Wearable Physical-Activity Measurement System for Balancing Physical-Activity Energy Expenditure and Basal Metabolic Rate to Food Energy Intake By Adjusting Measured Portions of Food Ingredients

A portion-size-adjusting energy-balancing system comprising:

• a digital scale for measuring amounts of food items to generate a food measurement signal;
• a food-portion measurement controller that receives the food measurement signal from the digital scale, and receives a scaled measurement target for a food item, the food-portion measurement controller comparing a food measurement indicated by the food measurement signal to the scaled measurement target;
• an exceeds signal generated by the food-portion measurement controller when the food measurement indicated by the food measurement signal is greater than the scaled measurement target;
• an add-more signal generated by the food-portion measurement controller when the food measurement indicated by the food measurement signal is less than the scaled measurement target;
• a target-reached signal generated by the food-portion measurement controller when the food measurement indicated by the food measurement signal is equal within +/−10% to the scaled measurement target;
• a measuring display interface to control a display to a user to instruct the user to add more of the food item to the digital scale when the add-more signal is generated by the food-portion measurement controller, and control the display to display to the user an instruction for the user to remove some of the food item to the digital scale when the exceed signal is generated by the food-portion measurement controller, and to control the display to display to the user a measurement completion indication when the target-reached signal is generated by the food-portion measurement controller;
• a user meal choice interface for receiving a plurality of meal selections from the user;
• a recipe finder for locating a plurality of recipes for the plurality of meal selections, each recipe having a plurality of ingredients and a plurality of ingredient amounts for preparing a standard amount of a meal selection in the plurality of meal selections;
• a recipe energy matcher for finding a standard energy count for the standard amount of the meal selection;
• a basal metabolic rate calculator for generating a basal energy expenditure that is measured for the user when a basal energy expenditure measurement is available, and is generated as a function of the user's age, weight, height, and sex when the basal energy expenditure measurement is not available;
• a physical activity energy calculator that receives activity data from an activity tracking device, the physical activity energy calculator generating an activity energy expenditure from the activity data;
• an energy expenditure adder for adding the basal energy expenditure to the activity energy expenditure to generate a total energy expenditure;
• a recommended food energy intake calculator that scales the total energy expenditure to a smaller value for a goal weight less than the user's current weight or to a larger value for a goal weight greater than the user's current weight to generate a recommended energy intake target;
• and
• a recipe portion-size optimizer that generates the scaled measurement target for the food item, the recipe portion-size optimizer adjusting a plurality of recipe scaling factors to minimize an energy difference between the recommended energy intake target and a sum for all recipes for the meal selections of the standard energy count for each meal selection multiplied by a recipe scaling factor in the plurality of recipe scaling factors for the meal selection,
• the recipe portion-size optimizer multiplying the plurality of ingredient amounts by the recipe scaling factors to generate a plurality of scaled measurement targets for ingredients that are food items in the recipe,
• whereby the recipe portion-size optimizer adjusts the scaled measurement targets to control the digital scale to measure amounts of food items to match the recommended energy intake target generated from the user's basal and activity energy expenditure.

A portion-scaling energy balancer comprising:

• a user meal choice interface, executing on a processor on a user device, for receiving meal selections from a user;
• a user goal weight interface for receiving a goal weight value that is input from a user;
• a user interface for receiving inputs of an age, weight, height, and sex of the user;
• a recipe energy calculator that locates a recipe for each meal selection from the user meal choice interface, and generates a recipe record for each recipe, the recipe record having a standard energy count for a standard portion of the meal selection prepared using the recipe, the recipe energy calculator also storing a list of standard measurements of ingredients in the recipe;
• a basal metabolic rate calculator for generating a basal energy expenditure for the user;
• a physical activity energy calculator that generates an activity energy expenditure from activity data from an activity tracking device worn by the user or by exercise equipment during exercise by the user;
• an energy adder that adds the basal energy expenditure to the activity energy expenditure for all activities during a time period of the basal energy expenditure to generate a total energy expenditure;
• a recommended food energy and nutrient intake calculator that receives the total energy expenditure, along with the user's age, sex, height, weight, and goal weight, the recommended food energy and nutrient intake calculator locating a health target recommended energy and nutrient intake function record for the total energy expenditure, user's age, sex, height, weight, and goal weight, the recommended food energy and nutrient intake calculator generating total recommended energy and nutrient intake values from the health target recommended energy and nutrient intake function;
• a recipe portion-size optimizer that generates recipe scaling factors for each recipe record, the recipe portion-size optimizer generating a product term for each recipe record, each product term being generated as a recipe scaling factor multiplied by the standard energy count for the recipe record, the recipe portion-size optimizer generating a sum of all the product terms, and subtracting a total recommended energy intake value in the total recommended energy and nutrient intake values from the sum to generate an energy error term;
• where the recipe portion-size optimizer adjusts the recipe scaling factors to minimize the energy error term;
• a food measurement display controller that displays a message to the user to measure an ingredient so that the scaled measurement target is reached for the ingredient being measured by the user;
• wherein the recipe energy calculator also generates the recipe record with a plurality of standard nutrient amounts for the standard portion;
• wherein the total recommended energy and nutrient intake values further comprises a plurality of recommended nutrient amounts for a plurality of nutrients;
• a vector generator that assembles the total recommended energy and nutrient intake values into a recommended vector, and that assembles the recipe scaling factors into a recipe scaling factor vector;
• a matrix assembler that forms each recipe record into a column of a matrix, wherein an energy row of the matrix has the total recommended energy intake value for each recipe record, and nutrient rows have the standard nutrient amounts for each recipe record;
• a matrix multiplier that multiplies the matrix with the recipe scaling factor vector and subtracts the recommended vector to generate an error vector having the energy error term in a position corresponding to a product with the energy row;
• a memory device for storing the recipe scaling factors;
• an over-determined linear system optimizer that adjusts the recipe scaling factors to minimize a merit function that evaluates the error vector along with a set of maximum and minimum limit values for the recipe scaling factors, the merit function including the error vector with the energy error term;
• wherein the over-determined linear system optimizer minimizes the merit function subject to the recipe scaling factors limited to values between the maximum and minimum limit values,
• whereby both energy and nutrients are optimized by adjusting portion sizes.