Online app helps Pinoys meet daily nutrient needs

MANILA, Philippines - Centrum has launched NutriCoach, a new application on its website (www.centrum.com.ph) that helps Filipinos find out their nutritional status.

NutriCoach helps calculate daily nutrient intake so Filipinos can find out if they are getting all the nutrients they need on a daily basis.

What makes Centrum’s Nutri Coach unique is that it is tailor-fitted to the Filipino lifestyle and diet. It serves as a guide in knowing what people should eat more of and in what amounts.

The process of using Centrum NutriCoach is easy, quick, and even fun. It has great graphics, a user-friendly system, and gives out clear, straight-to-the-point information.

To use NutriCoach, first log on to www.centrum.com.ph and click on the NutriCoach app icon. For the app to calculate your nutrient intake, you must enter some information first.

After filling out your name and contact information (your personal data will not be made public), you must submit your gender information, whether you are male or female.

If you are female, you have to specify whether you are pregnant or breastfeeding since (as doctors will tell you), mothers or soon-to-be mothers have a different set of nutritional needs. Such information is necessary for an accurate calculation.

Next, you must enter your age, weight, and height. This is followed by choosing your level of activity to help determine how much energy you expend daily.

The choices are realistic, too. You have the one extreme choice of being the couch potato who sits in front of the computer all day while taking some snacks; then you have the other extreme choice of being the physically active, sporty type.

You must also identify any health conditions you may have. You may be hypertensive or diabetic, for example. Again, such conditions affect your daily nutritional requirements, so you have to enter this information in the NutriCoach app.

After that, you must select the health benefits you want the Nutri Coach to help you achieve. This is because you can tailor-fit your nutritional intake according to what health benefits you believe you need. Of course, you can also choose all health benefits on the list, if you want to find out about all of them.

You must also select your diet from either a preset menu or create your own mix of what you usually eat from various food samples. If you choose to select your diet from the standard preset menu, then you will be taken to a page where you can select your full days’ meals — snack included, of course — from a tray of preset plates that consist of the typical Filipino food items.

If you choose to customize your own plates then you will be taken to a page where you can select specific food items for every plate of every meal. Starting from your breakfast plate all the way to your midnight snack plate, you simply have to drag and drop whatever food item is in your typical meal (you can even drag and drop multiple quantities of the same item — two cups of rice or more). If it is a meal you do not usually have, you can simply skip on to the next plate.

Once you have completed your full days’ meals, click “submit” to start the analysis process. Now for the results. The page starts off showing you the results for the health benefits you selected. It breaks down the specific vitamins and minerals needed for these benefits and then it shows you a line meter of whether or not your daily diet meets the optimum requirement per item.

NutriCoach then tells you if you are, indeed, meeting the right level of nutrients. It gives you a link to check the details for further information on this.

Next, it shows you a summary of your current body statistics (body mass index, body weight, and calorie intake) as well at the ideal body statistics that you should strive for.

Included in this section is a suggested diet plan that Centrum Nutri Coach recommends you follow for you to achieve the ideal amount of daily calorie and nutrient intake for your body.