Total Metabolism Forecaster thread

[Robby Coker]

As you can tell in my starvation response and adaptive thermogenesis thread that I had created months back, I have been working on a new version of my total metabolism project. From the last posts you've seen in the thread, I have made a whole lot of modifications and changes, added new things, did a major overhaul on the user interface, etc.

I decided to create a separate thread on the project.

From what you can tell of the title of this thread, I have decided to rename the project to Total Metabolism Forecaster.

Some reasons behind this are that, at the stage the project is at now, it works more as a forecaster for total energy expenditure. Essentially, based on all the parameters entered by the user, it more like predicts what your total energy-burn rate is going to end up being.

There is also what had been called regimen goal setter, which was implemented on Total Metabolism Calculator v1.6, which predicts energy needs based on your desired rate of weight loss or gain, and the capacity (in %) of starvation response or adaptive thermogenesis. If you enter in a starting date, it projects an arrival date to goal weight. This section is now titled Regimen Forecaster.

The following two threads and a post below are where this project took off:

Pertains to starvation response, adaptive thermogenesis, and discusses research surrounding factors affecting metabolic rate
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?p=243071381
Pertains to metabolic effects of fat-burners and some other factors
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=111663811
A post in the teen bodybuilding sub-forum where a member claimed his teacher had a very high TDEE despite his small size and low activity level.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...#post236135541

EDIT: Total Metabolism Forecaster 1.0 beta is now ready and can be gotten here:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/attach...1&d=1235986336

[BlueFenix13S]

Dude, that calculator is pretty flippin sweet. How accurate have you found it to be? It put me 100 cals under what I'm eating now so it looks to be pretty good.

[Own3r]

GREAT calc man!

[Own3r]

question about the "cal intakes ranges"
Is that what you sub-stract from the maintenance?

[Robby Coker]

question about the "cal intakes ranges"
Is that what you sub-stract from the maintenance?

On the Calorie intake ranges in the regimen goal setter section, that's your Calorie needs for whatever your regimen is.

It's the set of intake levels where your actual deficit has already been subtracted from your total TDEE (if cutting), and intakes where your actual surplus has already been added to your total TDEE (if bulking).

For both cutting and bulking, there are 4 types of intake levels.

Cutting:
no starvation response and 1%, 7%, and 14% starvation response

Bulking:
no adaptive thermogenesis and 1%, 9%, and 18% adaptive thermogenesis

[MarathonMan352]

when i input m under gender it says invalid entry

[Robby Coker]

when i input m under gender it says invalid entry

Are you sure you're actually putting "m" in the field, or not accidentally entering it into another field near it?

When you open Total Metabolism Calculator, it starts out on the Gender field. Previous versions started out on the Units field.

The Gender field isn't case sensitive, btw.

[MarathonMan352]

yea its happening to me in all the fields that require letters instead of numbers

[Robby Coker]

yea its happening to me in all the fields that require letters instead of numbers

What version of Excel are you using?

[Robby Coker]

Total Metabolism Forecaster 1.0 beta is now ready.

You can get it here.

[Robby Coker]

bump

[chosenone28]

Pretty damn sweet.

[dimasso69]

it's not working for me..what excel version do you need?

[X_IGoHard_X]

Nice calc! Repped!!!

[Robby Coker]

it's not working for me..what excel version do you need?

What version do you have?

This was created on Excel 2003. I'm pretty sure it will work on 2000 as well, though I haven't tried it on that version, but I haven't used any features different from what I've used before on 2000 as far as I can tell.

[sunngodd]

nice caculator. I wish I would eat as many cals as it says i need, lol. repped

[Minns39]

Pretty cool man.

[Robby Coker]

For the body fat % ranges for the TEF values of each macronutrient ratio, I forgot to put body fat % ranges for females. Because of this, for females who may be using this and entering their body fat percentage, their TEF values are being based on male body fat % figures rather than female ones.

The essential fat levels for females are 9% higher than that of males.

So, for each body fat % figure in the ranges sub-section in the TEF section of the mechanics, I created a function where if the gender entered is female then 9% gets added to the given body fat % figure set in the ranges section.


Additionally, I may change both the mininum displayed starvation response and adaptive thermogenesis from 1% to 3%.

