Caloree is a calorie counter and food diary for your iPhone. Lose, gain or maintain weight in a snap. Scan barcodes or search among 2 million foods. Monitor your weight on a regular basis. No expensive subscription, no tracking/selling of your data.
Hi folks! Peter here. I have been developing Caloree as I saw very few basic calorie trackers, that don't track you and which - at the same time - are affordable. These days everything seems to be a subscription. Feel free to ask any questions, share your thoughts, give feedback, etc. I will respond asap.
@peter_caloree When I started working out I found it impossible to find a basic calorie tracker without 1000 additional features. It always felt like it took 8 taps to just input calories and nothing else.
The app I use now still takes 3 taps every time, asking if I want to review the fact that I just have calories and nothing else inputed. This app seems great - fantastic job and congrats on the launch.
Thanks so much @carter_barnett! I was kind of worried that people might not be satisfied with just calorie tracking, but early feedback seems to suggest otherwise :)
Not to open up a debate, but simply counting calories is the easiest way to lose weight (of course with some relatively rare exceptions). I used to obsessively count calories in my head, and got pretty good at it, but I can see how an app like this would make it easier for most people and provide more accurate results.
@peter_caloree – the biggest friction point may be in adding food that's doesn't have a barcode and an unknown amount (e.g. it's hard for most people to estimate the weight of a chicken breast without weighing it). How are you thinking of decreasing the friction and improving accuracy of logging those items?
Hey @rrhoover, thanks a lot for your comments! I agree that calorie counting is the easiest way. I mostly do it from the top of my head these days myself, but apps like Caloree can be a valuable tool educating people what they're eating.
I fully agree that basic foods can be a big problem still.
I must admit that I am working on some other Caloree things at the moment (to catch up on some features), but have already been thinking on some ways, which are quite technical:
There is already an app, but I forgot the name, which does pretty good guesstimates based on AI food recognition.
Another way I was thinking about is to use Apple's ARKit which is a development framework allowing you to accurately measure lengths or distances.
For both approaches I would need to somehow keep the density of each food, which would make it quite an effort.
As you can see I still have quite some work to do in that corner, but this is really good and valuable feedback! Thanks a lot! :)
@rrhoover there is no debate on the math: calories in - calories out = weight gain or loss! But there is more to it. Great questions about log-gable items.
@peter_caloree I am diabetic, have cardio-vascular disease and a terrible lipid panel. I also look just fine, I am not over weight (by much), I have an energetic business life, and I run five miles on the weekends. Still my Dr tells me I am the poster boy for a (second) heart attack. Eating healthy is just as important as eating little - although there is direct correlation between the two.
But most of us simply do not have the time and focus to log everything every minute of the day accurately. We just have to live with that.
In principle products like My Fitness are perfect - controls weight and gives tons of information. But like everything - garbage in, garbage out. If it don't enter all the data, or the right data, it will never give me the correct information about calories cholesterol, or anything else for that matter.
So here is my plea. Please make a product that allows for real humans!!
Ryan said he counts in his head. I am sure that is way more common than the fanatic automatons who scan every bar code and weigh every ounce of white fish. Can I suggest you break ranks and make your app an extension of real human behavior.
1. I would love it if you could add a speech input that I can us on the fly. 'Hey Siri add 100 calories to Caloree' (an extension of head counting which you can easily document)
2. Have an indulgence input. It is fine to indulge as long as it is not every meal every day. It is more important that I log it and don't feel bad about it. Maybe have an indulgence counter! "Hey Caloree - indulgence - I just ate two forkfuls of chocolate cake!' Perhaps there are five indulgences a week available on a score card (before going into the red!)
3. Guesstimates - ideal for restaurant visits, and other non-countable inputs - "Hey Caloree I guesstimate my evening meal was 750 calories!" (voice input while standing at the Valet)
4. Narrative description driven by GPT or other AI - "Hey Caloree I just had an average sized skinless chicken breast, two potatoes, a handful of carrots and a glass of red wine for dinner." Answer from GPT to that input is =
Calories in chicken breast: 140-170
Calories in two potatoes: 220-240
Calories in handful of carrots: 30-35
Calories in a glass of red wine: 125-150
Total calories: approximately 515-595
I don't need to know what the calculation is - TMI - i just trust that if my prompt is accurate, the calorie data will be in the right zone. Easy (for me the user)
5. Gamification: You gotta make this fun OR at least make it sticky. I am a Type II Diabetic, with hopeless (self imposed) glucose control. Since I started using the Libre 3 24/7 glucose reader, which has a fantastic app integration, I have turned the entire glucose monitoring experience into a game. I want to beat my Dr's recommendations on good glucose control, and my own performance from last week. It is simple to use, I check it 30 times a day (yes it tells me that too), and my glucose control is 96%. Super simple interface and a game I play out in my head when I lift my knife and fork - how will this effect my glucose graph!.
Had my say. Use me as a tester!!
If you're looking for an app to help you with your diet, I recommend Caloree. It's a great tool for tracking your food intake and monitoring your weight. Plus, it's free to use!
Caloree - Diet & Food Diary