*Total Metabolism Forecaster Thread*

[BBidiot]

This is a long thread and it really looks interesting but it doesn't work on my computer. I have the latest version of windows (vista).

[Robby Coker]

This is a long thread and it really looks interesting but it doesn't work on my computer. I have the latest version of windows (vista).

What errors are you getting?

[chillster84]

wow, i'm still not eating enough.. great program. looks like i gota be getting 5300 calories in a day but it's understandable with the numbers i put in

[L0GiK]

dunno how you found the patience to do this .. but wow .. thanks ^

[Robby Coker]

dunno how you found the patience to do this .. but wow .. thanks ^

You're welcome.

I started the project itself back in November of 2008, so it's been going on for 7 months. It was originally called Total Metabolism Calculator, but at the beginning of March, I decided to change the name of it to Total Metabolism Forecaster as it had started to play more the role of a forecaster. The first version of Total Metabolism Forecaster was originally going to be version 2.0 of Total Metabolism Calculator, but before I had made the first thread on the project, I went on and renamed it. For some periods, I've taken breaks from the project as I'd have other things going during them.

A big challenge overall with this program has been in trying to get it presented in a clear manner where it's free of confusion, where certain labels, text boxes, etc. are explained in the clearest manner as possible. One reason is because this program is more sophisticated. In the earlier versions, others often found some of the labels more confusing.. Version 1.11 is the first version to contain a FAQ, which gives answers to the questions that have been commonly asked regarding the general use and also any functionality problems that have been reported.
Another challenge early on was errors that some users were getting whenever they would enter data, and as a result, the program would be unusable for them. I believe I've gotten this issue fixed on version 1.25 as I haven't really gotten any reports of members getting these data entry errors. For that version, I re-did the data validation routines and since 1.201, I've set the program as shared. This seems to have solved the problem.

[WorldStrike]

I've always used the calculation of 16 X BW, + 20% of that for bulking. At 6', 172, and about 15% BF, that usually gets me around 3200 calories daily.

However, after entering everything into your calculation, it's telling me that if I wanted to maintain (entered 0 for Calculated Calorie Balance), I would be eating 3,773 calories I answered everything accurately, is there any chance there could be a miscalculation? Seems like a lot to me, especially to be maintaining.

Rating ended up being 119%.

[Robby Coker]

I've always used the calculation of 16 X BW, + 20% of that for bulking. At 6', 172, and about 15% BF, that usually gets me around 3200 calories daily.

However, after entering everything into your calculation, it's telling me that if I wanted to maintain (entered 0 for Calculated Calorie Balance), I would be eating 3,773 calories I answered everything accurately, is there any chance there could be a miscalculation? Seems like a lot to me, especially to be maintaining.

Rating ended up being 119%.

Thermogenic Effect of Food (TEF), energy required to process, digest, and store food, is taken into account when determining the maintenance level.

With a clean diet (that is low fat, higher protein), average level of body fat, and when eating at maintenance, this is about 13%.

When eating over your total maintenance energy expenditure, TEF will be higher.

Also, what did you enter for your activity?

[WorldStrike]

1.638 - Moderately to Very Active. Weight training 5X per week, plus usually some sports.

[Robby Coker]

1.638 - Moderately to Very Active.

This is for your job occupation alone and doesn't include exercise you do during the day. So, if your job involves only light activity, then select Lightly Active.

[Robby Coker]

Hey guys.

I haven't been able to do any work on TMF lately as I've been busy with quite a bit of things and have been dealing with various issues as well.

I found out last Friday that my computer had gotten attacked. I was out that night, and when I got back home, my dad was on it running some scanners to try to fix the problem. My dad had discovered some UDP floods in the router logs, so he went up to my computer to find the problem.

Based on the dates shown on those router logs, the problems had been occurring since third week of May, but I hadn't realized it, though I noticed a drop in performance. AVG, which ran nightly, didn't seem to pick up anything. However, Malwarebytes found malwares, trojans, etc. which AVG and SpyBot S&D weren't able to find.

So, over the week, I've been getting the problems fixed, and I've replaced AVG with Avira AntiVir and installed Comodo Internet Security, which has a firewall. Everything now seems to be cleared out and running smoothly again.

Overall, it's been a bit tedious. I'm glad we didn't have to re-install the OS, or even worse, reformat the drive.

Anyway, I've just begun the new version of TMF today.

If you have any feature requests, post them here or PM me.

[boogiepop]

If you have any feature requests, post them here or PM me.

