Forums / Updates / Application Support

Water & Alcohol

trevor — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:59:47 GMT

This new feature has been up for a few weeks, but just now getting it integrated into the rest of the system. This is the separate ability to track water and alcohol intake. To use, navigate to your nutrition log, then click on the water bottles and/or beer glasses corresponding to the number of drinks you have had for the day, then click save.

You can add these items to your nutrition chart on the home page, see the details on the calendar page, and also the summary reports. Figuring out a way to integrate with the detail report and still need to add to the daily summary page.

Custom Fields on Cardio Detail Report

trevor — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:30:03 GMT

Added the ability to display custom fields (lists) to the cardio detail report. Will also add to the other reports soon.

Custom BMR

trevor — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:59:36 GMT

Added the ability to override the BMR calculation with your own custom value. So, if you have had your BMR (basal metabolic rate) calculated professionally, complete this preference to use your custom value.

Account -> Preferences

Custom BMR

Leave blank to let the system calculate automatically.

Updates to the home page / dashboard

trevor — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:00:15 GMT

Updates -

Ability to show/hide the 'My Workout Program' module
Rounded corners on modules, animation when moving modules, ability to expand/collapse modules
Automatically save changes to home page layout without reloading all modules
Updated goal weight progress bar to show accurate data

Custom First Day of Week

trevor — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:32:10 GMT

Added the ability to select Sunday or Monday as the first day of week. This option is on the preferences page, Account -> Preferences. The default value is Auto, which means that the first day of the week is determined by your culture/locale settings that you selected when you signed up. Selected Sunday or Monday will override this value. This will affect all calendars throughout the appliation and the exercise minutes by week chart on the home page. Some may ask why this would be needed? Many times training schedules start on Monday because races typically happen on the weekend and this way the weekend occurs at the end of a training block and isn't split in two.

Weight Goal and Activity Level

trevor — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:28:20 GMT

A couple of small updates -

Weight Goal - this now supports both weight gain and weight loss. Also, I've added some instructions to the right of the form. There are some instances where the goal date cannot be calculated and will display "Invalid Parameters". If you run into this case, simply move the sliders until a valid date shows up. The instances that this occurs are when the goal weight and your current weight are the same or if you have chosen weight loss by setting a goal weight lower than your current weight, but your parameters dictate a weekly weight gain (and vice versa). In this instance, you would need to lower your daily calories and/or increase your weekly exercise hrs and/or increase your goal weight.

Activity Level - your BMR calculation factors in this value, so the system now saves a history of any changes you've made to this value. This allows the system to use the appropriate value when calculating BMR for prior dates (i.e. uses the activity level for that particular date)

My Workout Program

trevor — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:15:18 GMT

Hi Everyone! It's been awhile since we've posted any new updates to the public application. So, in addition to the slightly modified look and feel and a new bank of servers, you'll notice a new box on your home page called 'My Workout Program' You can fill out a quick questionnaire about your goals and availability and the application will generate a 12-week strength program for you. You can view and print these workouts in addition to logging the workout with a single click and even skipping the workout.

These workout programs are brought to you courtesy of our friends at Global Health and Fitness. GHF has been around for over a decade and offers customized fitness and nutrition plans supported by their staff of personal trainers.

Online Fitness Log is providing the fitness tracking software for Global Health and Fitness - so if you decide to join GHF, your current data will transfer seamlessly into their program!

Checkout GHF and see what they have to offer!

Workouts

trevor — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:27:51 GMT

Added custom workouts. See Custom -> Workouts on the menu. Works similar to the recently added meals functionality. Enter a name for your workout, an optional description, and select the type of workout: cardio or strength. Click the plus sign beside your workout to view the exercises in the workout. Click Add New Exercise to this Workout to add exercises. For cardio workouts, select your cardio exercise then enter the duration (required) and other optional values such as distance, ahr, mhr, max speed, and calories (overrides automatic calorie calculation). For strength, click the same link to add exercises, then select the strength exercise and enter the values for up to 6 sets - weight, reps, duration and rest. Once you've created a workout or two go to the log entry page and you will see a new dropdown list at the bottom of the cardio and strength log entry tabs that says 'or Add Workout' (just like the nutrition log for meals). Select your workout and click the Add Workout button and the exercises you selected for the workout and the additional fields will be automatically logged for the selected day. You can then edit each as necessary. Please let me know how it works and any issues you come across.

Home Page Charts, Reports, etc.

trevor — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:19:12 GMT

Lots of updates yesterday, still working out some of the kinks. Here's a summary:

Registration
No one logged in probably cares too much about this one, but the registration process has been simplified so that only email address has to be input. The rest of the personal information can be added once the new member logs in for the first time.

