Shout It From The Rooftops, No. 2: The Eatery
Remember when I said this was going to become a series? ...Yeah.
Not since Songza and Instagram have I been this excited about an app (that wasn't a game). Before I get ahead of myself and start singing its praises, let me first explain to you what it is.
The Eatery is essentially a photo-based food diary. You take photos of your food, rate it (yourself) on a scale of how healthy you believe it is, and then other people rate your food also, giving you an average scoring.
[Some of the things I've eaten lately]
Now let me explain just why this app is so brilliant. For me, healthy eating is a bit of a struggle. Like a pendulum, I go from really strict days where I'm motivated to eat clean, to days when I just eat everything and anything in sight. Keeping a food diary, statistically helps people stick to their diets longer, because you become aware of all the things you consume in a day, and you are less likely to snack unnecessarily or cheat, since you know you have to write it down. And that's all well and good, but... you see, I've tried the food diary thing. I had a little polka-dotted notebook that I would try to write everything down in. But then I'd forget, or I'd be out and not have it with me, and after a few days I'd stop writing in in entirely. There was no element of "fun" in it, so I dropped it.
But as we well know from Instagram, people (myself included) love taking photos of their food. It's quick, easy, and it's fun to see what other people are eating, as strange as that may sound to non-instagram users. With The Eatery app (which, by the way, is free), wherever you go, you always have your phone with you, and it takes no more than 2 seconds to snap a photo of what you're about to eat. Or, if you prefer not to take a photo, there's the option to just write down what it is instead, and post that.
This alone would be effective, for those who want to stick to a certain way of eating. (I hesitate to say "diet", because I feel like that implies a short term, often drastic way of eating for the purpose of weight loss. I am trying to eat in a way that's healthy and possible to maintain long-term.) Simply recording all the food you eat, visually, would be effective enough. But here's where the genius of the app comes in.
By having others rate your food, (on a scale from "fat" to "fit") an element of competition is introduced. You are more inclined to want post healthier foods, and therefore eat healthier, because you want to get a high scoring. I've only been using this app for two days now, but I've already refrained from snacking and choosing to eat unhealthier choices because I didn't want to ruin my % average, which is currently quite high.
It's also really fun to see how others rank your food, because it happens within about a minute of your posting the picture. And likewise, you get to scroll through a random assortment of other peoples' food, and rate their meals on the same scale.
Another reason I love this app so much is that it is NOT a calorie counter. (Or any other kind of counter.) I don't believe in calorie counting at all, because while yes, you can lose weight on that system, you can eat purely unhealthy foods, but still technically be under your caloric limit for the day. I believe in eating healthy, not worrying about how many calories something has. Besides, we NEED calories, for energy! This was my problem with MyFitnessPal, another health/fitness food diary type app I tried for a while. It was frustrating to have to find each specific brand of food you ate within the system, and I become obsessed with the numbers, and kind of lost the big picture. So, I deleted the app.
So if you're looking to clean up your diet, and want to try a fun app, I highly recommend The Eatery. My only issue with it is that unless you link it up to your Facebook, you have no way of following people, or finding friends, etc. If they made it more like Instagram, where you make a username, and can be followed/follow others, and browse all their food pictures, I think that would make it even better. I know I would find it useful and fun to browse photos of what one specific person ate throughout a week!
This post wouldn't be complete without a special thank you to Lily (reinesque). I discovered this app through her, because she mentioned it on her blog. She sums up the app perfectly in much fewer words, but I felt the need to ramble on. Anyway, thank you Lily! :)
What app are you most excited about at the moment? xx
