Tutorial: Calculating calories

Here is another tutorial about calculating calories for one day. You can add different foods and see total amount of calories, proteins, carbohydrates and fet. All the users have their own foods, so you don't need to browse huge list of foods every time you add one. Just the list of what you have previously added. You can see your list from "Your foods"-page. You also can search other users' foods from "Food search"-page and add desired foods to your own list.

Your foods-page

On this page you can see and modify all the foods you have added. You can also create new ones here. Let's see how it's done and try to add milk. The milk I drink contains (per 100g) 33 kcal, 3.3g of protein, 4.9g of carbohydrates and 0g of fet. So I type them there and set "Milk" as a name. I set the portion size to 300g, which is approximately the size of the glass I have. So when I'm calculating calories, I can use the amount of glasses I have drank. Then I select "Milk" as a category. If the price per kg is set, you'll see total cost of the foods each day. You can also select the country for your foods. It's only useful, if you traveling a lot. Because then you can select that only foods from one particular country are shown.



Then click "Add new food" and the "Milk" is added to your list. If you want, add also some micronutrient values of milk by following this guide.

The list shows all the foods you have added. By clicking food's name, you'll see some extra information of it. This requires that the price value is set. There is information about how much energy, protein, carbs and fet, food contains per €. So for instace, you can compare which food is the cheapest protein source.

There's also possibility select specific country from that dropdown list. This option IS ONLY VISIBLE, if you have foods from different countries. With "Show only foods from this country"-link you can do, that only foods from certain country are available for adding.



Then there's also button named "Show/Hide from lists". With this you can decide, which foods are available while calculating calories. It's useful when you have some food that you don't normally eat. So it can be hidden most of the time and you can show it only when needed. Food has "(Hidden)"-text after it's name, if it's hidden.

Adding foods

To add a new food, first you need to select some day. You can do this from the small calendar in left menu or clicking "Today's nutrition" (also in left menu). On that page you'll see all the foods added to that day. You'll see also day's total calories and other information about that day. But first we're going to add some foods to that day.



Let's try to add that Milk we created previously. Select that from the "Add food"-table's dropdown list. Then set time and amount. I set 2 portions, which is 600g (because I have set my portion size to 300g). Then click "Add food"-button and the milk should appear at 10:00.



So now we can see, that at 10:00, there's total of 198 kcal. It also shows, how much calories 600g of milk contains (which is that same 198kcal, because there's only one food at 10:00). You can modify food's values by clicking -icon.

There's also four buttons on that page. Here are explanations what they do:

• Delete: Deletes selected foods
• Change time/date: You can set multiple foods' time and date at once. You can ONLY set the time if all the selected foods have same time.
• Copy: Same as the previous one, but makes a copy of the selected foods.
• Choose all: Selects all the foods.
  

Then there's some other information of that selected day. First there's pie chart of day's total calories. It just shows total calories and macronutrient values in a graphic form.

"Price total"-field tells how much all added foods costs. This requires that foods' "price/kg"-value is set.

Then there's "All foods added"-checkbox. It should be checked, when all the foods for this day have been added. With that information the site (and also you) knows which days are "completed". For instance, "Examine your eating"-page only searches from those days, which have "All foods added"-checkbox checked.

You can also add whole meals from bottom of the page. With that you can add multiple foods at once. So for instance, you could create "Chicken and rice"-meal, that contains some amount of chicken and rice. And use that meal every time you eat chicken and rice. Other meals could be "Breakfast", "Recovery drink" and so on. Meals can be created from the "Meals"-page.

Tutorial: Creating a workout routine

Here's a tutorial for creating your own workout routine. First some basic info. Workout routine contains some number of days, which have different individual workouts. For example, 2-split routine would contain at least two workouts (Upper- and lower body workouts). Those could be, for example, on Day 1 and Day 3. A workout consists of exercises, that you do in a single day on gym.

So in a nutshell:

• Exercise: "Bench Press", "squat", ...
• Workout: "Upper body", "Chest, shoulders, triceps", ...
• Workout routine: "2-split", "3-split"
  

So back to topic. :) You can create your own routine from "Workout routine"-page under Training section. There you can also browse already created routines. Type the name of your routine in text field on the right side of the page. I'm going to create a 2-split routine, so name could be just "2-split". Then click "Continue".

There's is also some sample routines. Bill Starr 5x5 and HST are 1-split routines. Both of them are based on calculated progression. More info about HST and Bill Starr 5x5.

If you clicked Continue, you'll see your empty routine. Default length for routine is 7 days.

Then we're going to create a new workout. To do this click "Add workout", for example, on Day 1. There you can create a new one or add one of those you have already created from your "Workouts"-page.



Let's try to create one. My routine is 2-split, so my first workout could be "Upper body". I add it to Day 1. Then click "Add workout" and an empty workout will be created.

Creating a new workout

On this page you'll see your workout. You can add to it as many exercises as you want. Dropdown-list shows all the exercises you have. You can also select from those, so you don't need to type the exercise's name every time. You can view all your exercises from "Exercises"-page. By clicking "Search exercises" you'll see what exercises other users have. You also have to select type of equipment you use to do that exercise with. Also write number of sets and reps you're going to do. Weights-column could be left empty, because it's hard to say how strong you'll be, when you do this workout. So you can fill it, when you have actually done this workout.