So, on the second row in the Total Metabolism section, the range for both of them will be 0.1% to 3.0% instead of 0.1% to 1.0%. In the Regimen Forecaster section, the value for both of them will be 3% in the second row.


dimasso69, have you been able to get it working yet?
First, make sure you have your gender, age, height, and weight entered in. Total Metabolism Forecaster will not work until you do.
Body fat % is optional.
The units and energy unit are automatically filled in with the defaults, but if any of these are not filled in, then Total Metabolism Forecaster will also not work.

[Robby Coker]

I found several more bugs.

One involves the Energy Unit input. Whenever you try to change the energy unit, it won't let you, and instead, you would get an error message. I fixed this. Most probably didn't notice this problem because "c" Calories is set as the default energy unit, and most on here use Calories, so they didn't have any need to switch energy units. For those who use Joules and tried to set the energy unit as that, you probably encountered the problem.


Another problem involved the title itself of the Regimen Forecaster section.

Once I rectified that other bug above involving the energy unit input, whenever no energy unit is entered into the Energy Unit field, the title label in the Regimen Forecaster section would simply display as FALSE rather than as "Regimen Forecaster". Once again, since most of you guys use Calories as your energy unit you likely didn't notice the problem as "c" Calories is set as default.

Anyway, I fixed this, so it now displays correctly based on your objective:
If you plan to cut, it displays as "Cutting Regimen Forecaster"
If you plan to bulk, it displays as "Bulking Regimen Forecaster"
Otherwise, it displays as "Regimen Forecaster"


Another couple bugs involved the Energy Needs (+ for Program - bulking or cutting) label in the Regimen Forecaster section. If you selected "j" Joules as your energy unit, then it would display Joule Needs for Bulking (regardless of objective) instead of "Joule Needs for Program". I fixed this, so it now displays correctly. The function was pulling an incorrect value from the table in the mechanics of the regimen forecaster. Again, you more than likely did not notice this bug.

Just as with the title above, this would also display as FALSE if no energy unit was entered. It was an issue with the calorie needs label function in the mechanics section. I fixed this, and it now displays as "Energy Needs" if no energy unit is entered. Like above, you likely didn't notice it as well.

[Robby Coker]

Total Metabolism Forecaster 1.0 beta 2 is now available.

Since I've put this one up, I took beta 1 down.

Anyway, the following changes were done.

* For the body fat % ranges for the TEF values of each macronutrient ratio, I forgot to put body fat % ranges for females. Because of this, for females who have been using this and entering their body fat percentage, their TEF values were being based on male body fat % figures rather than female ones. The essential fat levels for females is 9% higher than that of males. So, for each body fat % figure in the ranges sub-section in the TEF section of the mechanics, I created a function where if the gender entered is female then 9% gets added to the given body fat % figure set in the ranges section.

* I have changed both the mininum displayed starvation response and adaptive thermogenesis from 1% to 3%. Therefore, on the second row in the Total Metabolism section, the range for both of them is now 0.1% to 3.0%. In the Regimen Forecaster section, the value for both of them is now 3% in the second row.

* I fixed a bug where whenever you tried to change the energy unit, it would not let you, and instead, you got an error message. For those who use Joules and tried to set the energy unit as that, they more likely noticed the problem.

* Whenever no energy unit is entered into the Energy Unit field, the title label in the Regimen Forecaster section would display as FALSE rather than as "Regimen Forecaster". I fixed this, so it now displays correctly based on your objective.

* There were a couple of bugs which involved the Energy Needs (+ "for Program" - for bulking or cutting) label in the Regimen Forecaster section. If you selected "j" Joules as your energy unit, then it would display "Joule Needs for Bulking" (regardless of objective) instead of "Joule Needs for Program". I fixed this, so it now displays correctly. The function was pulling an incorrect value from the table in the mechanics of the Regimen Forecaster.

* Also, as with the Regimen Forecaster title, the Energy Needs label also display as FALSE if no energy unit was entered. It was an issue with the calorie needs label function in the mechanics section. I fixed this, and it now displays as "Energy Needs" if the Energy Unit field was left blank.

* I rearranged a couple of the text boxes because they would block a couple of the parameter labels when they popped up when you clicked on the field containing one of the given ones.

* I made clarifications to the text box of the Weight Change Ratio field in the Regimen Forecaster Section.

