Customer Reviews

Vivonic Fitness Planner

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

While the program has a good database of exercises (with a lot with cool demo's) and nutrition, it's hard to navigate and has a bad interface. The program window is a fixed size and text overlaps. The programmer's solution is to change your screen size!!! I like my screen the way it is and won't change it to run just this program! I set up my exercise plan and found that it was time-consuming to manipulate. For instance, for three sets of one exercise, you have to click several things to get the exercise to show up and then repeat the process two more times instead of allowing for a copy/paste. I tried to print my plan and I got one page that had the days on it and the second page had the last third of my workout on it. It comes preset with a calories burned report and the ability to customize other reports. Again, a time-consuming process involving multiple clicks. To sum up: Good database of exercises and nutrition, nice demo's, bad interface, time-consuming customization of plans and reports, bad printout of plans. Look elsewhere to spend your money.

Vivonics Fitness Planner has alot of features that are really a pleasure to discover. One thing that I think is outstanding is the way it shows anything that you have eaten too much of in red. That's great...but even better, when you click on it, you are shown which of the foods contain it and how much from most to least. Since I teach dance, I do notice that it is hard to find fitness information that includes dance as an exercise. Dancers are very fitness conscious and it should be included in more books and programs. I do doubt that there is a better Fitness planning program than this one. It is very easy to locate foods and nutrients, etc. I am still learning to use it...but it isn't difficult at all. I really do recommend it.

Keeping a food journal is the ONLY way I can get a handle on my eating since I am loathe to even consider a formal diet.
Beginning to journal daily eating was a good first step for me and once that became an established routine I searched for a program to help me keep track of nutrients, carbohydrates and fiber. Vivonic suits me very well for this and more. I can tell at a glance which vitamins I'm not getting enough of, what my percentages of fat, carbohydrates and protein are and approximately how many calories my daily exercise burned.

One completes the screens for "The Plan" which asks questions about fitness level, weight, goals, level of activity and that sort of thing. At the end Vivonic supplies the number of calories one needs to eat and the number one needs to burn in order to lose weight at a moderate pace (if one choses the weight loss option). I adjusted the carb, fat, protein and fiber numbers to suit my own eating style and created custom reports for carbs and fiber so I can keep an eye on both.

I've learned a lot about my eating since using Vivonic, primarily that I don't eat as much protein as I thought even though I strive toward a lower carbohydrate diet and, as I suspected, I'm usually nowhere near the 25 g of fiber I think is ideal. And, even with a daily multiple vitamin I was always short on magnesium and vitamin e and have begun to supplement them seperately.

Adding custom foods isn't hard though it's a bit of a pain in the beginning. I wish Vivonic syched with my Pocket PC, allowing me to see my counts away from home, but it currently supports the Palm platform and its own dedicated device only. Instead, I note in my PPC what I've eaten and record it manually at home. As time has gone on I have a very good sense about how much I can eat without slavishly referring to a book of calorie counts.

Overall, a very useful program.

Well to begin with it isnt very user friendly.
But when one figures out how to use the program its ok.

I bought this program when I had a Palm IIIc. I raved about it. It was a great program until I upgraded to a palm T3. I have emailed Tech support 5 times with no response. They are NON EXISTANT! The program still works on my desktop but will not funtion on the T3. Don't waste your money!

Got the desktop/palm software 1-2 years ago. It works okay, and does basically what I want it to. But, as far as I can tell, the company has flatlined. No new software updates, no enhancements to their product since it came out. And $50 is way too steep. I feel duped. Try something like Diet & Exercise Assistant 5.0, at palmgear.com. It's only $15-20.

It is a very interesting piece of software...BUT the company does not support the product in any way...no tech support, no
problem resolution, no product updates, need I go on??????

This is a horribly laid out program. After one goes through and enters values of weight, routine, physical measurements, etc., it does not compute a regiment for you. I'm waiting for the new Fred "Dr. Squat" Hatfield program to come out later this year. The company that carried his previous program, "BodyCraft" discontinued the contract a few years ago. Stay away from this Vivonic garbage!

I have been using this item since Christmas. It's nice at first but there appear to be flaws in the software. All my entries for February just disappeared and it's a CHORE to re-enter them. I've tried calling their customer support number 7 times and all it does is ring. This product is nice on paper and works for a while but DON'T waste your money. With no website and no customer support when things go wrong....somebody is making money with garbage.

While I had only used the trial version of the Vivonic Fitness Trainer, I found that it contained all of the tools necessary to design and monitor a personal fitness program. Everything is easy to customize, from the days on which you work out to the type of exercise you do. Keeping track of calories and nutrients is simple with the food-journal...you simply type in what you ate and how much, and it calculates everything for you. These great tools are easy to use, and the interface is attractive. I highly recommend this program, especially to those on weight loss programs or those who have other fitness and nutrition goals.