Fuel: Calories & Nutrition

I want to set my own goals for carbs, protein and fat. The Manual feature doesn’t work. So I thought this was because I was trialing the app with a renewal date of May 10. So I decided to cancel the trial and sign up (hopefully resolve the Manual Macros feature) only to find that I can’t!!! The App is insisting I complete the trial so the start can be May 10. What gives? You guys don’t like money? So I will have to wait to find out if my problem is a bug or a holdout till renewal. And while we’re here, the Apple Watch icon shows the dreary word Cal. In itself, this icon is pathetic, and for me, since I’m only interested in my protein level, there should be an option to display that… and hopefully with more style than the dry “Cal”. There is no option far as I can see to use the metric system for body weight (and also where?). Who uses lbs other than the USA… and I don’t live in the USA, along with 96% of humanity.

I’m on a medically prescribed 3 month 800 calorie per day ketogenic diet. There’s plenty of research published in peer-reviewed journals talking about the safety and metabolic benefits of this approach. Three generous stars for respecting privacy, but since I can’t get by the third screen, the app is useless to me, and I’d happily pay. Why do I even need to enter that? Can’t I just use this to track my intake without the app needing to ‘manage’ my goals? I know what I’m doing. My choices seem to be: spreadsheet, notebook, or letting some company sell my medical problems to the great American data brokerage monster. Frustrating.

I want to immediately note— I don’t normally consider paying for additional features on apps, since I’m always fearful that if I switch device brands later on, I will end up losing the benefits of having purchased a certain app. After a couple of days of using Fuel, it was a no-brainer. I have opted into the free trial and intend to continue providing revenue to its creator. This app is carefully crafted to make the interpretation of what you put in your body as “digestible” as possible. It makes it incredibly easy to see exactly what you’re lacking in your diet… and beyond that, the ability to add foods has some impressive features! The entire thing is a well-polished experience. A huge bonus for respecting user data as well. One of the major reasons I’ve comfortable with paying for this app is because the creator has a privacy-driven model that leaves control over user data to the only person it belongs… the user! Thank you for this. I do wonder if the app’s author plans to make this available outside the Apple ecosystem. Better yet, can my personal data I’ve tracked be made available in a .json or .csv so that I can use it elsewhere? I have just started syncing to iCloud, but haven’t checked out what data is actually synchronized. Also, regarding the food database: I really admire the “universal” food category, and I hope to see the library organically grow with more users contributing. What is the verification process like when creating new foods? I have been trying to record mine as accurately as possible and uploading photos of nutrition labels, and I’m curious about how the verification is done from there. One feature that I’m missing (maybe it doesn’t exist?) is the ability to go back and see (edit) the foods that I have personally added. I understand that the food library is community driven, and I suppose it would be difficult to allow users to go back and edit “submissions” of food to the global library… it’s a difficult problem. Maybe store a local library of created foods, and users can optionally upload them to the global library? Hopefully some of my suggestions make sense. My comments certainly don’t detract from the quality of my experience with this app. Cheers to such an excellent piece of software.

This is pretty much the only usable calorie counter with modern features that doesn’t take your information and sell it—according to the privacy section in the AppStore. I feel there is no reason for the big player calorie counters to grab the information they get to sell to others. This app is a breathe of fresh air. Super light weight, no fluff. The creator is super responsive too.

I’m switching from Lose It to Fuel for my calorie counting needs, here’s why: Fuel makes calorie counting a simpler process by keeping the interface minimal and giving users a way to track the way they like, including adding custom foods & recipes. The thing that sets Fuel apart from other calorie counting apps is that it provides useful insights into your overall diet. The app will let you know if you’ve been eating too many processed food lately, if you need to eat more fruits & veggies, etc. it’s like having a little dietician in your pocket. I initially had some minor bugs with the app, but emailed the developer & he had it handled within 24 hours. No joke! A full update that completely fixed the issues. The absolute only thing I’d love to see from this app is caloric deficit tracking that incorporates health data using the formula (Dietary Calories-Resting Calories-Move Calories). As far as I’ve seen, there’s no way to see your overall caloric deficit. I’d love to see a similar average and trend tracking method that you get with your calorie intake. As far as I know, the only app that consolidates that data is Streaks (habit tracking), so it’d be a really game changer for this app.

The UI is visually beautiful, but utterly confusing for the user. The mental model of food, meal, and recipe doesn’t make sense. For example, I want to create a meal, so when I do it… it gives me a blank screen to add ingredients but there’s no way to add ingredients. The empty state doesn’t even tell me what I can or can’t do…. If I create “a food”, I’m expecting a flow to create a catalog of ingredients so I can create recipes…. But when I complete the task, I end up just adding to my caloric intake. There needs to be more onboarding for users b.