Facts and Frequently Asked Questions about DietMate

DietMate was developed by PICS, Inc., a leading edge company of health care professionals who developed LifeSign, the breakthrough computer that has helped more than a million people quit smoking.

The success of LifeSign prompted the National Institutes of Health to award PICS, Inc. several grants to assist with the development of a similar approach to weight, cholesterol and hypertension control.

The result is DietMate - a small, powerful, easy to use computer that fits in the palm of your hand. With DietMate, you lose weight and keep it off while controlling cholesterol and blood pressure for good.

There are hundreds of delicious balanced menus from which to choose. Pick one and the computer tells you exactly the quantities to eat to keep within your caloric range while maintaining nutritional balance.

You can modify the menus if you want and save them to suit your personal taste. DietMate automatically keeps track of the calories, fat grams, percentage of fat, cholesterol and sodium content of each meal.

DietMate designs a personalized exercise program for you and helps you stick to it by reminding you when to exercise. It starts you slowly and eases you into burning those extra calories. It even tells you how many calories you have burned from each exercise session.

The computer supports you all along the way with messages and encouragement. At the end of every day, DietMate gives you a summary of the day and a boost for tomorrow.

DietMate doesn't forget a thing. It tracks your progress, doing all the work of counting and figuring. It helps you to plan meals ahead or select them as you go along. When it's time to go shopping, just ask the computer to create a shopping list for you.

DietMate and You

The DietMate program is personalized, based on your own likes and dislikes. You create your personal program by telling the computer a few things about yourself, such as your weight goals, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and your eating and exercise preferences.

Answering these few questions takes about 5 minutes, and that's all you need to do to get started.

Eating In

DietMate offers hundreds of tempting menus for eating at home. The menus are designed to fit your lifestyle: Quick and Easy, From the Cookbook, and Frozen Foods.

Quick and Easy

Nutritious, interesting, and varied, these meals can be fixed fast, anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. They range from kebabs on the grill to a quick soup and sandwich. Quick and Easy meals meet the needs of people who want balanced, healthy meals in a hurry.

From the Cookbook

Designed by a chef to give you a selection of special meals, for yourself, for guests, or when you feel like you need something with extra pizzazz. These meals can be prepared in less than an hour, some in less than 15 minutes. The recipes are found in The DietMate Gourmet cookbook.

Frozen Food Menus

Because so many people rely at times on frozen foods, DietMate includes a selection of frozen meals. Only frozen entrees that meet DietMate's nutritional guidelines for fat, sodium, cholesterol, calories, and taste are included.

Dining Out

DietMate offers appetizing menus from a variety of restaurants:

These restaurant cuisines reflect popular choices that are lower in fat and that are based on surveys conducted by the National Restaurant Association.

The restaurant menus are more than just salads. You can expect an array of choices that are as balanced and varied as the home menus.

Whether eating at home or dining out, the program also gives you the option to substitute foods in a meal.

You don't need to prepare two meals. . . one for yourself and one for the rest of the family. Because the meals are delicious and nutritionally balanced, your family can eat the foods that you eat.

First, the computer takes into account your current level of activity. Then, you select one or more activities that you like to do.

DietMate starts you very slowly. You might only exercise for 10 minutes the first day. Then DietMate gradually increases the duration of your routine to allow you to increase your metabolism and feel healthier.

First, you need to recognize your not-so-healthy habits and decide that you will change them.

Next, you must change these habits in a gradual, consistent way, which is where DietMate comes in.

DietMate helps you to exchange your not-so-healthy habits for healthy ones,while encouraging and supporting you in your goals.

Whether your current habits include an 11 p.m. raid on your refrigerator, or walks that you never take, DietMate is designed to guide you in a new direction.

Adjustment Period

DietMate begins immediately to help you set a healthy meal pattern. You begin a program of three meals a day of balanced, nutritious foods.

During the adjustment period, DietMate tracks your eating and exercise habits and patterns and adjusts your program to meet your individual needs.

Gradual Change

DietMate takes a gradual approach to both nutritional changes and to exercise. Because you make a series of small changes slowly and steadily, your success is assured.

Since the changes being gradual, healthy, and painless, before you know it you will have developed positive eating and exercise habits, and be on your way to a thinner, healthier you.

1. DietMate Is Complete

Combines weight control, exercise support, and cholesterol and hypertension control in an easy to use, powerful computer that fits in the palm of your hand.

2. DietMate Is Unique

A cross between technology and psychology. Combines the power of the computer with the science of dietary control.

