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Haha awesome, thanks! I spent a lot of time trying to pander to different eating styles, and some definitely work better with my algorithm than others. Low carb

Haha awesome, thanks! I spent a lot of time trying to pander to different eating styles, and some definitely work better with my algorithm than others. Low carb is especially rocky since I have relatively few foods/recipes with absolutely no carbs.

eriktrans 13y ago
How long has the service been around for, and how did you get traction? You have quite a lot of Twitter and Facebook followers/fans.
- papa_bear 13y ago
  It started out as Swole.me (http://www.swole.me http://www.swole.me) a little over two years ago, and then I rebranded it once the algorithm was good enough to suggest things a normal, well adjusted person might eat (as opposed to a meal of 2 tbsp peanut butter + 1 chicken breast). My guess is that the idea and execution was novel enough to get it a decent amount of attention.
  - onedev 13y ago
    I had checked out Swole.me a couple months ago when I was looking to start lifting again and was looking for a way to get eating suggestions/tracking. I found your site and it was really really awesome back then, I was impressed! I'm glad to see you're still working on it. I think you're hitting on something really valuable here. Thank you for your work and good luck with it moving forward.
  - tcdowney 13y ago
    Wow, I was just thinking about swole.me the other day while I was mirin my gainz at the gym. Cool to see it become something more!
    - papa_bear 13y ago
      Going to the gym and running into buff dudes who were talking about swole.me was one of my proudest moments.
  - svdad 13y ago
    Nice pivot. I had the same idea myself about two years ago, and saw swole.me but thought it looked way to focussed on weight training users for a general audience. This looks much more widely useful.
unreal37 13y ago
Low carb doesn't mean no carb. If you limit meals to 5-10 grams of carbs or less, most low carbers would be happy. [1] One of the more extreme low carb diets, the Atkins Induction Phase, allowed up to 20 grams per day. Other diets such as keto or The Zone allow 50-100 grams. [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/how-many-carbohydrates-do-you-need.html http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/how-many-carbohyd...
- criley 13y ago
  That's a bit of a misnomer: diets like Keto don't "allow" set amounts of carbs, they require you to find your own carb limit to stay in ketosis. If you constantly blow out of ketosis, you'll literally accomplish nothing with the diet. Hence why keto-stix and other indicators are important- no one value works for everyone. I had to eat less than 25g/day to maintain the keto diet.
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    > If you constantly blow out of ketosis, you'll literally accomplish nothing with the diet. Unless you also achieve a caloric deficit. edit: opposite words day
  - unreal37 13y ago
    I think we're in agreement. Every person is slightly different in how they react to carbs, including how bad your insulin resistance has gotten and quickly your insulin reacts to blood sugar. We all know its about stopping insulin from being released ultimately.
- papa_bear 13y ago
  True, but it still limits the food variety a lot. Since my recipe database isn't huge to begin with, the meals start looking stale much sooner. I'm working on expanding the recipe database a lot, so hopefully it won't be a big problem for too much longer.
  - eru 13y ago
cpayne 13y ago
+1 on Low carb isn't no carb. I had fantastic results on low carbs. I tried no carb once and it really will fk with your brain. Don't try no carbs!!!
- eru 13y ago
  > I tried no carb once and it really will fk with your brain. Interesting. For how long? I have seen people fast (i.e. no calories, but water and minerals etc) for two weeks, without too much messed up brains.
  - thisone 13y ago
    Aye From what I've heard reported[1] about periods of extreme caloric restriction is that it takes the body around 4 days or so to start dealing with the lack of carbohydrates. Until that point the person feels tired, grumpy, headachy, out of sorts, hungry. [1]act 2: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/259/transcript http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/259/t...
  - unreal37 13y ago
    I've done extremely low carb diets a couple of times, and yes there is a 3-4 day period while your brain adjusts to running on ketones instead of glucose. Foggy brain for sure.

eriktrans 13y ago

How long has the service been around for, and how did you get traction? You have quite a lot of Twitter and Facebook followers/fans.

papa_bear 13y ago
It started out as Swole.me (http://www.swole.me http://www.swole.me) a little over two years ago, and then I rebranded it once the algorithm was good enough to suggest things a normal, well adjusted person might eat (as opposed to a meal of 2 tbsp peanut butter + 1 chicken breast). My guess is that the idea and execution was novel enough to get it a decent amount of attention.
- onedev 13y ago
  I had checked out Swole.me a couple months ago when I was looking to start lifting again and was looking for a way to get eating suggestions/tracking. I found your site and it was really really awesome back then, I was impressed! I'm glad to see you're still working on it. I think you're hitting on something really valuable here. Thank you for your work and good luck with it moving forward.
- tcdowney 13y ago
  Wow, I was just thinking about swole.me the other day while I was mirin my gainz at the gym. Cool to see it become something more!
  - papa_bear 13y ago
    Going to the gym and running into buff dudes who were talking about swole.me was one of my proudest moments.
- svdad 13y ago
  Nice pivot. I had the same idea myself about two years ago, and saw swole.me but thought it looked way to focussed on weight training users for a general audience. This looks much more widely useful.

unreal37 13y ago

Low carb doesn't mean no carb. If you limit meals to 5-10 grams of carbs or less, most low carbers would be happy. [1] One of the more extreme low carb diets, the Atkins Induction Phase, allowed up to 20 grams per day. Other diets such as keto or The Zone allow 50-100 grams. [1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/how-many-carbohydrates-do-you-need.html http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/how-many-carbohyd...

criley 13y ago
That's a bit of a misnomer: diets like Keto don't "allow" set amounts of carbs, they require you to find your own carb limit to stay in ketosis. If you constantly blow out of ketosis, you'll literally accomplish nothing with the diet. Hence why keto-stix and other indicators are important- no one value works for everyone. I had to eat less than 25g/day to maintain the keto diet.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  > If you constantly blow out of ketosis, you'll literally accomplish nothing with the diet. Unless you also achieve a caloric deficit. edit: opposite words day
- unreal37 13y ago
  I think we're in agreement. Every person is slightly different in how they react to carbs, including how bad your insulin resistance has gotten and quickly your insulin reacts to blood sugar. We all know its about stopping insulin from being released ultimately.
papa_bear 13y ago
True, but it still limits the food variety a lot. Since my recipe database isn't huge to begin with, the meals start looking stale much sooner. I'm working on expanding the recipe database a lot, so hopefully it won't be a big problem for too much longer.
- eru 13y ago

cpayne 13y ago

+1 on Low carb isn't no carb. I had fantastic results on low carbs. I tried no carb once and it really will fk with your brain. Don't try no carbs!!!

eru 13y ago
> I tried no carb once and it really will fk with your brain. Interesting. For how long? I have seen people fast (i.e. no calories, but water and minerals etc) for two weeks, without too much messed up brains.
- thisone 13y ago
  Aye From what I've heard reported[1] about periods of extreme caloric restriction is that it takes the body around 4 days or so to start dealing with the lack of carbohydrates. Until that point the person feels tired, grumpy, headachy, out of sorts, hungry. [1]act 2: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/259/transcript http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/259/t...
- unreal37 13y ago
  I've done extremely low carb diets a couple of times, and yes there is a 3-4 day period while your brain adjusts to running on ketones instead of glucose. Foggy brain for sure.