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Eating healthy is essential for weight loss. We're pretty sure just about everyone can get on-board with that. However, a lot of our users struggle with the fact that Noom doesn't expect you to track every single calorie using precise measurements. The reality is complicated calorie trackers are not necessary. They take way too much typing, too much searching, and too many calculations — all for just an approximate calorie count. That's why we tried to make something better!

Why we approximate: It's extremely difficult to estimate exact measurements. Simply try it some time. Make yourself a plate of food, estimate how much you have in front of you, and then measure it. Even if you've mastered the art of estimating food sizes, everyone's body is actually very different, and you may not burn the exact same number of calories as someone else eating the same food. Sounds easy, but does it work? The amazing thing is, study after study shows that simple logging does work better! That's because you can actually keep it going long enough to see results. Not to mention, this type of logging teaches you to be more independent instead of always relying on that calorie counter. Over time, you'll learn more about Noom's food categories and start to eat better without even thinking about it.

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A Warm Welcome

We’re all about healthy eating here at the office, but it usually requires little more effort than just filling a plate with the delicious food Chef Jane has prepped for us. This week, though, we decided to challenge ourselves and head to Brooklyn Kitchen for a cooking class. From the “What’s that oven thing for?” types — ahem, you know who you are — to those of us who are actually pretty proficient in the kitchen, our BK outing was sure to be an adventure … if only because it was some people’s first time on the L-train. The class turned out to be a smashing success. Our teacher, Kat Randazzo (an experienced restaurant chef-turned-Mom/personal chef/teacher), was super-fun to work with, and made the class totally accessible for all of us. So of course, we couldn’t keep her awesome insights to ourselves. Check out some of our favorite general cooking tips followed by a kick-a$ recipe for gnocchi (on a bed of greens, to keep it healthy!). Chef Kat’s Tips and Pointers:

When sauteeing or pan-frying, place the meat into the pan presentation-side-down, so that it gets the prettiest, brown sear on the side you’ll see when it’s served.

Let pieces of meat warm to room temperature before sticking them in the oven. They’ll caramelize nicely on the outside and cook more evenly that way.

Cook a whole chicken in the oven with its legs toward the back. That’s where the heat comes from and the legs take the longest to cook.

Black Pepper Gnocchi with Butter Wilted Greens Ingredients: 2 large Russett potatoes 2 egg yolks 1 cup flour Salt & pepper 4 tbsp. butter 8 oz. arugula 4 oz. Pecorino cheese Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375. Coat the potatoes in salt (this helps draw moisture out of the potato for a better texture in the final gnocchi) and bake.

Peel the potatoes while still hot and mash them with a fork or potato ricer. (Eat the potato skins, they’re so good!)

Add the egg yolks and work into the potatoes with the fork. Knead in a cup of flour until just combined (it may take 1 ½ cups, but add only a cup at first). Season with salt and a liberal amount of pepper.

Divide the dough into four parts on a lightly floured workspace. Roll each piece into a snake-like log the diameter of a nickel, then use a knife or bench scraper to cut the log into ½-inch pieces.

Use a fork to gently roll ridges into each gnocchi then transfer to a lightly floured cookie sheet.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the gnocchi to the water in four batches. They’re done when they float to the top — this should take no more than a couple minutes. Scoop out each gnocchi when it floats.

When all gnocchi are cooked, melt the butter in a large sautee pan. Add the gnocchi and toss until lightly browned. Add the arugula and more salt to taste, and toss until just wilted.

Transfer to a serving dish and top with grated Pecorino. Enjoy!

We've built an excellent foundation for a fitness technology start-up, and now we are looking for amazing and driven engineers to help us grow faster and share the rewards. We are looking for full-time engineers for our New York office. Please e-mail me at [email protected] or pass this on to friends who might be interested. About our start-up The WorkSmart Labs mission is to use technology to make fitness more fun and effective. Existing fitness companies have dropped the ball on this (ever have a blast on a treadmill?), and technology companies with top talent have largely ignored the area. We are building WorkSmart Labs to fill the gap. For example, imagine a video version of Google Street View, but on a treadmill and with image analysis that allows you to embed virtual opponents and motivational mileposts. Then instead of watching CNN, users can run through the streets of Paris or the Alps, while we optimize their workout for maximum fat-burn or endurance. Imagine also the gym of the future, where every exercise you do is monitored by a mobile cyber trainer, virtually following and instructing you. And if you don't do what you should, it can post this fact on your Facebook feed, or even donate money to an organization you dislike. These are the types of ideas that drive us, and we are building and testing many of these and other ideas. What makes us different

