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Overview

The Figwee Activity Log is where you record the exercise and activities you do throughout the day. If the Food Diary is where "calories in" is determined, the Activity Log is where "calories out" comes from.

The Activity Log is also photographic. You search for activities and exercises visually, select your intensity and record the number of minutes. Figwee uses this information to create an accurate estimate of your actual calories burned.

The Activity Log page is selected by clicking on "Activity Log" in the top navigation bar. The Activity Log page contains the My Activities list in the left display panel, the Activity Log diary itself in the large center panel, Activity Facts in the upper right display panel, and an information Chart in the lower right panel.

Figwee Activity Log

Diary Date. The Activity Log shows and records entries for one day at a time. The active day is known as the Figwee Diary Date. This is the date you select using the left / right buttons at the top of Figwee, or through the Calendar window. When you first bring up Figwee, the current date will be selected for you automatically, so if you are making Activity Log entries for "today" you usually don't have to change the diary date. For more information, see Diary Date.

Adding an Entry to The Activity Log

There are two ways to add an item to the Activity Log: Search and from an existing "My Activities" item.

Add Activity Log Entry Using Search

Adding and Activity

Search will allow you to look for an activity in the Figwee database to enter into the Activity Log. Call up search by clicking the Add button at the top right of the Activity Log diary view.

Searching for an Activity

In the search box, type in the first few letters of the name of the activity. As you type, Search will show photos of matching activities and exercises. When you see the activity or exercise you wish to add to the diary, just click on the photo. The Search dialog will close and the activity entry will have been added to the Activity Log diary.

Add Activity Entry From "My Activities"

You can also add an activity entry to the Activity Log from your "My Activities" items. My Activities provides a way of saving your most frequently used items, as well as the activities you have customized. You can add a "My Activities" item to the Activity Log by clicking on the photo of the item in the My Activities list, by clicking on the "plus" button of the My Activities item, or by dragging and dropping the My Activities item onto the Activity Log diary.

Add from My Activities

Usage Tip: A great way to use Figwee is to start out in the morning and enter all of the significant activities you expect to do that day. This will give you a total calories used value so that you can plan your food consumption accordingly. As you go through the day, or at the end of the day, you can edit the activity entries to match your actual duration and intensities should they differ from what you had anticipated in your planning.

Removing an Entry From the Activity Log

Remove an Activity

To remove an item from the Activity Log, simply click the "X" button for the activity entry you wish to remove. A dialog box will come up asking you to confirm the removal. Note that removing an entry from the Activity Log does not delete it entirely from the database of available activities; it is just removed from the list of activity entries for that specific diary date. You can search again for the activity and add it back anytime you wish.

What Gets Updated on Add / Remove? When you add or remove an entry from the Activity Log, the Activity Facts totals, and the selected progress chart are automatically updated. Also, the calories burned value is used to automatically update Calories Remaining in the Nutrition Facts display of the Food Diary page. See Activity Facts and Nutrition Facts for more information.

Automatic Updates

Editing a Activity Log Entry

Editing an Activity

When you add an activity to the log, it will be set to a default intensity and duration. To adjust the intensity or duration to match what you actually did, you "edit" the activity log entry. To edit a activity log entry, click the "pencil" button next to the activity you wish to edit. When you do, the Edit Activity dialog will be displayed which will allow you to adjust the activity entry. Below is a description of values in the Edit Activity dialog:

Name - You can name the activity entry anything you wish. What you type here will show up as the title displayed in the Activity Log diary list.

Intensity - Some activities have various built-in intensity choices. For example, walking has several choices for various miles per hour. The intensity drop down list provides quick access to available intensity levels. Note that when you change the intensity level, the activity photo may change to better represent visually the effort of the activity. If the intensity you are looking for is not a built-in Figwee choice, no problem, you can directly adjust the Mets value to match your level of effort.

METs - is a way of indicating the intensity of an activity. A value of 1 represents complete rest, whereas a value of 12 would represent running at an eight minute mile pace. The METs value is set automatically for you by Figwee when you add the activity or select one of the built in intensities. However, you can change this value, if you like, for example to match a METs value reported by your exercise machine. The list below should provide a feel for various METs values:

MET is a unit of metabolic equivalent, and is the ratio of a person's working metabolic rate relative to their resting metabolic rate. This unit is commonly used when describing aerobic exercise to indicate the intensity of the workout. An activity of 5 METs burns 5 times more energy than what you would use at rest. Many modern exercise machines can indicate METs. To learn more, see the University of South Carolina Compendium of Physical Activities.