* In the Regimen Forecaster Section, Projected End Date has been changed to Projected Arrival Date. Also, in this same section, all four labels for the suggested energy needs (based on starvation mode and adaptive thermogenesis levels) were still showing even with some of the required fields (units, energy units, gender, height, weight) left blank at the beginning of Total Metabolism Forecaster. I fixed this, and they now stay blank if one of those fields are blank.

* I did some modifications and optimizations on some functions.

* Few other changes and fixes

Here is the download.

[Robby Coker]

bump

[Cronos1247]

I'm impressed, it actually calculated everything almost exactly as the same formula I've used from Alan Aragons Girth Control book. Awesome calculator.

[mingo3403]

link to calc deleted?

[Robby Coker]

link to calc deleted?

I uploaded beta 2 early this morning.

This is the link for it.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/attach...1&d=1236070378

I took beta 1 down so others wouldn't get that one instead. I couldn't remove the link and its description from the original post because the time period to edit it had expired.

[wave_length]

I uploaded beta 2 early this morning.

This is the link for it.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/attach...1&d=1236070378

I took beta 1 down so others wouldn't get that one instead. I couldn't remove the link description from the original post because the time period to edit it had expired.

Looks like there's a password for unlocking?

[Robby Coker]

Looks like there's a password for unlocking?

It's protected so functions, formulas, labels, etc. can't be altered or deleted.

[BlueFenix13S]

I uploaded beta 2 early this morning.

This is the link for it.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/attach...1&d=1236070378


I took beta 1 down so others wouldn't get that one instead. I couldn't remove the link description from the original post because the time period to edit it had expired.

Brother, this calculator is fantastic. Hopefully it will open some eyes on how much they really need to eat.

Looks like there's a password for unlocking?

I didn't have any trouble.... opened right up for me.

[mingo3403]

I uploaded beta 2 early this morning.

This is the link for it.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/attach...1&d=1236070378

I took beta 1 down so others wouldn't get that one instead. I couldn't remove the link description from the original post because the time period to edit it had expired.

Seems to be right on the mark.

states my maintenance cals at about 3536

Having hit a plateau a few weeks back eating 3500 cals and not gaining any weight it seems your calc is very accurate.

I made one aswell but with a console program using Visual Basic programming. Eventually i'll get it up and running as a standalone gui.

Edit: but once i start adding parameters i think it goes up too high, I filled everything as i use like dairy, exercise, fish oil, coffee etc. Said my maintenance was like 4300 which i doubt or else i would be losing weight. I DO trust the basic calc though.

[wave_length]

It's protected so functions, formulas, labels, etc. can't be altered or deleted.

Ah I'm just stoopid, tried to enter in wrong field.
Thanks a lot, will try out!

[Robby Coker]

Ok, I discovered a bug which occurs whenever you're using "kg" as your unit (weight in kg, height in cm). It was preventing Total Metabolism Forecaster from working. The only way you could get it working is if you entered a Body Fat % figure in as well along with all of the other info.

What it was is that the height function in the mechanics area was seeing the centimeters input as over the "height in inches" input value limit, and it was preventing the program from working. So, I set a "height in kg" value limit in this part of the area, and the height function now references to it. This fixed the problem, and it now works as it should.

Those who use kg for weight and cm for height may have had trouble getting it to work due to this unless you entered in your BF% as well.


I've made some other minor modifications as well.

On Regimen Forecaster, where it displays Energy Needs based on your objective, it no longer shows "for Program" after "Energy Needs".

It now shows:
"Energy Needs for a x of y u/Week"

Where Energy is:
Calorie if you entered "c" Calorie as your desired unit for energy.
Joule if you entered "j" Joule as your desired unit for energy.

Where x is:
Loss - if cutting
Gain - if bulking

Where y is:
Your desired rate of weight loss (if cutting) or weight gain (if bulking).

Where u is:
Your desired units
lb - if you entered "lb" or "st" as your desired units; you're losing or gaining 1 pound or less per week
lbs - if you entered "lb" or "st" as your desired units; you're losing or gaining more than 1 pound per week
kg - if you entered "kg" as your desired units


Example:
You're cutting, and you want to lose 1.5 lbs per week. The energy unit you're using is Calorie.

The label will then read as:
Calorie Needs for a Loss of 1.5 lbs/Week