Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

MyNetDiary provides many ways to track foods and exercise - online, on the iPhone, BlackBerry, and iPad, and here we tried to answer the most frequent questions for all of them. iPhone, BlackBerry, and iPad apps each have their own help screens, specific to them. Many weight loss, diet, and nutrition topics are discussed in MyNetDiary Articles. You may also consider searching much broader set of topics at MyNetDiary Community.

What is the fastest way to enter foods on the main site?

MyNetDiary is designed from the ground up to make food entry as fast and easy as possible. None of other web sites, free or paid, comes close.

Here is a tip for really fast food entry: MyNetDiary searches while you type a food name.

Simply click in the food name cell in the food table and start typing. MyNetDiary will display foods found as you type. The search is instantaneous and you don't need to go to any other pages, you can simply keep typing and see the immediate results. Once you see the food you need in the dropdown, you can use the Up and Down arrow keys to select it. Then hit the Tab key to go to the amount cell, enter the amount (any format is supported, e.g. 2, 1.5, or 2/3), and similarly select a serving size with the arrow keys from another dropdown. Hit Tab again, which will take you to the next food row.

This way, you don't even need to use the mouse or take your hands off the keyboard. It works really well.

What is the fastest way to enter foods on the phone?

Go to a meal (e.g. breakfast), tap the "+" button in the top right corner, which will take you to the Breakfast Entry screen. There, type several words from the food name. As you type, the foods are found and displayed in the list to the right. Once you see the one you need, tap it. The food's full name is displayed below the Food Name Search box, and you will be taken to the Amount box. Type a number (e.g. 2) and tap on a serving size in the list on the right (e.g. "oz"). You'll see calories and weight calculated below the Amount box. Next, tap the Save button, and you'll be taken back to the Meal screen (breakfast, in this example), where you should see the name of the food and the corresponding number of calories. If you want to enter another food, repeat the process starting from tapping the "+" button.

How can I get MyNetDiary on my iPhone, iPod Touch or BlackBerry?

Please, see MyNetDiary Mobile Apps page.

How can I synchronize my phone with the main site?

No synchronization is needed! The main site and phone work with the same data. Your diary is stored on MyNetDiary.com servers. Anything you enter on your phone is immediately visible on the main site and vice versa. To see updates on the web site you need to refresh the Daily page. To see updates on the phone you need to go to another day and then return, or open and close MyNetDiary.

Does MyNetDiary work on the phone if there is no Internet connection?

Without an Internet connection MyNetDiary allows you to view your last few days as read-only but does not allow you to enter or modify foods. All food searches are done by our servers, and everything is stored online in your personal diary. This gives you access to a huge food database that is always up to date and eliminates the need to sync or backup your MyNetDiary data. This will protect you from data loss.

Our developers are planning to implement diconnected mode in the nearest future. As a workaround, please record your foods and amounts as text notes, then re-enter foods into MyNetDiary when connectivity is restored.

How can I change my initial weight and start date shown on the Plan page?

If you want to remove all previous body weight measurements and use your current weight and today's date as a start point in your diet planning, please, go to Plan page and click "Start over" link.

It is also possible to adjust your start date without losing all previous weight measurements. Clicking on the start date link on the Plan page will take you to the Daily page where you initially entered your weight. You can also use the calendar on the Daily page to get to that date. You can now update the weight for the specific date.

The start date is the first date you entered weight on. If you want to move the start date back, simply enter your weight for the date you wanted. If you want to move the start date forward, enter the weight on that selected date and clear all previous weight entries.

Can I use metric units and European date format?

On the web site, open the Account page. You can customize many international settings, including units, date format, timezone, etc. The changes will be applied to both the main site and the phone app. You can still enter information in any unit, regardless of your defaults.

What if I do not find a food in the database?