So I added couple of exercises to my upper body workout. I added "Bench Press", "Deadlift" and "Bicep curl". Then click "No more exercises" to go back to your routine. Now the workout is there. Now add other workouts to your routine and set the length as you wish.



There's my routine. I created also workout for lower body and set the days to 5. You should also remember to leave rest days after your last workout. Because, if you do multiple cycles of this routine, Day 1 will start right after last day of previous routine.

Then when you're ready, you'll see your routine in your "Workout routine"-page.

Adding routine to calendar

Then you need to add routine to calendar. Routine will be COPIED to calendar starting from the date you give. Then you can see by browsing calendar, what to do each day. If you make changes to your routine, the routine on calendar will NOT be updated. You can also set amount of times (cycles) routine will be copied.

Micronutrients

I bought BCAA capsules and tried to calculate how much leucine i'm eating per day. Then I thought it would be nice feature to calculate leucine (or micronutrients) from your eatings. So I created a possibility to add micronutrient values to your foods. You can add how much micronutrients there are, for example, in milk. Then when you calculate your calories for certain day, you also see amount of micronutrients you have eaten.

You can set micronutrient-values from "Your foods"-page. Click the food's name and "Add micronutrient"-link will be shown. If you have set "Price/kg" for that food, there is also some pricing information. Picture below will clarify what I'm trying to explain. :)



That "Proteiini Whey" is Whey protein in finnish (as you might have guessed). By clicking that "Add micronutrient"-link you can write micronutrients name and amount. Amount is how much the food contains that specific micronutrient per 100g. So I want to add that my whey protein contains 12.3g of leucine. So I write Leucine for the name, 100 for the value and select "g" from the list. Then click "Add" and we get the following:



You can add as many as you want. I added also Isoleusine (5.5g) and Valine (5.1g). Then you can pick any day from the calendar. For example, click "Today's nutrition" from the menu to select this day. So whenever you add a food, which has micronutrient values, the site calculates total amount of those for that day.

Let's see how it works. I select that Whey protein from "Add food"-table's drop-down-list. I set the amount 100g, so the total value should be the same as we set on "Your foods"-page. If have set portion size, you can also add portions. I have set 30g as portion size for the Whey. It's 1dl of whey, so it's easier for me to add it as portions. You can set portions size also from "Your foods"-page, if you want.



You can add one or more foods for that selected day. Total calories will be shown under those added foods. It says something like "Total: Energy: xxxx kcal, P: xx g (30%) ....". By clicking that you'll see more information about that day's eatings. See picture below.



So you can see I added 100g of Whey at 15:00. So total calories are 390kcal. It also shows that all the foods on that day (in this case, just the Whey) contains 12g of leucine, 5g of isoleucine and 5g of valine.

There is also guide values for that day. For example, I should eat ~3500kcal more to reach my target values. 1000g of Whey would the trick. :) You can set those values from "Guide values"-page. You can create separate values for training- and rest day. Then select starting- and ending date for that value so the site knows which value to show each day.

GPS-coordinates of your running routes

So I added new feature to the site couple of days ago. With this you can record your running routes with your mobile phone and watch them later on map. You also get information on your mobile phone's screen while running. These information are, for example, time, distance, speed, ...

Application uses phone's integrated GPS or external bluetooth device to record GPS coordinates. After recording you can send those coordinates to database with GPRS (or WLAN, or whatever...). Then those coordinates can be viewed on Google-map. You can download that application for your phone by logging in your account and going to "Routes"-page under training section. You can install it for example with PC Suite (for Nokia phones). It should work at least with Nokia Phones. I have tested it with Nokia N95 and Nokia 6680 (& I-Blue GPS Receiver). Application can be dowloaded from your "Routes"-page.

When you start the application for the first time you should set your username and password. You can test the application without setting those, but remember to do this BEFORE sending data to xlGain's database. In settings dialog you can also select which things you want to see, while application is running. These options are:

• Time
  
• Distance
  
• Speed
• Altitude
• Avg. speed
• Time / km
  

When you select "Start search" from menu, application starts waiting for GPS-signal. Or if you have selected external GPS-device, it starts searching them first. Phone asks you to allow permissions to use GPS- or Bluetooth-connections, before application can access them. Click Yes to those questions.

Time starts running when first coordinate is found. Coordinates are saved every ~25 seconds and distance is also updated only then. Other fields should be self-explanatory. "Times / km"-link takes to other screen, where you can see times for each kilometer. From there you can easily check, if your running speed have changed.

When you want to send coordinates to database, so you can look them online, click "Stop search". Then select "Send data" from the menu. Phone then asks permission to use connections. Click Yes and select which ever connection-setting you like. You should get those settings from your operator.

Then you can login to your account to view to coordinates on map. From "Routes"-page you can select from all the routes you have saved. Selected routes will be shown on the map and you can also see some specific info about the saved coordinates.

Starting blog - Blogin aloitus

Pistetään nyt blogi pystyyn. Kirjoittelen tänne mitä muutoksia/korjauksia sivustolla on tapahtunut. Täällä voi sit kans kysellä, jos on jotain ongelmia. Kirjoittelen varmaan vaan englanniksi, niin tuleepa harjoiteltua sitäkin samalla. :D

And same in english...

So I'm starting a new blog for the site. I'll write here what's going on in the site (changes, repairs, etc...). If you have any problems or suggestions feel free to ask. I'll write tomorrow about that GPS coordinates recording software, which I made few weeks ago. Please try it if you have phone with GPS. It should work :)