Culture
This is also part of the new registration process, but current users have already been updated. You can now select from a few different cultures or locales that affect how your log appears regarding dates and the first day of the week. Currently, this cannot be changed once selected.

Timezone
Upon registration and login, the system will now pull the current time zone from your PC and configure the application accordingly. So, if you are travelling, you should see the local time, and then revert back when you return.

Report Auto Save
All reports now automatically save your date range and field settings (once you click apply), so that the next time you visit that report, your daterange and fields are already selected.

New Goal Types
2 new types of goal -
General - just a free form text box to enter whatever you like
Personal Bests - text box tied to a duration, for goals such as cycling a century in 6:00 or running a marathon in 3:00

Home Page Modules
2 new modules that can be added to the home page -
Exercise Minutes by Type - shows you a stacked bar chart of minutes of exercise per week by run, bike, swim, strength and other
Progress - show total duration for the current month, the previous month, and the current year by run, bike, swim, strength and other

Home Page Charts
The charts on the home page now have the date on the x-axis and show the last 7 days for 3-column layouts and 14 days for 2-column layouts. Several members have stated they prefer the old layout, so I'll add an option to show only dates that have log entries.

Quick Log Entry for Strength Workouts

trevor — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:56:52 GMT

Added a quicker form to enter strength log workouts. This will be launched by default when you click to log a workout from the 'My Workout Plan' area. It can also be used to edit strength log entries with the new icon on the strength log grid (to the right of the regular edit icon). This entry form shows each exercise in it's own box (the exercise cannot be changed) along with the number of specified sets and empty inputs for each field.

GHF

totaltully — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:58:23 GMT

OFL seems to be pushing an ad from GHF. On clicking this link, one is asked to buy a 12 week program for 60$. Should this not be marked as an ad. It is unfair to get users to click and find themselves lured into a commercial trick. Understand OFL needs to make money ... there must be better ways of doing this.

Strength Log Entry

trevor — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:48:29 GMT

Reworked the strength log entry page to make it quicker and hopefully more intuitive to make entries:

First, everything is on the page together so you will no longer have to make your overall entry, then add exercises one by one.

Click the 'Add More Sets to this Exercise' link to add 3 sets at a time.

Click the 'Add Another Exercise' link to add more exercises to the workout.

Load Workout on cardio log

hopknot — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:19:36 GMT

I pick a day, select a custom workout and select load workout and it just brings me back to the default day and does not load the workout.

I am new, but it worked as I expected for a strength workout. I tried on both firefox and IE and neither worked.

any help woudl be appreciated

Cardio Log Entry

trevor — Sat, 30 May 2009 08:51:36 GMT

Made some usability updates to the cardio log entry page:

1. Trying to make it clearer which fields are required - required field names are in bold and the error message now says "Required" in addition to a summary message near the "Save" button that says "Required Information is Missing"

2. The new entry form will now appear by default for days which have no log entries, removing the requirement to click the "Add an exercise to this log entry" link

3. The "Load Workout" section now displays a message with a link to create a workout if you do not have any custom workouts - should help eliminate some confusion about workouts.

I'll be applying similar updates to the other log entry screens in the near future.

Please let me know if you encounter any bugs or errors.

Minor Updates

trevor — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:08:19 GMT

Just a few really minor updates -

Moved the links from the top right to the bottom of the page (Contact and Logout) to make room for the new page title in that area.

Removed the forum link from the menu to make space for additional items. The forums aren't getting much use anyway, but the link is at the bottom of the page.

Added a video tutorial - see link at bottom of page or on menu before you login. I will be creating tutorials for each section of the website, so keep an eye on this area for new information.

More (and better) updates to come soon!

NEW! Quick Start Guide

trevor — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:44:07 GMT

Click the link below (or at the top right of the application) to download a Quick Start Guide. This is the beginnings of a comprehensive user manual. It doesn't cover all of the functionality available in the site yet, but it is a start.

Quick Start Guide

NEW! Calendar Tooltips

trevor — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 07:45:17 GMT

Added tooltips to the calendar page so you can view details of your log entry or upcoming goal directly by hovering the mouse over the icon representing the log entry or goal. Comments welcome!

Subscription + Various Updates

rsuske — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:12:29 GMT

Clearly the major update was the move to a paid subscription based model with a free 7-day trial. Thanks to all who have signed up for the annual subscription! For those members who would need to take a few more days to evaluate the service before committing to a payment or who would like to export their data and move on - please email me via the contact form and I will extend your trial by 7 days.

