Calorie/exercise tool ...

MouseMan01

I'm thinking of creating an online tool that'll tell you how much exercise you'll need to do in the gym in order to burn off a specific meal from selected local takeaways.

I'm also thinking of adding a gameification element such as flagging when a user has earned a takeaway meal through activity as a reward.

Eventually I might roll it out to gyms who may or may not collect names and emails.

Would you use such a tool?

What features would you like to see included?

Alf Veedersane

MouseMan01 wrote: »

I'm thinking of creating an online tool that'll tell you how much exercise you'll need to do in the gym in order to burn off a specific meal from selected local takeaways.

I'm also thinking of adding a gameification element such as flagging when a user has earned a takeaway meal through activity as a reward.

Eventually I might roll it out to gyms who may or may not collect names and emails.

Would you use such a tool?

What features would you like to see included?

I'm not speaking for anyone other than myself but the premise is the complete opposite to what people are trying to do, i.e. a lifestyle change and move away from regular takeaways to a having a decent sustainable diet (which the occasional takeaway can still be part of). But this seems to promote training with the sole purpose of earning a takeaway. I think it's a pretty poor basis for an app.

Operationally, a lot of local takeaways won't have calories on their menus and they are probably going to be underestimates. And it might be difficult to get a calorie burn figure from an app. So it might lead the person to think they have burned off the number of calories in the takeaway they are about to have when they haven't. And so they put on weight.

Cill94

MouseMan01 wrote: »

I'm thinking of creating an online tool that'll tell you how much exercise you'll need to do in the gym in order to burn off a specific meal from selected local takeaways.

I'm also thinking of adding a gameification element such as flagging when a user has earned a takeaway meal through activity as a reward.

Would you use such a tool?

Speaking as a coach, absolutely not. Your idea would only further the damaging narrative that exercise is a punishment, and that it can feasibly be used to counteract a bad diet.

If you want to have a positive impact, then make an app that rewards people for making good food choices.

MouseMan01

Thanks guys.

You make some excellent points. I hadn't thought about the demotivational factor of putting the weight back on.

Maybe I should forget the gameification element altogether?

There is another tool online that does something similar... workoffyourdinner.com

Maybe I can improve upon it? Especially with the local angle?

Is there another gameification angle I'm missing?

LawBoy2018

MouseMan01 wrote: »

Thanks guys.

You make some excellent points. I hadn't thought about the demotivational factor of putting the weight back on.

Maybe I should forget the gameification element altogether?

There is another tool online that does something similar... workoffyourdinner.com

Maybe I can improve upon it? Especially with the local angle?

Is there another gameification angle I'm missing?

I like your idea, minus the cheat meal reward idea!

How do restaurants actually gauge the amount of calories in a meal? Obviously it's easy to do when you're cooking for yourself, but what about chips or other fried items? I feel like it would be difficult to calculate accurately but I have 0 knowledge in this area.

I suppose the only danger would be that you'd undershoot the amount of calories in a meal from a local takeaway, which could potentially hinder people's results if they're trying to lose weight with a moderate calorie deficit. That could probably be fixed with a little disclaimer though.

Peregrinus

MouseMan01 wrote: »

Thanks guys.

You make some excellent points. I hadn't thought about the demotivational factor of putting the weight back on.

Maybe I should forget the gameification element altogether?

There is another tool online that does something similar... workoffyourdinner.com

Maybe I can improve upon it? Especially with the local angle?

Is there another gameification angle I'm missing?

I think the basic premise is flawed. You can't outrun a bad diet. If your problem is calories from takeaway food the solution is not any kind of exercise; it's better food choices. I think your app is basically promoting a flawed idea and giving false hope.

There are lots of good reasons to exercise, and lots of rewards for doing so. Thus app would just distract from them.

Alf Veedersane

OmegaGene wrote: »

Games wouldn’t be for me as I’m not a teen, Garmin have a good goal tracking system

To be fair, gamification is a tactic that's sometimes used in behavioural economics to effect behaviour change.

Look at the Fitbit...challenges, targets, the celebratory notification if you hit a target, the badges....all flat under gamification.

Alf Veedersane

MouseMan01 wrote: »

Thanks guys.

You make some excellent points. I hadn't thought about the demotivational factor of putting the weight back on.

Maybe I should forget the gameification element altogether?