You can define a new custom food as a recipe based on existing foods as ingredients or simply create a new custom food from scratch while performing food entry. Custom foods and recipes can be created from phone or the web site

It is also possible to create a custom food by adjusting existing food at the web site: select the food in grid, click "Food Details" link, then click "Copy and customize" link.

Al last, you can find and copy other users' custom foods via Community Search.

Can I create a "recipe" from several foods?

Yes, we support recipes on the web site and on the phone. Recipes are created from meals, so as the first step, enter all ingredients in any meal (e.g. breakfast or snack).

Next, on the web site, use the "Recipe" link displayed in the meal row, in the Amount column. On the iPhone, tap the "Recipe" button at the bottom (this is the icon consisting of two rectangles).

Enter a recipe name and select food group, and then click/tap Save - a new custom food will be created based on the ingredients and will replace the ingredients in the meal. Next time you eat these foods, you only need to start typing your new custom food name. If you ever need to edit the recipe, you can edit it as any other custom food.

Recipes are stored as custom foods. If needed, you can modify recipe serving name and enter a number of portions, e.g. "4 cups" or "2 plates", which will allow you to log food entries for individual portions like "1.5cup" or "plate".

How do I delete a custom food?

Go to Daily page and click "My Foods" link. Select the food you want to delete, then click the Delete button.

How do I share my custom foods with others?

In order to share custom foods and recipes with your friends, family and other community members, go to Community Profile and select 2 options: "Participate in Community" and "Let everyone find my custom foods and activities". Also, enter appropriate value for the nickname. After you Save the profile, other community members will be able to find your nickname via Community Search page, open your Person page and copy your food definitions into their diaries.
Custom activities can be shared similarly to custom foods.

What is the Food Score - the number displayed in the corner of Nutrition Facts?

Sometimes deciding by a food label whether you should eat the food or skip it could be non-trivial. For example, what is more important - 6g of saturated fat or 30% of Vitamin C in the food? Which one outweighs the other?

To help you interpret food labels, MyNetDiary provides food score - displayed in the top right corner. The food score is calculated based solely on the food's Nutrition Facts. The methodology was published in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, in the article Modeling Expert Opinions on Food Healthfulness: A Nutrition Metric by Jolie M. Martin, MBA, PhD; John Beshears, AM; Katherine L. Milkman; Max H. Bazerman, PhD; Lisa A. Sutherland, PhD, and used by MyNetDiary with permission. The study distills expert knowledge of leading U.S. nutrition experts into a simple nutrition metric, to help all of us to make more healthful food choices.

For typical food amounts, the food score varies from about +5 for foods that nutrition expert are likely to consider more healthy, to zero for average foods, and to -5 for foods likely to be considered not very healthy. For example, green beans get 3.6, pasta gets 0.3, and single meat patty burger gets -2.7.

Please note that the food score does not include calories - only nutrients. You should always strive to meet both your calorie and nutrient goals for the whole day. The Analysis screen provides additional details and recommendations.

Finally, please note that although we make every effort to improve quality of the food database, not all foods have all nutrients provided by the food vendor, or entered into the food database. In this cases, the calculated food score may be off.

What does percentage (%) mean in the food grid on the web site (e.g. for sodium)?

Sodium, vitamins and some other nutrients are displayed as percentages of your daily targeted intake for more convenient, uniform cross-nutrient analysis. You can enter and adjust your personal daily targets in "My Daily Nutrition Plan" section of the Plan page. Also, see our guidelines on nutrient goals.

MyNetDiary allows to track all kinds of stuff like "bone weight" or "lean body mass". How can I measure them?

You can obtain them from a special scale. For example, some Tanita scales provide weight, body fat %, muscle mass, physique rating, and bone mass.

What is the size of a "glass of water" in MyNetDiary?

Water glasses do not affect any calculations in MyNetDiary, as water consumption does not seem to affect weight loss directly. MyNetDiary provides water tracking because many people want to track it, to ensure they drink enough fluids. You can decide for yourself what glass size is most convenient for you, and re-calculate all fluids you drink into such glasses. For example, you can decide to consider glass size to be 6 fl oz, or 200 ml - whatever makes sense to you, just use it consistently.

