Sometimes you need to do more than merely appreciate or discuss what currently exists, you need to ask for things to be made. There are a variety of watches from makers such as Suunto, Polar, Linde Werdelin, and other that will tell you your body’s temperature, and heart rate. With that information they will also attempt to tell you other information such as how many calories you are burning and peak exercise levels. But what if there existed a device that could turn weight loss and fitness into a more exact science.

Part of the problem with weight loss and diets these days is the rather ambiguous concept of what you need to go to get results. “Eat less, and exercise more” is the basic formula. But eat how much less, and exercise how much more? Without having the answers to these questions, people are faced with an unclear route to achieving their goals. We know how many calories are in a pound (roughly 3500), but what we don’t have a good idea of most of the time is how many calories are coming in versus being burned. If one had such data, weight loss and exercise could turn into simple math. “I ate this many extra calories today, so now I have to exercise this much to burn so many calories.” Having such numbers to work with would be invaluable to anyone watching their health.

When such information is available in a device (preferably one that sits on your wrist like watch), people will have the most powerful tool ever available to maintaining good health. Such an instrument will be able to tell you that you ate 200 calories too many on a given day, and that to maintain weight, you could burn them. Why is this information useful? Because it takes the hardest part out of weight loss and health maintenance equation, will power, and the drive to persist healthy habits.

The device would do two things. First it would make a measurement of your metabolism. Using heart rate, temperature, age, weight, and other types of personal data, the device would have a very good assessment of how many calories someone burns while just sitting around, and what they are burning while exerting themselves. Imagine if you could just look at your wrist after walking up some stairs, “16 calories burned.” Based on this constant feed of metabolism data, people will better understand their own bodies, and learn proper exercise habits.

The second part of the device would be accurately measure the amount of calories one ingests. This is probably the hardest part as calculating this is laborious and tricky. The best solution would be a voice recognition system or scanner built into the device. Say you want to each a candy bar, the device would scan the bar code, know the nutrition information, and consider it ingested. Using voice commands, the user could modify the amount, “ate only half the Snicker’s bar,” or input food that is homemade or restaurant bought. Given the right database of information, such functionality is not too far off.

One can image the societal impact such a device would have over time. Most products would be readable through the device, and people would have a wonderful new sense of what foods are good and bad for you. The effects of giving actual data about what they are eating, and what they are doing would have an incredibly profound effect on humanity. Envision this device being the bane of today’s food industry and a bastion of hope for the health care industry (as it will reduce health costs, and considering the fact that most people will want one).

This device can be made given a few small technological steps. With the right investment, such a device could be a few years off. It is really about power through knowledge, and taking the guess work out of eating and exercise. Through having actual numbers, and not vague concepts, so many more, can achieve what so many want. The ultimate tool, for the lifelong goal.