Some other various updates:

Log View page - access this page from the calendar page by clicking on the magnifying glass icon for a date that has log entries. Added navigation buttons to this page so that you can jump directly to the next or previous day without returning to the calendar. Also added a calendar icon so that you can select a date and go directly to the log detail for that day. Note on all calendars - you can click the title bar and it will open a window that allows you to select ANY date - much quick way to get to a particular date than using the back and forth links. Additionally, I've modified the carbs, protein and fat chart so that it shows the ratio between calories from each (before was using grams), i.e. 4 cal per gram of carb and protein and 9 cal per gram of fat.

Activity Level - This is used to calculate BMR. It was brought to my attention that the amount of calories expended based on the activity level multiplier seemed to be too high. I agree and have modified that multiplier so that it does not cause such a great degree of change. For example, before if you selected Extremely Active (the highest activity level) your BMR would be multipled by 1.9 (almost double). I've changed the multipliers to be 1.0 - 1.4 increasing by .1 for each activity level. This should yield a much more accurate number and help you see better results when trying to acheive a weight-loss goal.

Meals - updated the totals on the custom meals page so that they are accurate.

Food Search - We were pulling entries from other members custom foods when searching the food database. This has been reverted back to only pulling from the USDA database and your personal custom foods. The reason is that we were getting too many duplicate entries, too many invalid entries and it was slowing down the search. So, if you search for a food that you've found before and it no longer exists - you'll have to enter it as a custom food on your own.

Strength Log - Changed the totals for weight to reflect weight lifted multiplied by number of sets as requested. Also, added functionality to allow editing of existing exercises, which will make the custom workouts for strength exercises much more useful.

Goals

trevor — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:50:32 GMT

I've finally gotten around to implementing goals. This is the first attempt so please let me know of any issues you come across or any ideas you have for improvement. Here's a brief summary of the functionality.

There are 2 types of goals you can create - event or weight. An example of an event goal would be a 5k that you would like to run or a charity bike ride. You'll input the date and the system will keep you updated as to how many days remain until that date. The other goal is weight driven. This would include any type of weight gain/loss. The system will track the number of days remaining until your target date in addition to your weight fluctuations during that period. It will also recommend a target date that allows for a healthy rate of weight loss/gain.

Manage your goals from the Custom -> Goals menu item. You will notice a new box on the home page that shows your upcoming goals, a description, and a bar graph of days remaining. You will also see a new icon on the calendar page relating to your goal. Click on this icon or the name of the goal on the home page to view a summary page of the goal. You will see all the goal information and a larger bar chart depicting your progress in days. Weight driven goals will also show your starting weight, current weight, and target weight in addition to a line chart showing your weight fluctuations during the goal period.

Again, please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for this functionality.

Thanks,

Weight Goal

trevor — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:41:33 GMT

Hi, just wanted to introduce the latest feature update - a fresh way to set your goal weight. You'll notice a new item on the menu Goals -> Weight. Once you click this you'll get the following screen:

Some explanation:

Current weight: this is your weight as of today (either what you originally entered when signing up or your latest metrics entry with the weight field completed)

Daily Calories: This is your Basal Metabolic Rate minus calories from exercise - initially based upon your selected activity level

Weekly Exercise Hrs: This is the number of hours you intend to exercise per week - initially based upon your selected activity level

Goal Weight: This is the weight you would like to attain

Weekly Weight Loss Rate: The amount of weight lost per week based on your selections

Goal Weight Date: The date you should achieve your goal weight based on your selections

The idea is for you to play around with the three items that you can control - amount of calories taken in (Daily Calories), amount of exercise (Weekly Exercise Hrs), and your target weight (Goal Weight). Use the sliders to make modifications and see the updates bottom two values update.

Once you have setup your weight goal - you will see a new chart on the home page like so:

Unfortunately, I was not able to transfer your current weight goals so you will need to create a new one. Please let me know of any questions or issues.

New Server

trevor — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 13:26:40 GMT

Sorry for any hiccups today, just getting the app moved over to the new server. This should address any performance issues for now. Now that this is complete, I can get started on some of the functional requests I've been receiving. Please let me know if you notice any issues.

Thanks!