How do I cancel my account with MyNetDiary?

No problems at all - whether you achieved your goals with MyNetDiary, or you decided that you don't like keeping a diary. You can terminate you account at Account Payments page. When you terminate your account, all of your private data will be deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy. If you are within the 14-day guaranteed money-back period, our support personnel will issue full refund within 24 hours after closing account.

Please, notice that your account is not closed automatically when you stop paying and using the service. We just keep your data so that you can resume using the service after a prolonged break. We do not store your credit card information and we do not practice recurring charges.

Also, please review our Weight Maintenance guide.

Which diet should I follow?

MyNetDiary does not require following some specific diet or eliminating some foods, but you can do that if you want to, this is up to your dietary preferences. Some people try to reduce carbs, some try to cut fats. Generally, you want to eat healthy and stay within your nutrition plan setup by you in MyNetDiary to meet your weight goals. You can keep eating your favorite foods, but you may need to do this in moderation, to make sure your nutrition is balanced (see the USDA Food Pyramid guide for additional information about food groups.) In addition, MyNetDiary calculates Food Score for each food, which also helps quickly estimate healthfulness of the food.

How does MyNetDiary calculate recommended "weight maintenance" calories? The recommendation seems high for me.

MyNetDiary uses the official formulas for Estimated Energy Requirements provided by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

Adult man: EER = 662 - 9.53 x age (y) + PA x (15.91 x wt [kg] + 539.6 x ht [m])

Adult woman: EER = 354 - 6.91 x age (y) + PA x (9.36 x wt [kg] + 726 x ht [m])

PA indicates activity level, and is equal to 1.0 for sedentary, 1.12 for low active, 1.27 for active, and 1.45 for very active.

The Institute of Medicine provides detailed tables and formulas for nutrients and energy. You can see the formulas on page 5, as well as the table that lists Estimated Energy Requirements calculated using this formula for 30-year-olds. For example, for a 30-year-old male, 1.80m tall, "low active", with a BMI of 24.99 (178 lbs), it lists 2,900 calories, and for "active" it lists 3,240.

We recommend selecting activity level in MyNetDiary as "low active" and accurately accounting for any extra energy-burning activities and exercises that are outside of typical "low active" lifestyle. This will be much more accurate than the generic "active" activity level, which is of course a very rough guess.

You can adjust your activity level via Account page.

How can I set target calories?

You can modify your planned calories on the Plan page on the web site, in the "My Daily Consumption" row of the "My Daily Nutrition Plan" section. Adjust fats, carbs, and protein targets, which will automatically recalculate calories. Each gram of fat is 9 calories; protein and carbs are 4 calories. Some people prefer to reduce fats, some prefer fewer carbs, some reduce fats and carbs proportionally. Also, please, review MyNetDiary planning guidelines on setting calorie goals and nutrient goals.

Can I plan my weekly nutrition in MyNetDiary?

You can plan your week in advance. Just enter your foods for future days, and as your day progresses, update your diary if you ate something else or in a different quantity. Use food time field to distinguish between planned and consumed foods. Food time tracking can be enabled at Account page.

How is weight loss projection calculated? Is it accurate?

MyNetDiary follows the guidelines of the National Institute of Health at www.nlm.nih.gov to estimate weight loss. MyNetDiary recalculates calories lost into weight loss by dividing the calories by 3500, which gives weight loss in pounds.

