(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick




Even Your Car Can Tell If You're Getting Fat

from the can't-avoid-it dept

It's the time of year when people make resolutions that they will never ever follow in the coming year, and I'd bet that a fairly significant percentage of those New Year's resolutions involve losing weight. About a year and a half ago (not due to any sort of New Year's Resolution) I lost the extra weight I'd gained over the past few years, partly with the help of a nifty software program that let me input what I was eating and weighing each day. Just having the simple feedback each day helped me to adjust my eating and exercise habits so that I could shed some pounds. Of course, that still required me to be diligent in checking my weight and entering the info into the program. Many people, knowing they're not doing well will simply ignore the scale to avoid having to face the reality of what's going on. So, a professor has invented a system that's much tougher to avoid. He's basically taken a similar program to what I used, and installed it, along with a scale, into a car, so that every time you sit in the driver's seat, the car weighs you and determines how you're doing on your diet. If you're putting on a few extra pounds, the car will tell you. It can also give you info about the foods you're eating and suggest diet and exercise plans. Since you have to drive places, it makes it nearly impossible to avoid facing the facts that your car tells you. Plus, it will even threaten to email your doctor if you've been putting on too much weight. Of course, this might make people avoid driving altogether, but maybe that takes a different path towards solving the problem: by forcing you to get off your lazy butt and walk or bike somewhere instead.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Dec 29th, 2003 @ 6:15am
  • No Subject Given

    by Matt

    how long before the car refuses to start because you could do with the exercise :-)

    course, I could get my wife to sit in it and start it and then i'm free FREE!!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  • Dec 29th, 2003 @ 7:16am
  • What app did you use?

    by Dan


    Subject says it all -- what application did you use to track everything?

    Thanks!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Dec 29th, 2003 @ 7:27am
    • Re: What app did you use?

      by Anonymous Coward

      Sorry to throw this in Dan (I'm not Mike) but http://www.fitday.com is a great (and free) place to track your diet. There are other sites as well, but I've found fitday to be a nice trade off between too much and too little information.

      You might want to check out http://www.nutritiondata.com as well. (also free). Has some neat features for analyzing and finding foods that meet a certain profile as well as the ability to create a personalize pantry if you do a lot of your own cooking.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Dec 29th, 2003 @ 8:27am
    • Re: What app did you use?

      Dan,

      The application I used is DietPower. There are a lot of other similar applications out there, but DietPower worked great for me.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    Dec 30th, 2003 @ 7:52am
  • Thanks!

    by Dan


    Thanks to each of you for your responses! Hopefully I'll shortly be on my way from a fat, drunken slob to a somewhat-fit drunken slob....

    Thanks again!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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