Looking for a Better Nutrition Application

What I Experienced Using Nutrition Apps, and What I Wish They Could Do More

Discipline versus Indulgence (AI Generated)

Why I stopped the useful tool

I was using a few applications to record my calorie and nutrition intake, to understand what I was eating and whether I was keeping myself on track.

They helped a lot.

I could see when I was eating too many calories, fat, or sugar, and when I was not getting enough protein or fibre.

After a few weeks, however, I stopped using them.

Not because the applications were not useful, nor because I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do.

It was because I felt that I had developed enough discipline after using them for a while.

I knew roughly what I should eat during the day, and I could leave some room for an indulgence day.

I did test it out — stopped recording for a week, then started recording again for a week. The result looked encouraging, I was still within the limits.

I thought, that’s good news, right?

Maybe I had learned enough that I no longer needed the application to keep myself on track.

But a few months later, something didn’t feel right.

My weight had gone up, but I didn’t feel that I had gained a similar amount of muscle.

So I downloaded the application again and started recording for another week.

This time, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed when I was relying on my own feeling.

Some days were within the limits. Some were even well below them.

But there were also a few days when I exceeded them.

And the worst was the indulgence day.

Without the numbers in front of me, I treated my stomach as the only limit.

The difference was surprisingly large — on that day, my intake was around twice the limit.

That made me reconsider what I had previously thought.

Maybe the problem wasn’t that I didn’t know what to eat, but that I had trusted my gut a little too much.

The applications were useful.

I knew I should probably keep using them, but why couldn’t I commit to using them?

My Real Problem

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the problem wasn’t really the information.

It was something between what I should do and what I was actually doing.

Every good decision I made today had almost no immediate feedback. The benefit might only become visible much later, while the temptation to make a different choice was right in front of me.

That made every decision feel like a small calculation:

• Should I eat this?
• Should I skip that?
• Can I afford this today?

And then I had to record it.

Anything I have eaten … Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks…

Each individual record wasn’t particularly difficult. But doing it again and again, day to day, made the whole process increasingly tiring.

And there was another problem.

If I had eaten healthily yesterday, it was very easy to think:

I’ve already been good. A little more today probably won’t matter.

Then came the indulgence day.

If I gave myself a strict limit, it didn’t really feel like an indulgence day anymore.
But if I gave myself no limit, I could easily go too far.

The application could tell me what had happened.

But it couldn’t make me want to keep using it.

I Had an Idea

I started wondering — Was the problem simply that I didn’t have enough perseverance.

But I’ve been consistently recording my money — income and spending — for years!

Why could I keep doing that?

Maybe because I knew that if I didn’t spend the money today, I could still use it in the future.

Maybe because if I worked out more, I could earn more room to spend later.

Not just because I’m a Taurus. I also like finding a balance between spending, happiness, and the future.

• I have a daily spending limit.
• If I do a part-time job, I have more to spend.
• If I don’t spend it all today, I can save it for future.
• And sometimes I deliberately save for something I really want.

So I started wondering — what if calories worked more like money?

• Each day I set the calories and nutrition limits — All the application have this.
• If I workout that day, I could eat more —Some of the application have this
• If I don’t use all my calories today, I can save them for later — I need this!
• Those savings can give me more room for a party, a buffet, or a better meal that I’m looking forward to — This might give me more motivation to keep going !!!

Wait, This Already Exists?

I thought I had come up with something interesting. Then I checked. Someone had already thought of it.

For example, Lose It! has a “Calorie Schedule”, allowing users to distribute their weekly calorie budget unevenly across different days — saving some room for higher-calorie days while keeping the weekly average on track.

So, the basic idea already exists. Someone had already turned part of my thought into an actual feature.

But before trying them, I started wondering — Would I then actually keep using it?

Maybe this could make me stick with the application longer.

But would I eventually reach the “I have enough discipline” stage again?

Do I have a deeper problem to solve?

So What Do I Actually Need?

Actually, budgeting alone might help me be more disciplined with my diet and plan what I should eat. But it might not make me stick to recording my calories and nutrition.

Maybe we can borrow more ideas from finance?

My “Saving” Idea

Instead of allocating different calorie limits across the week in advance, I would set one indulgence day and let the unused calories from the other days accumulate toward that day:

let the unused calories from the other days accumulate toward it

• Let say we have 2000 calories every days and have chosen Saturday as the indulgence day.
• If you have unused calories on another day — say, you only consume 1,800 calories on Monday — you would have an extra 200 calories available on Saturday.

This feels more suitable for me because I wouldn’t feel like I’m “wasting” something just because I didn’t use it that day.

Also, to have the extra room for the indulgence day, I would need to record every single bite each day.

What’s the difference?

Working (keep recording) for a return (extra calories) gives me more motivation than simply being supervised (not exceeding the limit).

The Temptation Ledger

Every day, I’m dealing not only with “what to eat”, but also with “what not to eat”.

For me, it can feel like I lose some happiness and get nothing in return when I don’t eat what I want.

I know the actual answer of return is “being healthy”, but I cant feel immediate effect reward for doing so.

The effects of my daily choices can take a long time before I notice meaningful changes.