It is very important to understand that the weight loss projection is based on estimated calorie loss - calories you consumed compared to what your body needs. MyNetDiary calculates the most accurate projection based on the information provided, but there are several factors that may cause deviations from the projections:
1. Accuracy of food entry - make sure all foods are entered, and the amounts are estimated accurately. Ideally, you may want to use a food scale, at least initially, to get a better sense how much your typical portions weigh.
2. Food nutritional contents may vary due to varying growth, storage, and preparation conditions. Even if you enter precise amounts, consumed calories may differ from the food labels.
3. Variations in human body metabolism. Due to different body types and difference in muscle mass (lean muscle mass needs more calories than regular body tissues) your actual "weight maintenance" calorie level may differ from the calculated estimate.
4. Variations in daily activities and energy expenditures - the recommended "low active" activity level setting represents a statistically average "desk job" activity level, but your day, your job may vary from the average and even for you not every day is the same.

Due to these variations and to the fact that when you lose weight you calorie needs are reduced as well, we recommend periodically analyzing your diet and plan on the Plan page. If your progress is slower or faster than MyNetDiary projections, one or more factors listed above might be at work. In such cases, please assume that the projections calculated by MyNetDiary should be adjusted for you.

Can I use MyNetDiary to maintain weight?

Yes, please read our Weight Maintenance article.

What if I do not find a food in the database?

It is also possible to create a custom food by adjusting existing food at the web site: select the food in grid, click "Food Details" link, then click "Copy and customize" link.

Al last, you can find and copy other users' custom foods via Community Search.

Can I create a "recipe" from several foods?

Yes, we support recipes on the web site and on the phone. Recipes are created from meals, so as the first step, enter all ingredients in any meal (e.g. breakfast or snack).

Next, on the web site, use the "Recipe" link displayed in the meal row, in the Amount column. On the iPhone, tap the "Recipe" button at the bottom (this is the icon consisting of two rectangles).

Recipes are stored as custom foods.

How do I delete a custom food?

Go to Daily page and click "My Foods" link. Select the food you want to delete, then click the Delete button.

How do I share my custom foods with others?

Contributed, system and custom food types

It is important to understand quality difference between 102,000 high-quality system foods and 93,000 so called "contributed" foods. Contributed foods are the copies of custom user foods, which are selected and beautified by automatic algorithms, then saved to the food database so that everyone can find them while logging foods.

For example, after entering "heinz ketchup" foods you will see food names with "(contributed)" suffix. Please, notice, that contributed foods do not go through the rigorous verification process applied to system foods in the food catalog.

Contributed food have anomalies in nutrient data, there are duplicated foods, misspellings and abbreviations in contributed food names etc. Any MyNetDiary user can improve contributed food definition. This is why the quality of contributed foods improves over time and approaches the quality typical for system foods maintained by MyNetDiary team.

If you do not want to see contributed foods among the search results, please modify "Contributed foods" option at Account page. Also, notice, that this option does not affect your custom foods, which are always searched along with the system foods.

I noticed retired foods in my diary!

MyNetDiary Food Catalog changes over time, which reflects changes in food industry: vendors buy and sell food brands, companies change name while growing the business and introduce new product flavors. While improving Food Catalog, MyNetDiary research team removes obsolete foods from Food Catalog and marks these foods as retired. If you want to enter the same food again, use the same words to search for the new food replacing the retired one.

When you delete a custom food, MyNetDiary retires this custom food similarly to system foods.

Can I select which nutrients I want to track?

You can select nutrients on the Plan page. Use the "Select Nutrients" link in the "My Daily Nutrition Plan" section. We recommend selecting only the most important for you nutrients so that they fit into the screen width on the Daily page. MyNetDiary always tracks all nutrients, selected or not, and you can see all of them on the Report page. Also, see our guidelines on nutrient goals.

How can I track more body measurements?

Please, go to Daily page and click "Select Measurements to Track" link. Your selection will be reflected immediately at the web site and on the phone.

Can I use metric units and European date format?

I hid some items on a main site page. How can I display them?

Click on the "Show" link at the top right corner of the page. Then choose which page components should be displayed.

