^ma 1 80 ^pl 0 ^ju ^sk0HP41 DIETING PROGRAM ^sk1When looking at the general media it would seem that all problems relating to being overweight apply to women only and that men do not suffer this phenomenon. This is a misconception and the fact is that many men are severely overweight and need some help. This program has been developed over a couple of years and is reproduced here for your appraisal. ^sk1The main formula was developed by Dr J H Wilmore of the University of California who has worked out the basis of a simple way of figuring a man's excess weight based on his total weight and his waistline at the navel.  ^sk1He developed this formula for men only as women distribute their fat in other places while nearly all men put on weight round the stomach (generally called a beer gut). ^sk1I did a lot of reading and found that diets always assume that you want to lose weight but some people are in fact underweight and could do with a bit more bread and butter. In fact if you want to lose 1lb of weight then you need to reduce your diet by 3,000 cals. and to put on 1 lb of weight you need to eat 4,500 cals. of food. This difference is because the body can regulate itself up to a point and accommodate variations in diet until a time comes when it says "I've had enough" and then starts to put on weight. ^sk1This program first prompts for your body weight which should be entered in the form of Stones/ozs. followed by R/S.[1 stone = 14 lb] It will then prompt you for your navel size (no cheating here by holding it in) which should be in inches. The program then tells you if you are over or underweight and by how much or if your weight is satisfactory. ^sk1This program assumes that for your style of living you will normally eat 2,500 calories per day. This value will of course vary and if you lead an active life or have a manual job it may be as high as 3,500 calories per day while if you lead a very deskbound and sedentary life style it might be as low as 2,000 calories per day only. (Adjust the value at line 086 to suit yourself). ^sk1The program will then ask you how many days do you wish to diet for or put on weight. Decide on a value such as 30 days then press R/S again and it will respond with the target cals/day you need to eat to achieve the weight loss/gain in the given time. Note that to put on weight you need to eat a very large amount of food and so I think this part of the program is rather academic and not really practicable because normally if you are a naturally thin person you will not put on weight no matter how much you eat. The program checks if your weight is satisfactory by looking to see if your excess is not greater than 3 lbs. I have done this because most weight look-up tables give a weight based on whether you are heavy, medium or light framed and the variation of body weight is usually about 10lbs at the extremes. I have chosen a lesser figure but this can be easily adjusted by adjusting line 058 value. ^sk1The program also checks to see if the number of calories per day works out at less than 330. If it does it re-prompts you for a new period of time. This is because a diet of only 330 calories per day would be dangerous over a period of time, however, the Cambridge Diet which is a specially prepared powder will give the body all the nutrients it needs and is only 330 calories per day. Unless you are following this type of specialised diet you would not normally aim to eat say 1,200 calories per day and so the figure at line 098 would need to be amended accordingly. ^sk1^coExcess = Weight - (98.42 + (1.08 x Weight) - (4.15 x Navel size))/.83 ^sk1^coCal/day = 2500 - (Overweight x 3000)/(No of days) ^co OR ^coCal/day = 2500 + (Underweight x 4500)/(No of days) ^ju^sk1Example: A man weighs 11 stone 7 lbs and his navel size is 36 inches. How much overweight is he and if he decides to diet for 25 days what should his daily calorie count be if he is to lose this excess weight? ^sk1Answer: 13 lb overweight and 949 calories per day. ^sk1L W Finch (HPCC#506)