Ate — a new take on food journaling without calorie counting.

Tom Kiss
youateapp
5 min readMar 15, 2017

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Ate Food Journal (formerly YouAte) is an app designed to help you establish and maintain a healthy eating habit by keeping a food diary. No calorie counting. No complex forms. No demoralizing restrictions. Just take a picture of your meals, reflect on how it made you feel, and identify patterns to keep (or improve on) to achieve lifelong health.

Food journaling is the key to achieve a healthier and happier life. But only if it’s easy to use and fits seamlessly into our lives!

Most of us want to eat better to achieve a happier/healthier lifestyle and food journaling is one of the most effective and proven tools at our disposal to do just that.

It turns out what is keeping us back is not the lack of knowledge, there are plenty of sources out there for how to eat healthy, but rather the application of that knowledge. In our fast paced world, people simply don’t remember what they ate earlier and so they make too many poor choices when it comes time for their next meal. (Yes, I am talking about that second night of ordering pizza. 😔)

That’s where food journaling shines, by simply helping you be more aware of your choices, and through self-monitoring to make better decisions going forward.

The accountability of food journaling is what really hits home with me. It’s not so much about how many calories I’m eating but just that I’m writing my meals and snacks down somewhere. — Kath, RD www.katheats.com

Unfortunately, most current solutions on the market take technology too far and create over complicated solutions that don’t fit into our busy lives. Making changes to your lifestyle is hard already, we shouldn’t add more complexity by asking you to keep a scientific journal.

I tried lots of diets myself: learned different eating rules, counted my calories and macros, switched to paleo, tried keto, experimented with plant based diets, but none of them helped me reach my goals. My mind was always in dieting mode and it led me to think about food all the time which made me even hungrier, stressed and fed up with the whole thing.

I needed a more flexible way to manage my health without endless calorie counting and analyzing my fitness statistics. Not all of us are born with a strict coach’s mindset, right? 😉 Our team isn’t so we created the Ate Food Journal.

How to keep a food journal with Ate?

It’s super easy! We don’t ask you to do much. No need to measure, count or make ingreditent lists.

  • Just snap a photo of your meal in 2 taps using our awesome iOS widgets or from the app. And then go and enjoy your meal!
  • Reflect on why you ate and how it made you feel! It’s all about you and how you feel at the time. Don’t let others influence you. You do you. What feels right at the time. You can mark food as #Onpath/#Offpath or go deeper on why you ate. For Example: Celebrating something amazing with a reasonable size dessert is always #onpath for me and mostly social! 😋
  • Gain awareness and connect the dots. Discover your eating patterns. See what choices you make for what reasons. Become a more mindful and intuitive eater.
  • Ate is not only about food! That would be focusing on one piece of this puzzle called health. Look at the whole picture. Track your overall wellness. See the impact/influence one has on the other in your daily life. See everything on a single, beautiful visual timeline.
  • Keep things private or share with a support buddy. It’s your choice. Ate is private by default. You don’t have to cover up when you went #offpath. Stay honest. You will find it more beneficial in the long run if you are truly aware of what you ate. You don’t have to impress your social media followers. However, if you do decide to share your journal with a few friends or a coach, you have the opportunity to do so privately.
  • And there is so much more you can do with Ate. It’s fully customizable, easy to use, non-judgmental, and always improving. We understand how important Ate is to our community members, as we are heavy users ourselves. We love hearing feedback from our members and constantly improving the app to meet all our needs. Like fully customizable reminders or the new calendar and day views. Check it out to see everything it has to offer.

You don’t need a special date to start!

Download from the App Store and start snapping your way to a healthier you!

Or grab our Android app from Google Play

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.youate.android

Check out our Blog

Where we discuss food, habits, behaviors, and share our own experiences around mindful, healthy living.

Here are some of the articles from the blog:

For Health Professionals: the Ate Coach Dashboard

Are you a health professional who would love to see consistent and visual eating behavior data flowing in from your clients?

Check out the Ate Coach Dashboard.

You can easily connect with your clients and receive a realtime feed of what meal choices they are making, what activities they are involved with and even their hydration habits. You can even chat with them through the platform to support them on their journeys.

It’s everything you need to help your clients reach their goals. Try it today!

About the team

We came together around our love of food, our desire to live a healthier life and our dream of making this world a bit better. With the Ate Food Journal, we feel that we are able to connect all three and build something that is invaluable not only to us, but a large global family of healthy eaters.

Follow us on social media

Instagram · Facebook · Twitter · Send a Message

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Tom Kiss
youateapp

Family man, Techie, Fitness enthusiasts, Entrepreneur, co-founder of Ate (www.youate.com)