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The founder of parrotpal (another AI calorie tracking app, supporting both text and photos) points out that using photos is one of the least accurate ways for t

The founder of parrotpal (another AI calorie tracking app, supporting both text and photos) points out that using photos is one of the least accurate ways for tracking food: https://www.instagram.com/parrot.pal/reel/DAB9NtfM250/ https://www.instagram.com/parrot.pal/reel/DAB9NtfM250/ Users also seem to like using photos less than text for food tracking: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBoSeQzM3bQ/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DBoSeQzM3bQ/ The author of this article seems to be against the concept of calorie counting as a whole too, but calorie counting does work well for many people. They also bring up intuitive eating as an alternative, but intuitive eating is not intended for weight loss while that's what calorie tracking is usually used for (though it can also be used for maintenance and for weight gain). Personally, after using MyFitnessPal for a couple years, switching to ParrotPal made calorie counting way less time-I just need to give it a quick text (or voice) description and it does a surprisingly good job of estimating. There are a few times when I need to adjust it, I mostly try to overestimate. It's not perfectly accurate but it gives me enough accuracy to have successfully lost and kept my weight off.

tayo42 1y ago
> seems to be against the concept of calorie counting as a whole too What are peoples criticisms of calorie counting? Its the only thing that keeps my weight from creeping up. There are way to many calorie dense foods that can easily sneak in if im thoughtless. (I want my 20 year old life style back :( )
- schmichael 1y ago
  My unprofessional nutritional advice is: do what works for you! So if that’s calorie counting: great! No need to give it a second thought. But if you are interested in critiques, a fair summary might be: calorie counting is at best extremely imprecise, both on how we measure the calories in food and how we estimate energy expenditure by activities. A little googling should lead to numerous discussions. I really enjoy the podcast maintenance phase, and even if you don’t want to listen to the episode they helpfully include tons of links: https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/episodes/10671811-the-trouble-with-calories https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/episodes/106...
  - tayo42 1y ago
    Oh I guess, I try to go towards overestimating calories taken in and underestimate my calories spent. It does work for me, but being vigilant about it is tedious so I'm open to hearing if people have better ways.
    - squillion 1y ago
      Take a look at these books: - David Ludwig, Always Hungry? - Mark Hyman, The Blood Sugar Solution The first one is very accessible, the second one very posh. But the underlying approach is the same: no calorie counting, just good food in the right proportions.
      - adrian_b 1y ago
        Good food in the right proportions is necessary, but not sufficient. The total amount of food is at least as important. I eat only good food in the right proportions. However, it would be enough to double the amount of the food that I eat at one meal, for the next day to see a few hundred grams of additional weight. I must plan the amount of food to be eaten before starting to eat. Otherwise, I could eat effortlessly not only the double of the amount that I have planned, but even the triple amount or more, with a corresponding increase in the weight gain. Perhaps there are people who might stop automatically from eating, before ingesting too much, but I am not one of them and looking around I have never met one of those people. For myself and for most people that I have seen (with the extremely rare exceptions of those people who remain thin despite claiming to eat as much as they can, and who may actually have impaired food digestion or absorption) hoping to stop naturally before overeating does not work. The only thing that works is deciding how much to eat before starting to eat, then never eating more than that. For planning how much to eat, calorie counting works fine.
        squillion 1y ago
        Well, I simplified. I said "no calorie counting", not "eat as much as you please". And by "right proportions" in those books they mean something specific: roughly 50% fat, 25% proteins, 25% carbs, plus a balanced mix of different fats, slow carbs, etc. The laws of thermodynamics obviously hold for nutrition as for any other phenomena. In order to lose wait you have to eat less, no question about that. But the idea is that it's much easier to directly control what you eat than how much you eat. And by following those diets it's allegedly easier to eat the right amount. I absolutely believe your method works. As for me, I've experienced that since I changed my diet as per the above recommendations, I'm not hungry two hours after each meal anymore. tayo42 asked for something less tedious than counting calories, so I suggested they take a look at an alternative approach which has benefited me, and in my opinion is well argued.
- darkwater 1y ago
  > What are peoples criticisms of calorie counting? Probably the same criticism that applies to all "methods to do a thing". That people often miss the forest for the trees and obsess on the wrong metric (counting calories while still ingesting preprocessed industrial food and beverages) instead of the right one (losing weight while being healthy at the same time).
  - const_cast 1y ago
    While there is a risk of missing the forest for the trees, I also think that most diets fail because they're too perfect. You don't need to be perfectly healthy, and you don't need to eat 100% whole foods. When we get into this sort of mindset that we need to be attentive of absolutely everything we eat then we develop a sort of adversarial relationship with food, and for most people that's just not sustainable. The difference between a successful diet that works and one that doesn't could be diet soda. Sounds stupid, but if you're miserable then your diet isn't going to last. Making better decisions is an improvement, and is MUCH better than dropping the pursuit all together. There's plenty of people who are very healthy and they eat ice cream, drink soda some times, maybe have cheesecake occasionally. That's part of life, and for a lot of people that's one of the parts of life that makes it worth living. Conversely, there's a lot of people who try something like Keto and then eventually fail and fall into an even worse relationship with food then they had when they started.
- shlant 1y ago
  most people do not arrive at the idea that CICO (Calories In Calories Out) is useless or incorrect on their own - they usually buy into that belief because they follow specific diet communities or health influencers that are incentivized to tell them that.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Sometimes people get a bit obsessive with it, would be the main obvious problem.
edanm 1y ago
> Personally, after using MyFitnessPal for a couple years, switching to ParrotPal made calorie counting way less time-I just need to give it a quick text (or voice) description and it does a surprisingly good job of estimating. I haven't used ParrtPal, what makes it easier than using MyFitnessPal?
- surfmike 1y ago
  - More freeform -- just type what you ate (and add as much detail as you want) and it will log it, nothing more to select or search from after - You can log several dishes or meals in the same sentence - You can use voice With MFP, there was always searching, then selecting the best entry, then fiddling with portion size. It usually ends up taking many times longer for me.

