Any way to log supplements?

[peptopinkboots]

I take several, and I was wondering if there's a way to record that?

Many thanks, from a newbie.

[habitsrule]

I am a Newbie at FitDay as well. I created my supplements as a custom food which I can then enter on my daily log.

[Raijer]

I'm a long time Fitday user. I bought the PC version a couple of years ago, and since I just got myself a new computer, I was thinking of upgrading to version 2.

However, more than once both my girlfriend (another looong time user) and I have tried to contact the site with a question about Fitday's nutritional information, specifically how it tracks vitamins. The numbers have NEVER added up correctly, and I thought maybe, now that Fitday has a forum, I can once again try to get an answer.

Running a very basic test, I create a custom food - a "Test Vitamin." This food has no other nutritional information except vitamins, all of which contain an even 100% RDA. It looks something like this....



I then go to my daily food log, and without entering any other food, I enter my "Test Vitamin" into the log. Now, when I go straight to my RDA graph, I should expect that with the "Test Vitamin" being the only nutritional information entered, that the graph SHOULD read a straight 100% RDA across the board for all the vitamins. This, as can be seen, is nowhere near the case.



The numbers are all over the board. Anyone interested in tracking their vitamins (that would be my grilfriend and I for two), is apparently is not getting the correct information.

Can the Fitday mods please explain these test results? Thank you in advance.

[Raijer]

BTW - this apparent vitamin bug shows up in both the online Fitday and the PC version - at least the old verison (I don't have 2.0, so I can't speak for that).

[rg.tatum]

I am a new fitday user and can't seem to find a way to add my multivitamin to my food log. Any suggestions on how I log a daily vitamin?

[Raijer]

Well, it depends on how your vitamins are labled. Usually they're given as RDA percentages, in which case you can simply create a new custom food, name it "multivitamin," and then enter the corresponding vitamin percentages on the label into Fitday.

That said, it may not do you a bit of good. As can be seen by my original post, what you enter for your vitamins does not relate at all to what Fitday is reporting.

[Raijer]

Well, I did a bit of searching through the forum to see if I could find my answer, and dug up this thread, which, more or less, asked the same question as I did:

Entering and making sense of Vitamin's and Minerals

Here's Fitday's response:

Originally Posted by fitday_jim

Hi funrun73. That is a great question and it confuses lots of people.

Essentially there is confusion around the "Daily Values" found on food labels and the RDA graphs in FitDay. The US government uses Daily Values for the values on a food label. These values are picked by the government to be useful without knowing the person's age and gender. FitDay takes those numbers and turns them into an amount ( for example 100% of Vitamin C becomes 60mg).

FitDay displays RDA charts in our reports.Your RDA for a nutrient is a different government standard that takes into account things like your age and gender. These are things that the label couldn't take into account. So while the DV was 100%, your personal RDA may be 110% because you need less due to your age and gender.

This can be confusing, but I hope this helps

So if I understand this correctly, Fitday is saying that it takes the Govt. RDA percentage of a vitamin and converts it into its basic amount (i.e. 100% RDA of Vitamin C = 60mg). It then takes that basic amount and compares it to what you SHOULD be taking relative to your age and gender.

So, using the charts above, if I take 100% RDA of Vitamin C (60mg), Fitday reports back and says that this amount is actually only 67% of my PERSONAL requirement for Vit. C as a 47 y.o. male.

Ok, if I understand this correctly, I'll admit that I like the math. However, it does raise another criticism: Why isn't this explained somewhere?

I don't see anywhere on this site, or on the PC version where there's an explaination of where any of Fitday's numbers come from or how they can be best understood - heck, I don't even see a "Help" section anymore with the new design. All the above information is important, but it's taken me over two years to finally coax it out. This information should be readily available (especially if you're asking people to part with $30 for the PC version), and if it isn't, when the question is asked through "contact Fitday," a response should be forthcoming.

Fitday is a great product, and I still plan on using it, however, there is much room for improvement. My $.02.

[fitday_jim]

Hi Raijer. Your point is well taken. We are trying to figure out the best want to handle these types of questions. Probably a wiki with a FAQ would be a good start. We used to have a help section, but almost nobody used it and we still saw the same number of questions in support.

[theimaginativeika]

none of my vitamins are measured in %RDA - they are all measured in mg and mcg. This makes it impossible to incorporate my vitamins into my log. Could you make an alternate 'food' form that allows you to make a custom food based on mg and mcg and then does the RDA% calculations based on your age and gender?

[PlatosGimp]

How, or where can I create a food, or something else, which I can tally my daily vitamin and mineral supplements? I tried to do this in the food section but not all minerals are listed and I can add them in IU's