A calorie budget, not a diet app

The problem

Calorie apps want a barcode, a food database and a subscription for what is mostly one number a day. Most people stop after a week because logging takes longer than eating.

How Calories works

Tell it your sex, age, height, weight, goal and pace once. It works out your maintenance calories with the Mifflin-St Jeor formula, scales it for your activity level, and takes off (or adds) what your pace needs. That's your daily budget, shown as a ring that fills as you log.

Log a meal as a name and a number. Your usual meals become one-click chips. Click any meal to fix it, and step back to earlier days with the arrows to log a dinner you forgot.

The week shows green under budget and orange over. Each day keeps the budget that applied on that day, so a new weigh-in doesn't rewrite your history. Days where you logged almost nothing are shown grey and left out, so one forgotten day doesn't fake a huge deficit.

Your deficit is added up for the week and since you started, converted to weight, with a projected date for your goal based on your real average rather than the plan. Log a weigh-in whenever you like; the sparkline shows the trend.

Tips

• Round numbers are fine. The maths averages out over weeks, and a budget you actually log beats a precise one you abandon.
• Switch between kg and lb in the profile; everything converts.

Questions

Is there a food database?

No, on purpose. You type a number. Estimating a meal to the nearest hundred calories takes five seconds and is accurate enough for a weekly deficit.

How is the budget calculated?

Resting energy from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, multiplied by your activity level, plus or minus your weekly pace spread over seven days at 7,700 kcal per kilogram. It never goes below 1,000 kcal.

What if I forget a day?

Go back with the arrows and add it. If you leave it, a day under 40% of budget is shown grey and skipped, so it doesn't count as a deficit.

Can I change my goal later?

Yes. Edit profile keeps your start date and history. Start over wipes everything if you'd rather begin fresh.

Goes well with

• Hydration

  A glass that fills as you log, and reminders that know when to stay quiet.

• Habits

  Today's list on the left, six months of dots on the right.