Why food diaries get abandoned in week two

It isn't motivation. It's that logging a sandwich in a conventional app means searching a database, picking between fourteen near-identical entries, estimating a portion in grams, and confirming — and doing that four times a day, for something you're going to eat in six minutes.

The estimates aren't even good. Portion guesses carry large errors, restaurant meals are unknowable, and what gets recorded is a number that looks like a measurement and isn't. So the cost is high, the output is false precision, and the whole thing collapses somewhere around day eleven — usually with no record left behind at all.

  • Four decisions per entry, at the moment you least want to make them
  • Estimates recorded as measurements, indistinguishable a month later
  • Snacks and drinks unrecorded, which is often half of the eating
  • Nothing kept about where you were, who with, or what had just happened

What an entry looks like here

One line Chat

Leftover curry and rice for lunch, at my desk, about two.

Called 2 tools

  • log_meal(items: ["curry", "rice"], at: "14:00", setting: "desk")
  • log_context(company: "alone")

Logged. That's the fourth desk lunch this week.

No lookup, no portion field, nothing to confirm. Dictating it takes about four seconds.

The difference

What you give up, and what you get

This is a genuine trade rather than a free lunch, and it's worth being straight about which side you're on before you sign up.

What you give up

  • A daily calorie total
  • Gram-level macro breakdowns
  • A number to hit and a progress bar toward it

If you need real precision — a competition, a clinical plan, a coach working to grams — weigh your food and use a macro app. That's the honest answer, and it isn't the product we're building.

What you get instead

  • A record that's still going in month six, which is where the value is
  • Context — where, who with, what had just happened
  • The meals that didn't happen, which no other diary records
  • Photos as first-class entries
  • A log you can ask questions of, instead of one you can only read

Coarse data over six months beats precise data over eleven days, and it isn't close.

What it does

The journal, specifically

Type it or say it

An entry is a sentence in whatever words you'd have used anyway. Dictation works well for this, which is why most people end up doing it walking away from the table.

Photos are complete entries

A picture of the plate records portions better than any description. Stored against the day, searchable later, never turned into a calorie guess.

Late entries are fine

Log yesterday's dinner tomorrow morning. The record is more useful slightly late than it is missing, and nothing penalises you for it.

Ask it questions

"Which dinners leave me uncomfortable?" is a query against your own entries. This is the part that makes a journal worth keeping past week two.

No streak, no score

Miss four days and four days are empty. Nothing resets, nothing is lost, and nothing tells you you've failed at keeping a diary.

Export whenever

Everything you've written and every photo, in one file — including the date range a dietitian asked you about.

Questions

Comparing it against what you're using now

How is this different from MyFitnessPal?

Different job. Those are calorie and macro databases, and they're good at that when you keep them up. This is a journal: entries in plain words or photos, context alongside the food, and a log you can query. If the number is what you're after, they do the number better than we ever will.

How is it different from taking notes in my phone?

Notes are write-only — that's the whole problem with them. Here the entries are structured as they're written, so three months later you can ask which evenings went sideways and what those days had in common, and get counts back rather than a wall of text to scroll.

Can I use it for a dietitian appointment?

That's one of the main reasons people start. Export a date range as a file with the photos attached — which answers "what does a normal week look like?" far better than the reconstruction everyone attempts in the room.

Does it work offline?

The first release is a web app, so it needs a connection. Entries are short enough that logging on the move works fine, and nothing is lost by writing up a meal an hour later.

What does it cost?

There's a free tier that's a real tier, and a personal plan at $5 a month. Founding accounts lock their rate for life. Full details on the pricing page.

Early access

Start the journal you'll still be keeping in month six

Tell us what you've been trying to keep track of and we'll set it up with you.

  • Founding accounts lock their price for life
  • No card, no trial clock
  • Export everything you've logged, photos included, whenever you want

No card required. Unsubscribe any time.

A food diary without the four decisions per meal

Founding pricing is locked for accounts opened during early access.

Founding accounts lock their price for life. No card required.