Calorific Lite Makes Calorie Tracking Simpler

WorkSmart Labs' new food tracking app aims to simplify eating healthy. The company has more than 7 million users on Android, but just launched its first iOS App, Calorific Lite [iTunes].


Unlike other tracking apps, like Lose It! (which I have been using for the past few weeks), Calorific Lite doesn't focus as much on the number of calories, as on the types of food you're eating. It classifies food into a Green/Yellow/Red system to encourage users to eat better, not just to eat less.

For example, vegetables and fruit are green, while french fries and ice cream are red. Lean beef is yellow, as are things like seafood, low-fat yogurt and avocados. Once you choose your color, assign a serving size (tiny, small, medium, large) and you're done. Adding a meal takes just a couple quick clicks.

Lose It! requires you to pick exact products and serving sizes to get a more detailed assessment of what you've eaten, down to individual calories. WorkSmart Labs co-founder Artem Petakov compared Calorific Lite to Twitter, as a quick-and-easy way to track eating. Lose It! is more like full-length blogging, requiring quite a bit more work, but is a totally different style of tracking food:

One funny thing about that "exactly how many calories you had" -- even if you track it really precisely, there is no real way to know how many calories you had. This is because people digest food differently, have different metabolisms from one day to another, and don't weigh their food exactly.

So it's a lot of work that's only giving you an illusion that you are doing things precisely. That's why we wanted to get away from this. The biggest benefit is from the act of logging itself. Even if you just keep a little journal of what you eat with no calories, you will benefit hugely according to research.

Now that I've gotten into the habit of using Lose It!, I don't necessarily need to use an app like Calorific Lite -- but for someone who isn't used to tracking calories its traffic-light system is super-easy to use.

Calorific Lite is a 'light' application -- it doesn't support accessories like the WiThings body scale or posting to Twitter to encourage weight loss through public humiliation -- but it's a strong start for WorkSmart's first iOS application. They have a more full-featured app, Noom, available on Android, but Petakov said they were starting slow on iOS and are working to bring more functionality to the platform.

Get it free from the App Store.