Meal Servings, Nutrition Data Search, Workout Exercise Order

trevor — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:15:35 GMT

Updates for this week include:

Optimized food search query so hopefully the dropdown box will work just a bit quicker.
Added the ability to specify servings to meals. In other words, if you create a meal that serves 8, you can supply that info when you create the meal, then when you log the meal, you can select the number of servings actually consumed and the application will adjust the nutritional values accordingly.
Added a third-party nutritional data search to the nutrition log entry page and the meal creation page. If you can't find the food in our database, try this search from NutritionData.com to get the info.
Added the ability to order exercises for both cardio and strength workouts. Enter a numeric value for the Order ID field to specify the order of the exercises. This field is not required and exercises that do not have a value will be listed before those with a value.
Added a favicon to the site (little image in the address bar of your browser)
Added a link from the home page to the article library - speaking of - if any of you are fitness professionals and would like some free advertising - please submit your exclusive (i.e. not posted anywhere else on the web) health/fitness/nutrition article to be posted in our library.

Thanks!

Various Updates

trevor — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:14:32 GMT

Several small updates today:

Minor changes to the menu to simplify and make it more clear
Changed the wording of workouts and meals on the log entry pages to read "Load" vs. "Add" to hopefully clear up some confusion as to how these work (i.e. you must create a meal or workout via the Personalization menu options before you can Load a meal or workout into a log entry.)
If you have a weight goal set, you will now see a new line on your metrics chart on the home page that shows your target weight.
Along the same lines, on the goal detail page, you will see a line that goes from your starting weight to your target weight along with a line charting your actual weight fluctuations during that time.
Added steps to the cardio log as requested by a few members
Added the ability to override the METS value for a cardio exercise on the log entry screen. This was requested and is useful when you know the workout was harder or easier than what the application is calculating for calories. For example, I log my mountain biking under cycling, which calculates calories based on average speed. Since my average speed is much lower on the trail, the system calculates a lower number of calories burned. But, I know that the effort required is much higher, so I might modify the METS value accordingly.

As always, Please let me know what you think and alert me of any bugs/errors. Thanks!

Various Updates

trevor — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:42:15 GMT

OK, I finally completed the latest updates. Much of it is behind the scenes so you won't see a lot of difference, but it should address some of the errors I've seen reported and make the application more stable. Some of the updates were just architecture related so that other developers and myself can more easily work with the code. The most visible update is to the the nutrition log entry page (and also the meal creation page) with the search on demand drop down box for foods. You'll now notice when you type your food in and get the results that more data is included in grid form as follows: food description, serving size, calories, fat, carbs, and protein. This will allow you to see the various serving sizes and corresponding nutritional data for each food before selecting. I'm also hoping that it will help minimize duplicate custom food entries. You'll also notice an icon at the right of each row in the food drop down that will display the entire nutritional label when you hover over it.

There were many changes with this update, so I expect some issues. Please let me know if you find anything that isn't working properly and I will address it as quickly as possible.

Thanks,

Custom Meals

trevor — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:59:27 GMT

Added ability to create custom meals, which consist of a grouping of foods. This should signinficantly ease entry of nutrition data. The new item is located in the menu under Custom -> Meals. To create a meal, click 'Add a meal' then enter the name of the meal and an optional description. Click save, then you will be looking back at the grid. Notice the + sign beside your newly created meal, click this and it will expand to show the foods that compose this meal (there will be none for the new meal). Click 'Add food to this meal' and select your food, serving size, and number of servings just as you would if you were logging a nutrition item. Continue doing this until you have added all of your foods to the meal. You will need to click the Refresh link (in the upper right) to update the calorie and nutrient data totals for the meal.

To use your meal in the log entry page, you'll notice a new meal combo box under the nutrition tab. Select the meal, click Add Meal, and each of the foods associated with the meal will be added to your nutrition log for the selected day. You will then have the ability to add/delete or modify any of these foods for that particular day.

Please let me know what you think and if you encounter any problems.

Thanks,

Home Page Layout Preferences

trevor — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:07:22 GMT

Reworked the home page a bit and added the ability to customize the layout. From the Account -> Preferences menu item, you can now choose a 2 or 3 column layout for the home page in addition to selecting which modules you want to display. The current modules are the metrics chart, cardio chart, nutrition chart, calories chart, goals, and forum messages. From the home page you can also move the items around the page to situate to your liking. Let me know what you think!

Home Page Chart Preferences

trevor — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:48:45 GMT

Added a new page under Account -> Preferences that allows you to set which fields will display on the homepage charts.

Nutrition Servings, Add to Favorites, Set as Home Page

trevor — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:35:56 GMT

Modified the log entry page to accept typed in decimal values instead of selecting from the drop down. Added an 'Add to Favorites' menu item on all public pages and a new menu item title 'Other' with 'Add to Favorites' on all member pages. Also, added 'Make this my Home Page' menu item on member home page.

