Weight loss efforts get technical
December 11, 2004
By May Wong
Atkins devotees count carbs. Followers of Weight Watchers
stay within their daily allotted food points. The South
Beach Diet preaches a balance of meat, fruits, vegetables
and whole grains.
To make these diets work, the slimming conscious need
to know the nutritional value or pre-designated diet
points of thousands of food items. Dieters note everything
they swallow and log it — somewhere.
Now, with the season of bountiful temptation upon us,
the most popular dieting brands are weighing in with
calorie counters and nutritional guides designed for
personal digital assistants and combination PDA-cell
phones.
Weight Watchers International released this week a
program for Palm-based gadgets that works hand-in-hand
with the company’s online services. The program:
• Helps record a dieting disciple’s progress
• Eliminates the need for carrying a weekly logbook
• Shrinks the 25,000-item food database that
normally fits into a two-inch-thick reference book into
a pocketable gizmo.
Devotees of Atkins Nutritionals will have to wait a
little longer. The company says it will begin offering
early next year Atkins 2Go, a carbohydrate guide and
weight-loss tracker for cell phones along with mobile
software developer Digital Chocolate.
A version for Palm-based PDAs, developed by NoviiMedia,
is expected to debut in January.
Other diet purveyors, including the South Beach Diet,
say they hope to offer similar nutritional guides and
weight-tracking services for mobile devices soon.
“We think of it as a global positioning system
for their weight-loss journey,” said Scott Parlee,
director of product development at WeightWatchers.com.
“They can check how many points they’ve
earned on the spot, whether at the gym or at a restaurant.
It allows them to stay on course.”
Maintaining a regimen is hard enough as it is.
Thousands of the more tech-savvy long ago turned to
hand-helds for help. Mobile applications already on
the market can keep track of your fat intake, gauge
how many calories you just burned or chart the proximity
to your target weight.
At Handango, a popular Web site that sells applications
designed for cell phones and PDAs, about 400,000 people
have paid $20 to download the Diet & Exercise Assistant,
one of the best sellers in the health category.
Handango executives say they’re excited the dieting
heavyweights are going mobile, bringing along millions
of potential customers.
“For an avid carb-counter, Atkins 2Go might be
the reason they’ll go out to buy a Treo or (Microsoft)
Windows smart phone to help them manage their low-carb
lifestyle,” said Clint Patterson, Handango’s
vice president of marketing. “These mobile devices
are with you more than your spouse, so applications
to manage diet or body weight are really ideally suited
for the platform.”
Source:www.thestate.com
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