Take 8 Minutes to Find Out How Much You Should Eat
Portable device calculates how many calories your body needs
By LITA BECK
Updated 1:43 PM EST, Wed, Apr 8, 2009
If you're struggling with weight loss, you may not be eating the right amount of calories. The trick is figuring what that right amount is.
"People that go on crash diets and they go really low-calorie -- what happens is that losing the weight is never the issue," said Angela Lemond, a registered dietician. "The issue is keeping the weight off."
Enter Fitmate.
The portable calorie calculator is a smaller version of a machine normally used in a hospital setting, such as when people are on an artificial feeding method.
The handheld Fitmate is available to help people trying to lose weight -- and maintain it.
"What this piece of equipment allows you to do is get at that rate where you're losing one to two pounds a week, which is what the recommendations are without sacrificing lean mass," Lemond said.
The fundamental problem with diets is an individual's calorie in-take, said Lemond, a dietician at Professional Nutrition Therapists in Dallas.
"Even though you might be the same gender, activity level, everybody genetically has various types of lean mass," she said. "So that lean mass is what drives out metabolic rate."
Fitmate calculates how many calories you burn while at rest, taking the guesswork out of it. It's then able to tell you how many calories your body needs each day to either lose weight or maintain your current weight, after just eight minutes.
The information helps dieticians come up with a plan to meet their patients' goals that includes a nutrition program and an exercise regimen.
"We want to make sure they're getting the calories they need," Lemond said.
For more information on Professional Nutrition Therapists' services, visit their Web site at www.foodtherapyrd.com. You can also learn more about Fitmate at its Web site at www.fitmate.net.
First Published: Apr 7, 2009 9:54 PM EST
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