To change your target weight simply use the arrows to change the value shown in the target weight box (1). The weight will be shown in the units currently selected in your user profile.

The activity level slider (2) lets you set your activity level. You should set a realistic level, setting the bar too high will increase your daily calorie allowance, but if you do not maintain the activity level you have selected you will fail to meet your targets.

If you find you are losing more or less than your weekly target you should adjust your activity level to compensate. If you are losing more than intended you may be more active, however if you are not meeting your targets you may need to adjust the slider to a more sedentary setting.

If you would prefer to set your own calorific targets you can switch to the direct entry method (3) by clicking the ‘Switch to direct entry’ button.

When you are happy with your target weight loss and activity targets click the ‘OK’ button (4) to save the settings.

If you would like to set your own calorific target select the ‘Switch to direct entry’ button.

You can then enter your own calorific target and target weight (1). You should only do this after consulting your doctor or nutritional advisor to obtain a suitable value for your height, weight and nutritional requirements.

If you would like the Perfect Diet Tracker to calculate your target calories click the ‘Switch to calculate calories’ button (2).

The easiest way to add an exercise is to let the Perfect Diet Tracker do the calculations for you.

First, select the exercise or activity you would like to add from the list (1), you can change the exercises listed by using the ‘tab bar’.

Next, enter the duration for the exercise (2).

Finally, click the ‘Add this exercise to your diary’ button (3) and the Perfect Diet Tracker will calculate the energy you have used and add this to your diary as a credit.

If you have an exercise machine that tells you how many calories you have used, you can use option 2 to add your exercise and simply enter a name for the exercise (1) and the calories or kilojoules you have used (2). Finally click the ‘Add this exercise to your diary’ button (3) to add the exercise credit to your daily diary.

Do not add exercise that you would normally do as part of your daily routine, this should be set in the change goals section (set an appropriate ‘base’ activity level).

You should only add activities that are ‘in addition’ to your base activity level.

The credits are calculated from the type of activity, and your current weight. You may find one user gets a higher exercise credit as they weight more. This is correct as the user with the higher weight will have to use more energy to do the activity.

Enter the name of the product you want to add in the top right search box in the diary. Click the search icon to perform the search.

Alternatively you can use the ‘Add to diary’ button in the side menu or by pressing Alt-F on your Windows keyboard and cmd-F on a Mac keyboard.

To add an item to your diary select a product (1), then select the quantity (2) and the meal (3) for that product.

You can enter a quantity using standard serving sizes, grams, ounces or kilos. For grams and ounces simply select the option, enter the weight and then click on the ‘Add selected product’ button (7).

For standard serving sizes select the ‘use standard serving sizes’ option. The default serving size will then be shown, you can change this by clicking on the selection box (8). Finally, enter the number of servings and then click on the ‘Add selected product’ button (7).

If you cannot find the product you can modify your search and search again or add the product you want to the main food database (4).

If you would like to see the nutritional information for the selected product click the ‘Show nutritional information’ (5) link.

You can right click in windows, or control click on a mac in the product selection window to change its name.

If you cannot find the product you want to add to the diary, simply click on th ‘Add new product’ link to add it to the database.

Manufacturers occasionally change their serving sizes or alter nutritional information, for example to reduce salt in their product.

If you find a product that is incorrect click the ‘Edit product data’ to update it. If you have internet searching turned on, the software will also notify Byoni anonymously that the product data may be incorrect so they can adjust the database, this ensures the product database is as accurate as possible for all users.

From the file menu select ‘options’, then ‘change nutritional profile’, or alternatively click the small spanner icon shown in the picture above, located just to the right of the target nutritional profile pie chart.

The nutritional profile window lets you select either a preset profile for a number of popular diets, or set your own targets.

Simply drag the sliders to adjust your targets and the percentages and pie chart will automatically update to show your current selection. Alternatively click on a profile from the preset options.

If you want to return to your current profile click on the ‘current profile’ pre set option.

Once you are happy with your selected profile click ‘OK’ to save and use your new profile or ‘Cancel’ to quit without updating.

Start by clicking the ‘New user’ button on the login screen.

If it is the first time you have used the software and there are no current users in the system the diet tracker will automatically select this option for you.

The Perfect Diet Tracker will start the ‘New user wizard’, this will take you through all the steps needed to create a new user account.

The information requested includes

(1) Your name, this will be the name that is shown on the front login screen so you can enter your real name or nickname.
(2) A password is optional and can be added to hide your diary entries from other users on this computer.
(3) The software needs to know where you live so it can use the appropriate food database.
(4) The software needs to know your age, gender and the measurement units you prefer to work with.

If you want to cancel the user setup you can select the cancel setup button on the left at any stage.

Once you have entered the initial information, click the ‘Next’ button (6) to continue.

You now need to let the software know your current height and weight.

The units used to enter your height and weight will match your entry in step 1, so if you have selected ‘Kilos’ or ‘Stones and Pounds’ your screen may look slightly different.

As you adjust the height and weight entries, your current ‘BMI’ will be shown in the window (2). This will indicate your current weight classification and the recommended weight range for your height.

It is recommended you enter a target that is achievable within a few weeks or months, you can adjust the target later.

When you are happy with your entries click the ‘Next’ button (3) to continue.

The software will now give you a choice, you can either let it calculate your target calories (1) or if you prefer enter your own calorific target (2).

Unless your doctor or nutritional advisor has provided a specific calorific target we recommend you select option 1 and let the diet tracker calculate the calorific targets for you.

Click on the arrow next to (1) or on the ‘Automatically calculate target’ button to continue.