I do have some, if you please:
- add a small table that tells you, based on the inputted % ratios, how many grams of each macronutrient are you going to get
- make the top frame (the one with Daily Calorie Intake, Calculated Calorie Surplus etc.) resizable
- update the file format to .xlsx (Excel 2007+)

That is all for now, thank for the attention

[Robby Coker]

I do have some, if you please:
- add a small table that tells you, based on the inputted % ratios, how many grams of each macronutrient are you going to get

I'll do that.

- make the top frame (the one with Daily Calorie Intake, Calculated Calorie Surplus etc.) resizable

Ability for resizing a specific area of a spreadsheet, if possible, would probably require creating a macro, and I've always never used macros.

So, I doubt I'd be able to implement this, at least on this version.

- update the file format to .xlsx (Excel 2007+)

I only have Microsoft Office 2003, so the program is created using Excel 2003. However, I should be able to get an .xls to .xlsx converter and convert it to that format.

That is all for now, thank for the attention

You're welcome.

[jymmi]

Im lost -_-

[Robby Coker]

Im lost -_-

What types of functions on it are you having issues with?

[Lilburd]

I'm trying to open v1.3 in Excel Mobile, but get the error "Cannot open password protected Microsoft Excel workbooks". You got a workaround or fix for this???

[Robby Coker]

I'm trying to open v1.3 in Excel Mobile, but get the error "Cannot open password protected Microsoft Excel workbooks". You got a workaround or fix for this???

I don't have Excel Mobile, so I'm not sure of a solution for this.

I will go on the Excel Help forum and see if they know of a fix.

[Robby Coker]

I haven't been feeling well at all for the last month. So, as you guys can tell, not much has been going on with this project over the past 5 weeks or so.

I ran out of my medication a little over a month ago as we had trouble getting it ordered over this time. Last week, we finally got it refilled and started doing the prescriptions a different way (no longer doing the mail-order), so I have been back on it again for a week and am feeling better.

I've done some work on the next version, which I started on June 19. I worked on it for half a week and then took time off from it again as I had something else come up. As of last night, though, I've resumed the project.

Here's what I've done for the upcoming version so far:

In the Regimen Forecaster area, along with Calorie needs, I've also added macronutrient needs. These are calculated based on the macronutrient ratios that you entered in the Standard Parameters area. Additionally, I've done some minor changes to the Calorie needs section and some other display fields.

I added an SSRI section in the Extended Parameters area. If you take an SSRI for a depressive or anxiety disorder, you select yes/no, the SSRI you take, and then the dose. After that, it will display the metabolic change.

In the tea intake section, for Green Tea, I changed it to where you enter the Extract Caps in milligrams.

In the hot foods intake section, I added a parameter for 180000 HU.

In the Total Metabolism area, in the Metabolic Rating section, I added bars beside each metabolic rating figure.

I have modified the pop-up message boxes. They are now indigo-blue with transparency effects.


Anyway, expect a release in the third week of this month.

[dimasso69]

It's encrypted with a password by another user so i cannot open it..? Idk why but it wont open

[thebm]

can't you just edit your original post to have a link to the newest version whenever a new one comes out? that's really crappy to have to search the thread to find it and then you dont even know if it's the latest version or not cuz you have like 3 other threads and i dunno which one im suppposed to be looking in

[Robby Coker]

It's encrypted with a password by another user so i cannot open it..? Idk why but it wont open

Which version of Excel are you opening it with? If you are opening it with Excel mobile, someone else was having issues opening it with that version. I went over to the Excel Help forum to ask for a solution to the problem but haven't heard back yet.

The functions, formulas, labels, pics are protected, so that they can't be modified.

can't you just edit your original post to have a link to the newest version whenever a new one comes out? that's really crappy to have to search the thread to find it and then you dont even know if it's the latest version or not cuz you have like 3 other threads and i dunno which one im suppposed to be looking in

You cannot edit posts 24 hours or more after they've been made.

[Robby Coker]

I went ahead and converted the current version of TMF to the .xlsx format as I was able to find a way to do it.

So, here's an Excel 2007+ version of the program.

[Robby Coker]

Here are some other things I have done so far, as of now, for the upcoming version:

For the Metabolic Rating and Actual Energy Balance sections in the Total Metabolism area, there are now gauges for those. For the Actual Energy Balance section, if a negative energy balance, there are red bars. If a positive energy balance, there are green bars. The Metabolic Rating section has blue bars.

The SSRI section is now finished and is fully functional.

For the parameter sections, % values now display in green if positive and in white if negative or 0. Also, the final value for Extra Calories Burned Per Day From Exercise displays in green if more than 0.

Few labels have been modified.

I have been redoing the pictures. Nearly all pictures will now be ones that have been taken by me, so I've spent the greater part of the end of last week and the weekend taking pics. I still have several more to take.