tayo42 1y ago

> seems to be against the concept of calorie counting as a whole too What are peoples criticisms of calorie counting? Its the only thing that keeps my weight from creeping up. There are way to many calorie dense foods that can easily sneak in if im thoughtless. (I want my 20 year old life style back :( )

schmichael 1y ago
My unprofessional nutritional advice is: do what works for you! So if that’s calorie counting: great! No need to give it a second thought. But if you are interested in critiques, a fair summary might be: calorie counting is at best extremely imprecise, both on how we measure the calories in food and how we estimate energy expenditure by activities. A little googling should lead to numerous discussions. I really enjoy the podcast maintenance phase, and even if you don’t want to listen to the episode they helpfully include tons of links: https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/episodes/10671811-the-trouble-with-calories https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/episodes/106...
- tayo42 1y ago
  Oh I guess, I try to go towards overestimating calories taken in and underestimate my calories spent. It does work for me, but being vigilant about it is tedious so I'm open to hearing if people have better ways.
  - squillion 1y ago
    Take a look at these books: - David Ludwig, Always Hungry? - Mark Hyman, The Blood Sugar Solution The first one is very accessible, the second one very posh. But the underlying approach is the same: no calorie counting, just good food in the right proportions.
    - adrian_b 1y ago
      Good food in the right proportions is necessary, but not sufficient. The total amount of food is at least as important. I eat only good food in the right proportions. However, it would be enough to double the amount of the food that I eat at one meal, for the next day to see a few hundred grams of additional weight. I must plan the amount of food to be eaten before starting to eat. Otherwise, I could eat effortlessly not only the double of the amount that I have planned, but even the triple amount or more, with a corresponding increase in the weight gain. Perhaps there are people who might stop automatically from eating, before ingesting too much, but I am not one of them and looking around I have never met one of those people. For myself and for most people that I have seen (with the extremely rare exceptions of those people who remain thin despite claiming to eat as much as they can, and who may actually have impaired food digestion or absorption) hoping to stop naturally before overeating does not work. The only thing that works is deciding how much to eat before starting to eat, then never eating more than that. For planning how much to eat, calorie counting works fine.
      - squillion 1y ago
        Well, I simplified. I said "no calorie counting", not "eat as much as you please". And by "right proportions" in those books they mean something specific: roughly 50% fat, 25% proteins, 25% carbs, plus a balanced mix of different fats, slow carbs, etc. The laws of thermodynamics obviously hold for nutrition as for any other phenomena. In order to lose wait you have to eat less, no question about that. But the idea is that it's much easier to directly control what you eat than how much you eat. And by following those diets it's allegedly easier to eat the right amount. I absolutely believe your method works. As for me, I've experienced that since I changed my diet as per the above recommendations, I'm not hungry two hours after each meal anymore. tayo42 asked for something less tedious than counting calories, so I suggested they take a look at an alternative approach which has benefited me, and in my opinion is well argued.
darkwater 1y ago
> What are peoples criticisms of calorie counting? Probably the same criticism that applies to all "methods to do a thing". That people often miss the forest for the trees and obsess on the wrong metric (counting calories while still ingesting preprocessed industrial food and beverages) instead of the right one (losing weight while being healthy at the same time).
- const_cast 1y ago
  While there is a risk of missing the forest for the trees, I also think that most diets fail because they're too perfect. You don't need to be perfectly healthy, and you don't need to eat 100% whole foods. When we get into this sort of mindset that we need to be attentive of absolutely everything we eat then we develop a sort of adversarial relationship with food, and for most people that's just not sustainable. The difference between a successful diet that works and one that doesn't could be diet soda. Sounds stupid, but if you're miserable then your diet isn't going to last. Making better decisions is an improvement, and is MUCH better than dropping the pursuit all together. There's plenty of people who are very healthy and they eat ice cream, drink soda some times, maybe have cheesecake occasionally. That's part of life, and for a lot of people that's one of the parts of life that makes it worth living. Conversely, there's a lot of people who try something like Keto and then eventually fail and fall into an even worse relationship with food then they had when they started.
shlant 1y ago
most people do not arrive at the idea that CICO (Calories In Calories Out) is useless or incorrect on their own - they usually buy into that belief because they follow specific diet communities or health influencers that are incentivized to tell them that.
rsynnott 1y ago
Sometimes people get a bit obsessive with it, would be the main obvious problem.

edanm 1y ago

> Personally, after using MyFitnessPal for a couple years, switching to ParrotPal made calorie counting way less time-I just need to give it a quick text (or voice) description and it does a surprisingly good job of estimating. I haven't used ParrtPal, what makes it easier than using MyFitnessPal?

surfmike 1y ago
- More freeform -- just type what you ate (and add as much detail as you want) and it will log it, nothing more to select or search from after - You can log several dishes or meals in the same sentence - You can use voice With MFP, there was always searching, then selecting the best entry, then fiddling with portion size. It usually ends up taking many times longer for me.