The software now needs to know how much weight you would like to lose (or gain) per week, and how active you are.

Use the slider bar (1) to adjust your activity level, and the arrows (2) to adjust your target weight loss, then click the ‘Next’ button (3) to continue.

When setting an activity level, be honest.

Do not set it higher than your current activity level on the basis that you intend to do more exercise later. If you set it honestly you can add additional exercise in later using the daily dairy.

Most users naturally simply select the fastest possible loss or gain, however you should consider selecting an intermediate setting if you find the daily calorific figure is too low as it will increase your daily calorific allowance.

Next, the software will ask you what you would like to display in the daily diary.

The software will always track all available data and you can change these options using the diary later. We recommend you start with the default selections to avoid ‘information overload’ at first, then enable or disable options later to suit your requirements.

You can also select either calories or kilojoules for the calorific data reports and tracking to suit your requirements and the units used in your country, for example a user in the USA or UK would normally select ‘Calories’, whereas as Australian user may prefer to select ‘Kilojoules’. This setting can also be changed later.

Once you are happy with your selections click ‘Next’ to continue to the final step.

The Perfect Diet Tracker will now have all the information it needs to calculate your daily calorific allowance.

This will be shown, with a breakdown of how the figure has been arrived at.

If you find the calorific target too high or low, you can use the ‘Back’ button (1) to return to the previous step and adjust your activity level or target weight loss. Selecting a lower target weight loss will increase the calories you have available.

When you are happy with the settings and calorific target you have two options. You can either start the food diary (2) straight away, or return to the login screen (3).

Congratulations, you now have a new user and can start tracking your diet.

Selecting this option in the software will open an internet browser window and load this website.

This option will start your web browser to visit http://www.perfect-diet-tracker.com/buy.html to find out how, and where you can buy a license for the Perfect Diet Tracker software.

After you have bought the Perfect Diet Tracker you can use this menu item to enter your registration key and activate the full version of the Perfect Diet Tracker software.

For more details on how to register the software please refer to the ‘Registering’ section of this document.

If you would like to contact us, use this menu option to start your web browser visit byoni.com and view the current support options.

This option will connect the software to the internet and check for available updates.

By checking for updates on a regular basis you can ensure you have the latest version with all available features and the latest food database.

This option will start your web browser so you can visit the byoni.com website.

The ‘about box’ contains information about the Perfect Diet Tracker application, the current version number and credits the people who have made this application possible.

Takes you to the current day in your diary.

This option will enlarge the size of the text used in the diary.

This option will change the size of the diary text to the default size.

This option will make the diary text smaller.

This option toggles the visibility of the information panel located at the bottom of the diary window.

The default option is ‘show’.

This option toggles the visibility of the notes panel at the base of the diary window.

The default option is ‘hide’.

This option resets the position and size of the diary window, and the size of the text used to the default settings.

If you want to change your user details after the initial user setup, you can do so by selecting this option.

You can change your password, age and height, country, the location of the data files and much more.

The update your results option lets you update your current weight and track other measurements.

We recommend you update your weight on a weekly basis, this helps the software calculate the current daily calorie recommendation and keeps the results graphs up to date.

If you want to alter the amount of weight you want to lose or gain, or perhaps increase or decrease your current activity level (for example you may want to increase your activity level if you are going on holiday and will do a lot of walking) you can do so by selecting the ‘change your goals’ menu item.

View your results lets you see your progress so far.

If you are working on a specific diet that has a different target nutritional profile to the default settings you can alter the target using this option.

You can also access this menu item by using the small ‘spanner’ icon to the bottom right of the target nutritional profile pie chart.

This option lets you turn the internet search option on and off.

Selecting food search allows you to search for a food product to add to the diary.

This option will display a window with foods you have previously entered into your daily diary.

This can be a fast way to select foods you eat on a regular basis.

This option will show the groups and recipe manager. The manager lets you create a new group or recipie, add and remove items from the group, and insert all, or a portion size (for example 1/8th) into the daily diary.

Add exercise lets you add activities to the diary. Activities can increase your calorie allowance, but should only be added where they are in addition to your activity level selected during setup.

If you want to change your current activity level please refer to the ‘change your goals’ section in the options menu.

Duplicate selected creates a duplicate (copy) of the currently selected item in the diary.

This can be either food or exercise, and once duplicated you can double click on the item to change the quantity.

Delete selected removes the currently selected item from the diary. You can also do this by selecting an item and using the delete key.

Copy places a copy of the currently selected item in the clipboard.

You can also use the copy item to copy food items between days and even between users.

Paste will paste the contents of the clipboard into the currently selected field.

Clear empties the currently selected box.

Clear does not delete a food item from your diary, for this use delete instead.

23 October 2009: Updated groups entry for version 3.2

Selecting this option will log out the current user, and start the new user wizard so you can add a new user.

The switch user menu item will return you to the login screen so a different user can log in.

Logout will return you to the login screen. If you have a password, we recommend you log out when not using the software.

The print option will open the print window.

You can then select a report to print and the date range for the reports.

This option lets you backup your data. We recommend you backup on a regular basis.

The backup option is also a good way to move the data between computers.

If you have a backup file you want to restore, this is the option you need to select.

The import new food products lets you import food data files created by other users of the Perfect Diet Tracker.

Selecting quit will close the Perfect Diet Tracker

The software creates ‘preference files’ as it works to store your preferences, for example if you wish to use the internet search option or not. You can use this option to reset the preference files so the software reverts to a ‘just installed’ state.

Your diary data will not be affected by this option.