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So what if, whenever I had a craving for something that wasn’t in the plan, I could add it to a “To Eat” list for my indulgence day?

Converting “I didn’t get this” into “I postponed this” makes me more willing to keep going.

Planning the Indulgence Day

Now, we have two things — a calorie budget for the indulgence day, and a list of foods I’ve been craving.

So why don’t we put them together and plan the day?

Lets say:

• I have 2,800 calories available for that day.
• My To Eat list has fried chicken, bubble tea and tiramisu.
• Can I fit all three?
• If not, which combination gives me the most satisfying meal?

But I don’t want to do the math. Maybe this is where AI could come in.

It could generate several combinations based on:

• available calories for the day
• fat/sugar/etc.
• items on the To Eat list
• perhaps nutritional constraints

Then provide the options:

• Plan A: fried chicken + bubble tea
• Plan B: tiramisu + coffee
• Plan C: meat buffet

Looking at what those saved calories can actually buy me is more meaningful than a bunch of numbers telling me how much I’m allowed to eat.

Micro-Lending mechanism

What if you have a party tomorrow, but that isn’t your indulgence day?

The easiest way is to simply ignore the limit for that day.

Or, perhaps better, switch that day with your indulgence day.

But once I do this, I may start making more exceptions in the future, even multiple days in a week.

Why? Because this has no cost for me.

“An exception for today is fine. I’ll be better later.” This kind of thinking always pops up when I’ve had a bad day but still need to stay on a diet.

So, what if no switching, no exceptions, but I can borrow some limit from future with additional cost?

So what if there were no switching and no exceptions, but I could borrow some calories from the future — with an additional cost?

For example, purely as a thought experiment, imagine a new user starts with a credit score of 50, a credit limit of 500 calories, and a 10% interest rate for one week:

• If I borrow it for the week, then I need to return 550 calories within next week, either eat less or do more exercise.
• If I successfully pay it back, my credit score increases by 1.
• But if I fail to clear the debt, the remaining of 550 calories would incur another 10% interest, becoming 605 calories in the following cycle. And my credit score will decrease by 1.
• Besides, for every 10 points gained or lost, the credit limit would increase or decrease by 300 calories, while the interest rate would decrease or increase by 1%.

The problem is not borrowing itself. The problem is being able to borrow without consequences.

Gamified Incentives & Behavioral Nudges

Once I started thinking of calories as money, I kept finding financial mechanisms that could be transferred.

So, why stop at saving and borrowing? Money also has rewards and penalties.

For example, if you didn’t use any extra limit on your indulgence day (saved from other days), you could choose either:

• Each day of the next cycle gets an extra 10% limit, or
• The next indulgence day gets an extra 30%.

The other way around, if you exceed the limit on any day, you would need to choose either:

• Each day of the next cycle gets 10% less, or
• The next indulgence day gets 30% less.

Moreover, we could also have an option to select the difficulty level.

For example, I could choose a lower increment for rewards and a larger decrement for punishments.

But … Am I taking this obsession too far?

The Problem With My Own Idea

Once I stopped brainstorming about money and calories, and thought back through each point, I started wondering if financial logic really translated to calories.

Even the ideas that sounded reasonable seemed to have their own problems.

Saving & Borrowing

Are unused calories actually money?

Money has a relatively stable fungible value — RM200 today can still be RM200 next week.

But how about our body?

• Can our body really “use” those extra calories today just because we left some room a few days ago?
• Does eating less on one day and more on another day actually work that simply on our body?
• And if I consume far more than my target on one day, can we really assume we can “pay it back” later?

Besides, suppose I eat 1,800 calories when my target is 2,000.

• Did I really “save” 200?
• Or did I simply eat less that day?
• Should I actually need more food on that day?
• Or does the “saved calories” actually give me a reason to eat more later?

This idea can remain reasonable as a behavioural metaphor, while becoming questionable as a physiological model.

Temptation Ledger to Indulgence Day

It looks good at first — follow the rule, don’t eat it now, and wait until the day comes.

But … does postponing the craving actually make the craving stronger?

• The idea is now turning “You’re not supposed to drink bubble tea” into “Bubble tea is a reward to be collected later.”
• Which might make the food more important in my mind than before.

Besides, what happens when the list becomes too long?

• If I only choose the top few foods, would the rest make me crave them even more?
• Should I leave the rest for the next cycle?
• Or would the indulgence day eventually become a planned binge day?

The same mechanism that motivates me to track might also make the eventual indulgence harder to control.

Punishment & Reward

This kind of system might be suitable for those who enjoy this kind of challenge.

But should health really be treated as a game where I can win extra calories?

More importantly, should I be punished with less food if I fail?

• If I saw my debt keep growing, would I eventually give up?
• If my credit score kept increasing, would I eventually treat it as permission to eat more for a few cycles?

Punishment can make me give up, while rewards can make me overdo it.

So, What Do I Think Now?

My body forced me back to the recording app.

My behavior led me to borrow the idea from money.

It made sense when I translated the ideas one by one.

But could financial consequences really have the same meaning in calorie recording as they do in my money tracking?

Or how long would it last?

I do not know.

Until I have a chance to experience it.