Activity Level

trevor — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:09:30 GMT

In response to some feedback regarding BMR being a little low, I've added an activity level multiplier. New users will be required to select an activity level and current users can go to the account page to select their appropriate activity level. The levels are as follows:

Activity Level	BMR Factor	Description
Sedentary	1.200	Little or no exercise and desk job
Lightly Active	1.375	Light exercise or sports 1-3 days a week
Moderately Active	1.550	Moderate exercise or sports 3-5 days a week
Very Active	1.725	Hard exercise or sports 6-7 days a week
Extremely Active	1.900	Hard daily exercise or sports and physical job

Each level has a factor associated with it that is then multiplied by your BMR to give you your daily calories burned outside of exercise. This might be a welcome change to many since it means your calories burned will increase. I believe the consensus is that this is a more accurate measurement.

Be careful as to which you choose. You may want to look at the calorie numbers over a few days and see if you feel it is accurate. I am quite active and chose the very active selection, but felt that I would certainly gain wait consuming in excess of 3000 calories a day so I backed my selection off to Moderately Active. Also, please keep in mind that these numbers are not going to be exact. The idea is more about seeing trends, habits, foods to avoid, etc. than counting each calorie to the exact value.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks,

Copy/Move/Delete Log Entries

trevor — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:14:35 GMT

You'll notice a new box at the bottom left of the log entry page that allows copy/move/delete functionality for log entries. Simply select the log entries that you want to copy/move/delete and the date to copy/move to (if appropriate) and then click the appropriate button (copy/move/delete). The system will copy/move/delete the CURRENT LOG ENTRY to the date you select. This will allow you to easily modify entries if you accidentally enter info for the wrong day. It can also serve as an interim way to ease log entry until I can get around to adding the ability to create meals, workouts, and default entries. The system will not allow you to copy/move an entry to a date that already has an entry, so if you want to replace an entry you'll need to delete it first, then copy/move.

Also, you'll notice the same functionality on the calendar page with small icons in the upper right corner of each day.

Please let me know if you have any question or notice any issues.

Thanks,

Time Zone

trevor — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:45:01 GMT

Added the ability to select your timezeone, which will be relflected anywhere there is a date, such as the header in the upper right and on the log entry page. New users will be required to select their timezone upon signup. Current users can go the the Account page to update their timezone.

General Notes Log

trevor — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:11:00 GMT

You'll see a new tab on your log entry page labeled "Notes". This is just a free-form text box for daily notes, like a journal. Currently, there is nowhere to actually view the notes once they are entered, but that will be updated shortly.

Auto-Login

trevor — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:49:28 GMT

Added 'Remember Me' auto-login feature. It is only available from the login page, link from upper right corner. Check the 'Remember Me' box and successfully login, then the next time you click the login link you will go directly to your home page with being asked to authenticate. You can bookmark the login page, your home page, or any other page behind the security to use the auto-login feature.

Strength and Measurements Reports

trevor — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:58:58 GMT

Added the following reports and charts:

Strength Summary Report
Strength Detail Report
Strength Detail Chart

Measurements Summary Report
Measurements Detail Report
Measurements Detail Chart

Also, changed the format of the summary reports a bit and grouped the report menu items.

Body Measurements

trevor — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:48:19 GMT

Added the ability to record the following body measurements with your log entry:

Neck, shoulders, biceps (left/right), forearms (left/right), chest, waist, abdomen, hips, thighs (left/right), calves (left/right)

You'll notice a new menu item under Log Entry, a new tab on the Log Entry page, and a new icon on the calendar page to represent a body measurement log entry. This new type of log entry still supports custom fields and notes.

Let me know if you come across any issues.

Thanks,

Strength Logging

trevor — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:02:23 GMT

Added strength logging functionality to the log entry page. I'm sure there are some bugs, so let me know what you find.

Totals on Summary Reports

trevor — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:02:52 GMT

Added totals to summary reports where appropriate.

Exercise & Nutrition Totals

trevor — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:43:30 GMT

Added column totals to the Log Entry page for exercise and nutrition.

Chart options and export

trevor — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:31:20 GMT

Added some new features to the detail reports (Reports -> Metrics Detail, Exercise Detail, Nutrition Detail). First, you can now export these reports to csv, excel, word, and pdf. Additionally, the chart now opens in a popup window and you can specify size (small, large), type (spline, line), and whether or not to display the values on the chart. This is in addition to the current ability to sort and filter by all fields, to specify a variety of date ranges, and to select the fields to display in both the report and the chart.

Hope this is helpful and please let me know what you think!

Thanks,