The tool
Nobody sustains a diet that costs them thirty taps a meal
Of course you couldn't keep it up. A barcode database to argue with, a scale on the worktop, and a running sum in your head from breakfast onwards. CalorieBot takes a photo of the plate instead. Two seconds, whole meal, macros done, and what you have to keep up is small enough that you actually do.
It's the first time I ever really started tracking my food and I've used it for more than a year now. I don't think I've ever missed a day, even on vacation or when things are crazy. It's remarkably accurate, better than I thought it might be and certainly close enough to be reliable.
I found calorie counting very time consuming prior to giving CalorieBot a go. This simplified the process greatly. Great for convenience and far easier to track when out and about. The accuracy has surprised me as well.
I've hated using MyFitnessPal for years, so CalorieBot and only taking pictures of food is a game changer.
Whatever you ate, logged in about two seconds
Most tracking apps ask you to become a data entry clerk. Thirty taps before breakfast, a barcode database to argue with, and a fortnight later you have quietly stopped. This removes that job rather than tidying it up.
Take a photo of the plate
Twenty ingredients or one. You don't name them, weigh them, or look anything up. Two seconds, and the whole meal is logged with its macros.
Or just say what you ate
Type it the way you would say it out loud. 200g Skyr, 35g whey, 100ml semi skimmed milk. Back comes 55g of protein and 360 calories. Save it once and it's one tap every morning after that.
I use CalorieBot every day. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of calculating my macros, and saving the foods I eat regularly means I can enter them easily.
Take a photo of the scales if you want it exact
Cooking at home and want it to the gram? Put the plate on the scales and include the readout. Same two seconds, more precision.
Or the back of the packet
A nutrition label is just another photo. Useful for the things no database has ever heard of.
See where the day stands
Calories and protein against your targets, updated as you go. The number that matters is what's left, and it's always one message away.
I find it most useful when eating out, as it does a good job of working out the calories in my meal for me. Easy to stay on top of meals and protein targets with it.
Read the trend, not the morning
Weight charted with seven, thirty and ninety day changes, so a bad Monday stops being evidence of anything.
Get a session built around today
Tell it what equipment and how long you have. It writes the workout from your history, so it progresses rather than repeating.
Why this matters more than the diet does
Diets fail because people can't sustain them. Worth saying plainly rather than dressing it up as anything cleverer.
So the useful question is what makes one unsustainable, and for most men it's not hunger and it's not willpower. It's that about a fortnight in, logging every meal stops being worth the effort, and once you stop logging you're guessing again.
Make the daily cost small enough and you can hold the same deficit for months instead of a fortnight. Nothing else about the diet has to change.
Or just try it
A working demo, nothing to sign up for. Log a meal by typing it, log one by photo, weigh in, share it, get a session built round your week. Two minutes and you'll know whether you would keep doing it.
Start logging without thinking about it
$49 a month, alongside every training programme, every course, the weekly challenges and the community. Cancel in two clicks.