Active8rlives: Will food diaries make us fitter and healthier?

In theory losing weight and keeping track of what you’re eating sounds easy, just eat less than the energy you expend, track calories and do everything mindfully. Simple, right? Um no, it’s really not given there’s a multi-million pound dieting industry and so many people try to diet, fail, try again, fail again and so on.

Well now Active8rlives (yep, the rogue 8 annoys us too, but let it lie) has launched a new picture-based food diary app with a dedicated online website too in order to help you live a much healthier lifestyle and manage your weight.

Of course keeping a food diary to track what you’re eating isn’t a new concept and it was popular way before we all had cameras attached to our smart phones. However, most of the time it’s hard to maintain, whether you lose motivation or just forget.

Kevin Auton, from Activ8rlives said:

“The problem with traditional food diaries is that they very quickly become a chore and so people soon give up. That is a real shame, as research indicates that those who DO stick to their food diary are actually successful in losing weight or reducing their food intake. So, we decided to explore this concept further to try and find ways to make recording your food and drink interesting, interactive and most importantly, visual.”

So Auton and the team have tried to make keeping a food diary as fun as possible. Instead of trying to estimate the calories in what you’re consuming, the app just sends the photos you upload of each item to users online and personal profiles and food diaries.

Users are then able to see everything they’ve eaten over the past week and each meal is categorised as a “good choice” or “bad choice” by the rest of the community alongside recorded fitness activity levels and any weight change, which the brand would obviously like you to find out through its own tracking gadgets.

The premise behind Activ8rlives certainly makes sense, tracking is great, but too much and users are bound to switch off, we’re just not sure whether the “good choice” and “bad choice” labelling is enough to keep users interested and actually help them to lose weight in the long run.

The Activ8rlives’s Food Diary apps are available for Android, Blackberry and iPhone devices for free.