculate total calories and nutrition as well as create a shopping list for the week, but it crashed again and again trying to enter a recipe. Bummer.
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"Dissapointment!"
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
Well designed.
Cons
At first I was thrilled, but after some time I got disappointed. It doesn't work well, closes itself almost every time I'm using it. There are no metric values, so I have to convert every time. Sometimes Jurnal application doesn't work. Very 'buggy'!
Summary
Well designed, but without metric values not very useful in Europa, doesn't update, and therefore shuts down by itself during intake of data. It's pitty because I really liked it at first. Now I wouldn't recommend it!
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"Didn't care for it"
Version: Calorie Balance Diet 4.0.8
Pros
Works fairly well,
Cons
but doesn't have flexability
Summary
Can't recommend it
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