Duration - is simply the number of minutes in which you were engaged in the activity or exercise. Only count the number of minutes you were actually doing the chosen activity. For example, if you were to play tennis, you might have been out at the courts for 90 minutes. However, you spend some of that time sitting between games, drinking water, stretching, talking...so you might have only played 60 minutes of actual tennis. The METs estimates for each activity assume constant effort, so it generally pays to be a little conservative when recording the duration.

Your Weight - The calculation of calories burned depends on your weight at the time of the activity. You cannot change your weight in the Edit Activity dialog, but your current weight as viewed by Figwee is displayed on the dialog for your information. Your current weight value comes from either your starting weight on the settings page, or your most recent Weight entry in the Results Log.

Average Watts - Watts is a measure of power consumption. One watt is roughly equal to 4.2 calories per hour. Watts are commonly used to report workload on exercise bikes, so the average watts value is provided in Figwee as an alternate means of comparing workout intensity.

Calories Burned - This is the approximate number of calories burned by doing the activity.

How does Figwee calculate calories burned for an activity entry? There are a couple of formulas for calculating calories burned. Figwee uses "METs x Weight in Kilograms x Duration in Minutes / 60". This does not take into account differences due to age or body composition, but for most people it provides a very useful estimate of calories expended.

Notes - The notes area provides a place for you to make comments on the activity. The comments can be anything you wish. For example, if the activity was lifting weights, you might comment on the amount of weight or number of repetitions. If the activity was playing in a basketball game, maybe you want to record the score.

Calories Burned for the Whole Day... If you don't tell it otherwise, Figwee assumes you are completely sedentary. That's 24 hours of 60 minutes each of basically either sleeping, or lying on the couch. For every minute you account for in the Activity Log, a minute is subtracted from this sedentary default. If you enter an hour of elliptical in the activity log, then Figwee will assume 23 hours of doing nothing (e.g. about 1 MET), and 1 hour at 7 METs.

When you look at an activity entry in the Activity Log diary you see both "calories burned" and "calories earned"; the difference between these two numbers is what you would have burned had you remained inactive.

Figwee encourages you to be more active, so that you earn more calories. This is the best system ever for accounting for calories burned. Most calorie counters ask general questions about your lifestyle and take an average guess about what you will burn. Figwee allows you to track calories burned more completely, on a daily basis, according to what you actually do.

Saving an Activity Log Entry to My Activities

Saving to My Activities

Once you have made a activity log entry, you can save it to your My Activities for easy use in the future. You do this by clicking the "heart" button. My Activities is your list of favorite activities. When you save a Activity Log entry to My Activities, the METs and duration are preserved and become the default for the next time you add that activity to the Activity Log diary. See My Activities for more.

Grouping Activity Log Entries By Color

Grouping by Color

If you right-click on an activity log entry, a special context menu will appear. A group of choices on this menu allow you to set a tab color for the log diary entry. The meaning of the colors is up to you...this is simply a way for you to arbitrarily organize your activity log items. See below for how to sort the activity log list by color.

Sorting the Activity Log List

Sorting

You can sort the activity log diary list by right clicking on an activity in the diary view and choosing the sort order from the context menu. The available sort options are: the order in which you entered the activities, the name of the activity, the number of calories burned, the METs, the watts, the duration in minutes, or by your selected color. Once you have selected a sort order for the Activity Log diary view, it remains in effect until you explicitly change it. When you add new log entries, they will automatically be inserted in the proper place in the diary list based on your selected sort order.

Printing the Activity Log List

Printing

You can print the activity log list by clicking on the little printer button in the activity log view header area. When you do, a new browser window will open with only the items from the log diary view displayed against a plain background. Your computer's standard print dialog will automatically be invoked.

Printing

Drag and Drop. As mentioned above, you can drag and drop a My Activities item into the Activity Log view, however, the reverse is not true. The Activity Log is only a drop target; you can't drag an item out of the activity log list. To add an item to My Activities from the activity log diary list, use the "heart" button next to the activity entry.

Gender Specific Photos

If you and your significant other both use Figwee, or if you know an opposite sex friend that uses Figwee, you might notice something interesting: Some of the Figwee activity photos are different depending on if you are male or female. This is because Figwee tries to encourage you to be active, so we want you to be able to project yourself into the activity photos. We have found the photos are easier to identify with if there are gender specific. Some of the photos are gender neutral, but many are not. Thought you might be curious.

Female Example:

Female Photos

Male Example:

Male Photos