| faq | Frequently Asked Questions |
 | About NutriMirror
Membership
My Food Log
Exercise
Body & Profile
Reports
Miscellaneous
About NutriMirror
NutriMirror™ is an internet-based tool for managing behaviors that affect your health. NutriMirror™ is not a diet, but a system that provides the accurate behavioral feedbacks ("Reflections") that each individual needs to effectively assume personal responsibility for healthy weight and nutritional balance -two universal goals for good health. Typical diet plans attempt to modify behavior through external input and direction. NutriMirror™, on the other hand, modifies behavior by providing accurate feedback from your personal experience. The innovation and value of NutriMirror™ is that it reveals the measured impacts of your food and exercise choices in a single glance — your nutrition facts reflection. Whenever you see your nutrition facts reflection numbers reported in green you are in balance; when reported in red, your attention is required. So long as you are able to measure the impacts of your personal choices you are in control and able to manage a healthy lifestyle. Personal experience, as the saying goes, is always the best teacher. Absolutely. Studies show that self monitoring of your eating and exercise behaviors is one of the most important things you can do to meet your long term health goals. Using NutriMirror™ in conjunction with your diet program can be extremely beneficial in that NutriMirror™ can pinpoint specific nutritional shortcomings that might arise from changes in eating habits. No. NutriMirror™ computes and reports the impact of all your elective exercises on your calorie balance---the crucial measurement for weight control. Nutritional recommendations for children vary widely depending on age, gender, and growth stages. In addition, full-time monitoring of the eating activities of youngsters can be impractical, if not impossible. But keep in mind that by logging your own food and exercise habits, you learn key concepts and knowledge that your children will then learn from you. Change your own lifestyle, and your children will follow. No. We do send helpful reminder emails to motivate our members, but users can opt out of receiving these messages at any time by visiting their User Info page. We will not sell your email address. Yes it is. Studies prove that the more frequently people log what they eat, the more successful they are at long term weight control. As a goal, try to keep your logging frequency higher than 75%. Membership
If you have forgotten your password (or if you accidentally updated it to something you can't remember) it's easy to get back in. After trying to log in, click on the words "Need help?" that appear beneath the log in form. You'll be taken to a page where you can enter either your user name or your email. We will immediately send a new password to you at the email address we have on file. Log in with the new password, then change it to something you'll remember. Yes. Your password can be updated on the User Info page, located in the member section beneath the Profile menu. Your user name cannot be changed. From the Profile tab, click on User Info. Change what is needed and click update. Because NutriMirror™ relies on data and nutritional requirements that are unique to each individual, it is impossible for two people to share a membership and expect accurate results. Your husband needs to create his own account. NutriMirror™ is set up to analyze one person's data per membership. If you combined your son's information with yours, the resulting nutritional recommendations would be wildly inaccurate for both of you. There are no time limits, nor expiration date. Correcting your name, email address, and even gender and birthday is easy. From the Profile menu in the member section, click on User Info. If you update information on this page, be sure to leave the password field blank (it is already set with your password) unless you want to change your password. Make sure that your gender and birthday information are correct, since this information is important for calculating various numbers on the site. We always welcome new members, the more the merrier. The NutriMirror™ system is always here, and is designed to accommodate a missed day or even a week. If you "fall off the wagon" for a while we do encourage you to come back and resume your efforts, we'll be here. My Food Log
If you cannot find eggs or some other food, try shortening the name: try egg instead of eggs, or strawber instead of strawberries. Adding Foods to your log: If you cannot find a certain food, widening the search criteria generally helps: try egg, rather than eggs. Another tip is to search by typing in the manufacturer's name, this will bring up a list of all foods by that manufacturer. Once members build up a personal data bank of their most frequent food choices and become familiar with the various logging tools, they can expect to spend no more than 10 to 20 minutes of logging time each day. As you begin to use the system, you will likely come across packaged or restaurant foods that are not yet included in our database. Fortunately, in most cases this is an easy fix. The packaged foods that you buy in the store will come with a nutrition facts label that supplies the information you need. Use the New Foods page (look for it in the drop-down menu under Foods) to transfer this information from the food label to the database. Recipes are created and edited the same as menus. However, one thing to note is that once a recipe has been added to your food log, you will no longer be able to edit the details for that recipe. To create a menu or recipe, first click the appropriate Edit button on the menus & recipes page. Use the form to create a new menu name. The name of the menu will appear in the list below. Then click the menu name you wish to edit. The serving description is how you choose to explain the portion size of a food. For example: if you are entering a cookie, the serving description could be 1 each, 1 piece, or 1 serving. If you are entering a frozen meal, the serving description could be 1 each or 1 serving. The Serving size (weight/vol)-grams or ml, is the actual measure of the food by serving. Begin on your Food Log page. Click the date on the calendar that the food was entered. Now click the food you wish to delete or update. The food will appear at the top of the page along with options to edit the entry, move the entry to a different meal or delete it completely. Begin on your Food Log page. Click the date on the calendar that the food was entered. Now click the food you wish to delete or update. The food will appear at the top of the page along with options to edit the entry, move the entry to a different meal or delete it completely. Begin on your Food Log page. Click the date on the calendar that the food was entered. Now click the food you wish to update or delete. The food will appear at the top of the page along with options to edit the entry, move the entry to a different meal or delete it completely. Most likely it's because you haven't created any menus. Menus are created by each member for ease in logging. For example, if you regularly eat a breakfast that consists of, coffee with cream, oatmeal with brown sugar and a glass of orange juice, you