All I have left to do are to take the last few pics, organize the pics, do the testing, port it to Open Office & MS Excel 2007+, and update the documents.

A release this Thursday is pretty likely.

[Robby Coker]

For some of you who have had problems using this program, have you gotten an error message like this?



I went to my mother's office today to do some things for her, so I put all of the files for the program onto my USB flash drive so I could work on it some while there.

Just now, I put my USB flash drive back in and tried copying the file into the program directory on my computer. It wouldn't copy. It said directory was corrupt or unreadable, which I know for sure it isn't as I had saved it on that other computer and did the safe removal of the drive. Anyway, I then tried opening up the file from the USB flash drive itself, and I got that "read-only" error that some have reported on here. All of the other files on the drive were fine. They opened without any problem.

The computer at her office has MS Excel 2003 SP2, and my computer has MS Excel 2003 SP3. So, the MS Excel versions between our computers are the same. The only difference is the service packs.

[Robby Coker]

I just did a scan disk on the USB flash drive, and during it, it wiped off the copy of that WIP file for the upcoming version.

I am afraid the file got corrupted somehow.

So, unfortunately, I will have to redo the stuff that I did on it today.

[Robby Coker]

The new version of Total Metabolism Forecaster is now ready.

Here are the changes that were made.

07/16/09 - Version 1.3 to Version 1.4
------------------------------------

* In the Standard Parameters area:

-I organized the exercise section some.

* In the Extended Parameters area:

-For the tea intake section, I modified the parameter for extract caps. You now have to enter it as milligrams.

-For the hot foods intake section, I added a parameter for 180000 HU capsules.

-I added a new section for SSRI's.

-I re-arranged all sections for best organization as possible.

* In the Total Metabolism area:

-I added gauges for the Metabolic Rating and Actual Energy Balance sections.

* In the Regimen Forecaster area:

-There was a bug where, whenever you had the objective set at Bulking, and you used the section for body fat percentage, the projected end date would fail to display whenever you entered a starting date. This is now fixed.

-I added a feature for macronutrients. Along with the energy needs, it shows macronutrient needs.

* In the program in general:

-I re-did the pictures. The majority of them are now ones that I have taken myself.

-I modified the formatting for each pop-up comment box.

-For the majority of the parameter sections and also for the display of the extra energy burned per day from exercise on average, I made it where positive values display in green, and negative values or 0 display in white.

-There is now going to be a Microsoft Excel 2007+ version.

-A few other minor changes and fixes.


You can get it here.

[boogiepop]

Hehe, it was kind of entertaining comparing the old pictures to the new ones.

[Flex3d]

I just got done trying out the calculator. It is nice and all -- but there is no way I need to be eating that many calories. It is telling me to eat more calories then I did when I was gaining fat (and this is for a cut).

I am sorry man, but this is not accurate...it is trying to tell me I would require 3500 Calories for a CUT. (almost 6000 calories for a bulk)

[Robby Coker]

I just got done trying out the calculator. It is nice and all -- but there is no way I need to be eating that many calories. It is telling me to eat more calories then I did when I was gaining fat (and this is for a cut).

I am sorry man, but this is not accurate...it is trying to tell me I would require 3500 Calories for a CUT. (almost 6000 calories for a bulk)

Do you know your body fat %?

If not, I would recommend getting it tested using an accurate method.

If you enter your body fat %, considering your current body weight, your REE figure would likely be a bit lower than the REE figure with your age/height/weight taken into account, as the REE function that uses body fat % is calculated based on lean body mass.

Also, what did you put for your activities?

[Robby Coker]

Since this is now on page 11, here are the links to the current version.

Total Metabolism Forecaster 1.4 (MS Excel)

Total Metabolism Forecaster 1.4 (MS Excel 2007+)

Total Metabolism Forecaster 1.4 (OO.org)

edit: I pulled the previous version down due to the arrival date bug in the Regimen Forecaster area, which was fixed in the current version.

[Flex3d]

Yes I put my bodyfat in, as well for activities I used Weightraining 5x/ week, and cardio 4x week (HIIT)

My Resting Calorie Expenditure is : 2137 Calories

Weightlifting - 5x week Mod-High 45mins
HIIT Cardio - 4x week 7mph avg 20mins

Now I don't even bother with the Extended Parameters anymore because it throws my calories into crazy numbers..
***It is here that I don't find the calculator makes any sense..**

Coming up with Base Calorie Expenditure of 3384 (which is probably right)

So basically if I don't touch the Extended Parameters everything looks good -- should have explained that in the first post. Sorry.