I would like to enter food time to track more meals

You can track consumption time for every food. On iPhone use Settings screen to enable food time tracking. On the Web site open Account page and select "Show time in food entries" option. You can also select "Pre-populate" option and fine-tune "Entry Delay", which is a typical time between eating and entering foods. As a result of selecting "Show time" option you will start seeing consumption time at all Web pages and phone screens displaying food entries. It will also be possible to sort foods by time at Daily page of MyNetDiary Web site.

How can I get MyNetDiary on my iPhone, iPod Touch or BlackBerry?

Please, see MyNetDiary Mobile Apps page.

How can I synchronize my phone with the main site?

Does MyNetDiary work on the phone if there is no Internet connection?

Nutrient chart does not show planned fat!

Nutrient chart differentiates "bad" fats (trans fats and saturated fats) and "good" unsaturated fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats). If you set plan values each of the four fat types on the Plan page of the web site, the Nutrient chart will display these values in the Daily plan bar.

I am getting continuous Network Errors on my iPhone. Help!

From our experience, these network errors are caused by the iPhone software and are not limited to MyNetDiary. MyNetDiary has only a few minutes of downtime per week, when we update our servers with new software.

Please try the following two things:
1. Reboot your iPhone by holding the top button for 10-29 seconds until it offers to reboot/power off.
2. When you use MyNetDiary, do not start it immediately after turning on your iPhone. Please wait for 2-4 seconds, to let your iPhone establish a network connection first. The error message "Network Error" is displayed by MyNetDiary when the iPhone reports that the network is available, so the MyNetDiary app tries to reach the server, but in reality the network connection is not yet established, thus resulting in the error.

Please let us know if you still get network errors, and we will investigate your problem further.

I am getting errors entering foods on the web site. Help!

This error occurs in Internet Explorer 6.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0 when the number of nutrients selected on the Plan page is greater than can fit comfortably into the screen width. Please select fewer nutrients to track on the Plan page. MyNetDiary always tracks all nutrients, selected or not, and you can see all of them on the Report page, or select/deselect them at any time. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

General Questions

Weight Loss and Diets

Foods and Recipes in MyNetDiary

Customizing MyNetDiary

Problems and Technical Questions

What is the fastest way to enter foods on the main site?

What is the fastest way to enter foods on the phone?

How can I get MyNetDiary on my iPhone, iPod Touch or BlackBerry?

How can I synchronize my phone with the main site?

Does MyNetDiary work on the phone if there is no Internet connection?

How can I change my initial weight and start date shown on the Plan page?

Can I use metric units and European date format?

What if I do not find a food in the database?

Can I create a "recipe" from several foods?

How do I delete a custom food?

How do I share my custom foods with others?

What is the Food Score - the number displayed in the corner of Nutrition Facts?

What does percentage (%) mean in the food grid on the web site (e.g. for sodium)?

MyNetDiary allows to track all kinds of stuff like "bone weight" or "lean body mass". How can I measure them?

What is the size of a "glass of water" in MyNetDiary?

How do I cancel my account with MyNetDiary?

Which diet should I follow?

How does MyNetDiary calculate recommended "weight maintenance" calories? The recommendation seems high for me.

How can I set target calories?

Can I plan my weekly nutrition in MyNetDiary?

How is weight loss projection calculated? Is it accurate?

Can I use MyNetDiary to maintain weight?

What if I do not find a food in the database?

Can I create a "recipe" from several foods?

How do I delete a custom food?

How do I share my custom foods with others?

Contributed, system and custom food types

I noticed retired foods in my diary!

Can I select which nutrients I want to track?

How can I track more body measurements?

Can I use metric units and European date format?

I hid some items on a main site page. How can I display them?

I would like to enter food time to track more meals

How can I get MyNetDiary on my iPhone, iPod Touch or BlackBerry?

How can I synchronize my phone with the main site?

Does MyNetDiary work on the phone if there is no Internet connection?

Nutrient chart does not show planned fat!

I am getting continuous Network Errors on my iPhone. Help!

I am getting errors entering foods on the web site. Help!