We are small and early-stage! We have many helpers and advisers, but we still have just 6 full-time employees. Additionally, we've prudently kept costs low and financed our company with our own and angel funds, not taking VC money, which means we've kept a lot of equity to share with highly-talented early employees (that's you!). If you join, I guarantee you will have a big impact and will be generously rewarded for it with equity.

We are changing and improving the world! We're focusing on the largely unexplored area of "fitness and wellness technology", where improvements can have a big and hugely beneficial impact. Unlike say .com's, not enough smart people are looking at this problem -- and we can change that together. We already get many e-mails from users thanking us for helping them lose weight or exercise. Imagine doing that on a global scale.

We make decisions together! Whether its how much to pay an advisor, what features to add, how to negotiate an investment, or even if we should get a new couch. You will be an equal partner in these discussions, and you will learn how to make such decisions (in a data-driven way and beyond!). Instead of working on just one area, we believe that every employee should be able to think like a CEO. The biggest thing I underestimated in joining a start-up is how much I would learn from this process: every day something different comes up, and every time it's a life-long lesson for business and life.

We are building the kind of company we want to work for! We've worked for and admire great engineering companies (such as Fog Creek and Google), and are obsessed with creating a great work environment and a rewarding atmosphere. No obstacle is too great on this quest, and you will be able to help us improve it. We've had an amazing chef from day one (we love her!) and a fun office with frequent visitors.

We build amazing & diverse technologies! At our core, we are a team of great engineers. As such, right from the beginning, we have worked hard to build a great engineering environment -- with code reviews, automatic unit tests, bug reports, the works. We take great pride in our tools and our code, and this lets us build cool stuff quickly. We build everything from Android mobile software, to C++ image analysis, to web UI, to pedometer data analysis. Because we are small, you will become skilled in many more technologies, and build more diverse ones.

We are multi-disciplinary! We see fitness technology as multi-disciplinary at its core -- we need the input of fitness advisors, designers, doctors, psychologists, and researchers. Already, we have trainers and researchers (who'd normally not cross paths!) that advise us on these subjects, and we dream of a day when we have all of these people working together in one place, having fun, and then going down to our own demo gym to use our own products! From the start, we've also built this company to attract a great variety of people, so you will get to interact with a much more diverse set of people than in a typical engineering company.

We are making great progress! Our business accomplishments so far include releasing the most popular dedicated fitness application on the Android Market (CardioTrainer), securing angel capital from Korea as well as from a senior Google Product Manager, winning a technology development grant from the Korean Ministry of Knowledge, and most importantly, building an amazing foundation for our company and finding an awesome team.

On behalf of the whole WorkSmart Labs family, I would like to wish you a very Happy New Year! We've been keeping very busy, and I wanted to update you briefly on the Christmas presents we have gotten you. As some of you already noticed, on Christmas day we posted a new version of CardioTrainer - v0.9.2. Because of a small bug in the way it was uploaded, the Market still says v0.9.1, but it is indeed a new version. If you haven't tried it yet, check it out -- it adds: (drumroll please)

Voice Output -- CardioTrainer now has a voice! It can tell you how far you've gone, and how long it took to get there. In the settings screen, you can customize how often you get notified -- either based on distance or time, or even completely disable it if you'd rather tune out and enjoy your music. For those of you that exercise with music, CardioTrainer will turn down the music when it talks to you, and then turn it back up when it's done. A lot more exciting developments coming for this feature!

Statistics Screen -- you can access this either by going to the Statistics menu when you are exercising or by simply clicking on the map. We are going to add more here soon. Look for calories and pace information in the next update!

Advanced GPS Settings -- some of you exercise in areas with dense vegetation or skyscrapers, where the GPS sensitivity level prevents you from getting any GPS points. If so, head over to the Advanced GPS settings screen (reachable from the Settings screen) and adjust the filter level there. Or maybe you'd like to save power for those 20-hour hikes you do. We have a setting for you as well.