Q: Why the name "kibotzer"?
A: Kibitzer, noun: Someone who chimes in with not necessarily wanted advice.
+
Bot, noun: A machine or program that interacts with you in a vaguely
human-like way.
=
Kibotzer: A bot that bugs you about how fat you are (or whichever goal
you're working on).
Q: What are people kibotzing on?
A: Find a list of sample goals on the "Sign up" page.
Q: Can I have my graph featured in the gallery?
A: Absolutely! Public shame (or the threat thereof) is highly motivating.
Send "public = True" to bot@kibotzer.com and next time you add data, you
should show up in the gallery.
Q: How do I enter data?
A: Answer the emails from bot@kibotzer.com. You can also enter your
data below your graph at kibotzer.com/yourgraphname
You can enter multiple data points at once and you can reply to any
email from the bot with data for any day, or multiple days.
Q: Any shortcuts for entering data?
A: You can leave out the year and the month when adding new datapoints if
they're the same as in the previous datapoint. For example...
2008 11 14 200 "my first data point!"
11 16 199 "(comments are optional)"
11 17 199
18 198
28 198 "fell off the wagon for a while there"
12 1 197 "back on track"
12 15 196
2009 1 1 196 "new year's resolution: pick up the pace"
(Also, spacing doesn't matter. But the quotation marks do.)
Finally, you can use a caret to mean "today" and a double-caret for
"yesterday":
^^ 195 "had lost 5 pounds as of yesterday"
^ 194 "and another pound today"
Q: What if I can't report my data daily?
A: That's fine. The width of your "yellow brick road" is determined by
your day-to-day fluctuations but as long as you have some consecutive
days, it will be accurate enough.
Q: What does consecutive days of data have to do with the width of the road?
A: Your largest change from one day to the next determines the distance from
the centerline, both up and down. So your road remains as wide as twice
your largest daily fluctuation. This way, the road accounts for random
fluctuations while still showing you the area in which you are remaining
close enough to your actual goal, the centerline.
Q: What if I want to kibotz on something like running a total of 100 miles
during the summer?
A: Many people are kibotzing on goals like that. Just enter "kyoom = True"
below your graph (friendlier interface to these settings coming soon!)
and each new number will be added to the previous total, ie,
cumulatively.
Q: What about non-fitness-related goals?
A: If you can quantify it, you can kibotz on it!
Q: How fast can I lose weight?
A: A maximum healthy rate -- and this is far from easy -- is one percent
of your bodyweight per week. We recommend a more modest 0.33% per
week. That corresponds, for example, to half a pound per week if you
weigh 150 pounds, or a deficit of 250 calories per day.
Since you want to target a percentage of your current weight, that
means as you lose weight the steepness of your yellow brick road
decreases. Kibotzer makes that adjustment automatically.
