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Calorie-counting smart patch measures energy intake and expenditure
Counting calories? Technology is available to help you, led by software like DietPower, and sophisticated websites such as the excellent and free FitDay. But those will soon be obsolete, because now there's a smart patch by PhiloMetron that measures how many calories you've eaten and burned. Then you can read 'em and weep on your cell phone, because those numbers are transmitted to it via Bluetooth.
The fun doesn't stop there. PhiloMetron's associated cell phone application has learned how to nag, whining things like "You missed your goal for today, but you can make it up tomorrow by taking a 15-minute walk or having a salad for dinner." That's something that could either be an extraordinary help or your worst nightmare.
The mystery is, how does PhiloMetron make this miracle happen? Nobody's saying how it works or what it costs, but they did mention it's only accurate to plus-or-minus 500 calories, which if you add it up, can be the difference between losing or gaining 52 pounds in a year. Still, studies show that monitoring caloric intake is a huge help for weight loss, so counting those calories automagically can only help.
By Roger at 1:06 PM ON 05/01/09
Well, considering the range people fall with in is between 1500-2500 calories a day (depending on whether they're losing/gaining weight and their level of activity) I think they'll need to improve the precision to at least +/- 100 calories.
with a +/- 500 cl. there's a danger people could justify eating too much or too little, because the machine tells them it's "OK". And if you think otherwise, just consider how deluded people with eating disorders are already.
on your cellphone!
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Roger:
Well, considering the range people fall with in is between 1500-2500 calories a day (depending on whether they're l...More »