3. DietMate Is Personalized

Creates your own personalized program based on your height, sex, weight, age, health history, exercise preferences, and lifestyle.

4. DietMate Reinforces & Charts Your Progress

DietMate gives you feedback, support and reminders every day and summary messages at the end of each week. The computer tracks your changes in weight (and optionally blood cholesterol or blood pressure), intake of calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium.

5. DietMate Is Easy To Use

The computer has only 9 buttons. For turning it on and off, answering yes or no, making selections, moving forward and back, requesting help, and adjusting the volume.

6. DietMate Promotes Healthy Habits

DietMate menus pay special attention to reducing the calories, fat, cholesterol and sodium in your diet... while increasing the amount of carbohydrates and fiber. Sound nutrition as well as good taste are components of DietMate's state of the art approach to nutrition.

7. DietMate Eases Exercise Into Your Life

DietMate customizes an exercise program that is right for you. If you're not accustomed to exercising, then DietMate makes your first exercise steps easy to take.

8. DietMate Does The Work For You

The DietMate computer offers hundreds of menus, counts calories both for food and the ones you burn in exercise, tracks your progress, helps you to plan meals ahead, and even creates a shopping list for you, by aisle in the grocery store.

9. DietMate Offers Variety

DietMate offers a variety of foods to keep your interest high even after weeks or months of following the program. There are hundreds of menu choices and literally thousands of variations.

10. DietMate Uses Real Food

The DietMate program is designed for people who want to learn to control their weight, cholesterol and hypertension with real food. There are no powders, liquids, pills or pre-packaged meals.

11. DietMate Is Portable & Convenient

You can take DietMate with you anywhere. It is lightweight and small enough to carry in your purse or jacket pocket so it's with you all the time. Also, there are no time consuming meetings.

12. DietMate Is Designed For Long-Term Health

The DietMate Program is designed to help you lose weight, reduce cholesterol and lower blood pressure permanently. The cornerstones of the program are modifying behavior, sound nutrition, reasonable exercise, balanced menus, maintenance and support, which are the keys for any successful long term health improvement program.

DietMate is a revolutionary approach to weight, cholesterol and hypertension control that was developed in part with research grants from the National Institutes of Health.

First, the inevitable disclaimer: Although some individuals with Diabetes have successfully used DietMate to track their diet and exercise, DietMate has been designed for healthy adults. All others should consult their physician prior to undertaking this or any other dietary and exercise regimen.

Does your product interface with a computer? (for print outs, etc.)

Not yet. The next version of DietMate will have a PC interface that will allow printing and other data transfer.

Is there a DietMate computer for a Diabetics?

No. At the present there are only 3 versions of DietMate: 1.. Weight Loss 2.. Weight Loss and Cholesterol Management 3.. Weight Loss and Hypertension Management We are planning a Diabetes version, in the next year or so. The menus are nutritionally balanced, meeting the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 1990 (U.S. Department of Agriculture; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1990), as well as those of nine other major health organizations that publish nutritional guidelines. The exercise prescription follows the guidelines provided by the American College of Sports Medicine (1990).

Can you add additional menus to the computer?

Yes! You can add new menus to DietMate by either entering them from scratch or modifying existing menus.

Does your DietMate computer include carbohydrates and other important nutritional factors for diabetes?

In part - DietMate provides breakdown of calories, % fat, sodium and cholesterol, but at the present doesn't list carbohydrates.

Will the computer keep up with the times you need to eat, and possibly alarm you when the time is near?

Yes! DietMate allows you to personalize your meal times and than it prompts you about 15 min before designated meal times by sounding an alarm and displaying a message. The alarm is repeated several times until a meal is recorded.

Can it let you know when you need to take your insulin shots? Can you enter any information, such as Blood sugar levels, so that you can have them for the Doctor, so He/She knows your progress?

Not yet. Those are all planned features to be available in the future.

And, if Diet Mate Doesn't do these things, do you know a computer program that does, or comes close?

No. To the best of our knowledge DietMate is the only program available that comes close.

What is the cost for all this? I would really appreciate any information that you may have. I've been looking for a program, and yours is the closest that I've come to finding that comes close to what I need to Get On Track with my diet. So that I can have a healthy lifestyle.

As you can see from the above answers, although DietMate is not designed for Diabetics it has many of the features you need.

In light of the interest in DietMate expressed by many diabetics, we are very interested to learn from your experience, and therefore will be happy to extend to you a 50% discount in return for your comments. Your discounted price will be $98 only. Please note that DietMate comes with an unconditional money back guarantee for 30 days. So feel free to order it and decide for yourself.