can create a menu called Oatmeal Breakfast. When you log your daily food, you simply record Oatmeal Breakfast rather than searching for each individual item. Most likely it's because you haven't created any custom recipes. Recipes are created by each member for ease in logging. For example, if you regularly eat a lunch that consists of, turkey and swiss on whole wheat, you can create a recipe called Turkey & swiss sandwich. When you log your daily food, you simply record Turkey & swiss sandwich rather than searching for each individual item. "My Favorite Foods" are the foods you want to easily access. For people that regularly eat the same items, this is a valuable short-cut feature. Place food choices in your favorites category by ticking the square box next to the food name. They will remain in your favorites category until you delete them. These are the thirty foods you have most recently added to your log. These are the foods you have logged more than any others. "My Recent Foods" is a list of the thirty foods you have most recently added to your log. "My Frequent Foods" is a list of the thirty foods that you have logged more than any other. This is for easy recognition of foods you have previously added to your logs. Numbers are highlighted in red or green to indicate whether your daily totals for a nutrient have been met or exceeded your recommended dietary allowance. If the recipe has not been logged to a day, click on the recipe name to be taken to the edit page. You cannot edit a recipe if it has already been used in a log because this would change the data everywhere the recipe had been used. However, you can "copy" the recipe and edit (new name, new ingredients, etc.) this new version. If you would like to share your entries (not your food log, but your menus, recipes, and new database foods) with another person, simply enter their username in the area given on the Shared Foods page within the Foods tab. Check your spelling and punctuation; the ('s) is necessary. Un-check the box next to the food in the My Favorite Foods list. Exercise
At this point we do not have a way to log step programs; however we do offer a number of ways for you to enter your speed and distance walked and with this information you can calculate your calories burned. Click the exercise in your log; you will be taken to an edit form where you can change the total time spent exercising. If you want to delete the exercise all together, reset the time to 0. Calories Burned is the total calories burned while exercising. Net Calories is the total calories burned during your exercise session beyond what you would have normally expended during that time period. For example, say you exercised for 30 minutes, burning a total of 150 calories. Your body would have expended 32 of those calories whether you had exercised or not. So your net difference — the number added to your total calories expended for the day — is 118 calories. Many calorie calculators don't give this information, but we think it's important. When using method two to add an exercise to your food log, we automatically calculate the third of three variables (speed, distance, or time) when you enter any two. However, you will sometimes find that our system tries to change a variable (your time, for example) when you want it to change your speed. In that case, enter your time correctly, then click the lock box for time. Now enter your distance, and the system will compute your speed correctly. Body & Profile
Here are a few things to consider: NutriMirror™ relies on USDA Dietary Guidelines for recommended daily nutrient intake levels. Recommendations for percentage of calories from the following sources are: However, we do allow you to adjust these numbers. Visit the Diet Preferences page. You'll find a link to it on the Goals & Settings page under the Profile menu. You can change these numbers as often as you wish, and return to the default recommendations at any time. Do not lose in excess of 10% of your total body weight over a six month time period. Try to set weight loss plans that call for weekly losses between .5 to 2 pounds per week. Generally, the slower the rate of loss the more sustainable the plan will be. Your BMI is a number derived from your weight and height as an indicator of overall body fat. While BMI numbers may be misleading for persons with unusually high or low muscle mass, in general a person with a BMI between 18.5 and 25 is considered to have a "normal" body mass index. We have estimated that this will be your actual weight on your goal day if you maintain your recent net calorie balance trend. This number is an estimate based on highly variable factors, so don't take it too seriously. The most important reading is the trend of actual scale weight. RMR = Resting Metabolic Rate. Reports
Your goal is to create accurate reflections of your behaviors so that you make the best possible choices. That means that logging accuracy (food measurements) and logging frequency are important. However, the world does not fall apart if you miss a day or if you make some incorrect portion estimates along the way. Close is better than the alternative ... nothing at all. The net difference between calories you have taken in and calories you have burned is your calorie balance, or energy balance, which determines whether you lose, gain, or maintain weight. Your Calorie Balance (or energy balance) is the difference between the calories you take in through your diet and the calories your body expends through metabolism, lifestyle, and exercise. When you take in more than you expend, you gain weight; when you expend more than you take in, you lose weight. Expend the same number of calories you take in to maintain your current weight. This report allows you to review any part of your history with detailed analysis for a wide range of nutrients. The three labels on your Nutrition Facts Reflection page represent nutrients YOU have received from Foods & Supplements, Foods only and Supplements only. Nutrients reported in your reflection can be accessed for a detailed analysis of that nutrient in your diet, complete with a list of the foods you've eaten, ranked according to the amount of that particular nutrient each food provided to your diet. The numbers in this report refer to the sum total of YOUR actual diet, with daily value recommendations specific to YOUR nutritional needs. Miscellaneous
Your information is password protected, and your password is stored in an encrypted format on our servers, so only you know it. Your personal information can only be accessed with your password. Sure, you would simply give him your username and password. When you want to stop information sharing, just change to a new password. You haven't set your preferences to keep you logged in yet. From the Profile tab click on User info. On the lower half of the page you will see this: These are foods that have been prepared in a commercial kitchen or facility to be sold to the public. If you have a condition that requires special care or specific nutritional guidance you should use NutriMirror™ only in coordination with your primary care provider. Before ever undertaking any major lifestyle changes you should always consult with your doctor. |
| About Us Terms & Conditions Contact Refer a Friend | ©2007 NutriMirror® |
