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Vivonic Fitness Planner for Palm

Vivonic Fitness Planner for Palm

List Price: $54.00
Your Price: $49.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not for the Hard-Core
Review: I'll start by saying this program does work and is extremely easy to use, but don't go in to it expecting miracles. I guess I was looking for something that would give me a little more feedback and a few more options. For people sick of using calorie counting books - this is a great addition to your life, but if you are looking for anything more - keep looking.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very easy to track food and exercise
Review: I've only played with the demo on the Palm, but the data entry is really easy. The feedback is great too, showing how you're doing towards your goals.

I read reviews and other people's comments at a bunch of other places, and the vast majority were very positive. I just added this "review" to balance out what the first person wrote. Check it out at other places before you take their word for it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: liked it, until I got to know it
Review: I, like many other, loved this program when I first got it. Made food journaling easy (and I believe that is key to my weight loss of 60 lbs), it also helped me to learn about the nutritional content of foods(and led me to buy the book Food Bible, by Judith Wills, which I do recommend). But the company that put out the product has dropped the ball. I got a new Palm Zire and it is not compatible. I emailed the tech support and they told me that they were working on updating the software. They said it would be ready by December 2003. Since then I have not heard from them at all. I hope they get their act together, or I hope someone better comes out with a better product. Until then, I suggest buying the Food Bible and investing in a notebook, pen, and calculator.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: New Palm? No Vivonic
Review: Like some of the other customers here, I've been using Vivonic (happily) for about two years but when I installed it on my new Tungsten C...nothing. "Tech Support" via the Vivonic site produces no response. It's a great program if you're using the Palm OS 4.0 or less, but not compatible with the newer models.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: New Palm? No Vivonic
Review: Like some of the other customers here, I've been using Vivonic (happily) for about two years but when I installed it on my new Tungsten C...nothing. "Tech Support" via the Vivonic site produces no response. It's a great program if you're using the Palm OS 4.0 or less, but not compatible with the newer models.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good... but not great
Review: Or maybe even great, but could be better. I wish the custom foods entered could be filed in the right places instead of one big folder of "Custom Foods." But it is very easy to use and will let you in on some amazing facts. You'll be surpised when you see your nutritional information at the end of the day! MUCH better than the regular old food diary. But hopefully this program will continue to evolve because they could do a lot better. I didn't buy it on Amazon, but wish I did, this is the best price out there.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This is a great idea, but a rather poor implementation.
Review: Regarding Vivonic's software, I have a very simple request: Allow me to print a week's food journal out on ONE piece of paper. I have to provide my doctor with a list of everything I eat daily for each week for medical reasons. I purchased this program because I had thought this would be an easier method to track my food intake than pen and paper or using journal entries on my visor. However, I have found that my only options for printing are either:

1.) Copy and paste each of the contents of the three meal tabs from each of seven days into another program. or 2.) Do twenty-one print screens.

When I contacted tech support regarding this, I was told they would leave my request in my case notes and it may be reviewed by their engineers. Let's just say I am not holding my breath.

I am sure I am not the only one who would like to have this functionality. Without this feature, I do not feel that this program can justify its high cost.

It is also very frustrating to not be able to add custom foods into the palm interface. If I eat something away from my pc that is not in the database, I have to remember the nutritional info or log it in a different program on my visor until I return home.

Despite poor reviews, I decided to give this product a try. I only still use it because I have not been able to find a similar product that allows the palm to sync info with my pc.

This is a great idea, but a rather poor implementation.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Sucked in by the cute print ads in a few magazines, I really wanted to fall in love with this software and have it be just what I needed to keep track of my eating and my workouts. The software is a great idea but the implementation is lacking. I have found the interface on the palm to be a little cumbersome, and I don't like the fact that I can't take any notes next to my workouts.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: good by me
Review: The software met my expectations in most respects, and actually exceeded them in the amount of detailed nutritional information it provided; some of which has already caused me to modify my eating habits in less than a week. For example, I was surprised to see how much sugar I was getting from the non-fat milk in the many lattes I was drinking.

I would agree with the shortcomings mentioned in the other reviews:

1) it is nearly impossible to add foods or exercises that are not in the rather limited database.

2) I was surprised that the software does not graph things like body weight, body fat, etc., considering it graphs food intake.

3) I'll add that I find some of the calorie consumption totals from exercise wildely optimistic. For example, the software listed 790 calories burned from 30 minutes on the Nordic Trak at aerobic intensity levels. The Nordic Trak and my heart rate monitor both calculated the same level to within 2 calories--475. However, this was easy to correct by just reducing the intensity level in the software to get the correct calorie total.

All in all, though, I view this as a fun and easy to use piece of software which seems a great value.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Acheiving my goals!
Review: The Vivonic Fitness Planner is a great tool for counting calories and watching my fat and sugar intake. Before I used the Vivonic Fitness Planner, I thought I was consuming a low fat healthy diet until I saw on a daily and weekly basis that I was doing anything but that! Using the fitness planner, I know exactly how many macro and micro nutirents I am consuming with every meal. The planner has helped me establish diet and exercise goals and I can watch my progress down to the last detail. I highly recommend this fitness planner for the detailed oriented and serious exercise enthusiasts. The exercises listed in the planner are somewhat limited, however, any good and reliable fitness trainer should be able to help you figure out the calories burned on any given exercise. It takes some effort on the users part, but so does proper diet and exercise. On a final note, the technical support staff for the fitness planner has been very helpful. I haven't experienced any difficulties that couldn't be resolved. With available updates on the Vivonic website, this really is a very good and reliable program. I give it 4+ stars.


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