There is another tool online that does something similar... workoffyourdinner.com

Maybe I can improve upon it? Especially with the local angle?

Is there another gameification angle I'm missing?

While I do think the basic premise of the app you presented is wrong, I think there is space for an app and I wouldn't drop the gamification idea. But I would include a social element to it, ie some form of leaderboard for users of the app. Competition with or against people in your social circle...things like that.

But based on scoring that is a combination of weight loss and activity. If you make it solely about weight loss, then that becomes too much of a focus and people can get into an unhealthy mindset around that down the line.

MouseMan01

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

While I do think the basic premise of the app you presented is wrong, I think there is space for an app and I wouldn't drop the gamification idea. But I would include a social element to it, ie some form of leaderboard for users of the app. Competition with or against people in your social circle...things like that.

The only problem is that fitbit / garmin have that social networking element of fitness and healthy lifestyle pretty much sewn up in my opinion. I have a fitbit.

I was hoping to add a local angle. But like LawBoy218 pointed out. It would be difficult to estimate the calorific values for local restaurants without them being published.

OmegaGene wrote:

Do you use a gym or exercise yourself ?

I'm a gym goer myself and I exercise regularly.

I'm basically looking for a popular online tool that I can add a local spin to...

Peregrinus

Well, maybe you could express various forms of exercise in terms that make local references - your half-hour of moderate intensity spin burns the same calories as running from where you are now to [notable destination], or cycling to [other notable destination]". That kind of thing. This could be personally tailored by users inputting their personal details (like weight) and their location (if you didn't want to use location services). People could then be challenged, or construct challenges for themselves, to do exercise over a period of time which accumulates to the equivalent of cycling to Malin Head and back, or whatever.

Alf Veedersane

MouseMan01 wrote: »

The only problem is that fitbit / garmin have that social networking element of fitness and healthy lifestyle pretty much sewn up in my opinion. I have a fitbit.

I was hoping to add a local angle. But like LawBoy218 pointed out. It would be difficult to estimate the calorific values for local restaurants without them being published.

I'm a gym goer myself and I exercise regularly.

I'm basically looking for a popular online tool that I can add a local spin to...

You're still looking to network though. You could add in a town or county table for users of the app and show where was scoring highest and people will buy into the idea of representing the area/county.

Takeaways aren't going to be publishing calories any time soon and they will likely be underestimated and thats aside from the premise of 'earning' something that will potentially shift their choices in the direction of takeaways because it's essentially advertising takeaways.

As regards Fitbit and Garmin, all you have to do is change the basis of the scoring. I dont know if Fitbit allows you to compare with friends on more than just steps but I think that's all the charge 3 does and it would be easy to differentiate from that.

Patsy167

MouseMan01 wrote: »

I'm thinking of creating an online tool that'll tell you how much exercise you'll need to do in the gym in order to burn off a specific meal from selected local takeaways.

I'm also thinking of adding a gameification element such as flagging when a user has earned a takeaway meal through activity as a reward.

Eventually I might roll it out to gyms who may or may not collect names and emails.

Would you use such a tool?

What features would you like to see included?

Just to offer some balance.

I think you could re purpose your effort to promote positive behavior change.

For example, if people seen that they would have to spend 2 hours on a treadmill just to have a takeaway, they may think twice about it so you could have a pop-up message saying "Take a moment to think about it - Is it really worth it?"

You could also have a feature where you show alternatives. For example, if you local chipper is 1k cals - You could show lighter, healthier options that would be equally enjoyable.

There are a ton of Instagram accounts that show healthier food alternatives similar to what is mentioned above. If you could convert some of those Instagram posts into an app that is interactive, you could be on to something.

Everyone will benefit - You will gain app building experience and users the benefit of a tool that takes them in the direction of their goals.

Essien

As others have mentioned, I think it's supporting a very unhealthy relationship with food and exercise. For that reason alone I wouldn't be a fan.

From a practical perspective, getting the required info from local vendors into your app would be a monumental task. That's before considering that, in all likelihood, it would be wildly inaccurate and therefore useless. Also, menus change all the time, so who updates the app?

Also, bear in mind that a lot of local takeaways don't even avail of services like just eat, where people can actually buy online. This tells me the likelihood of getting much support from them is low.

I'd imagine the concept of estimating calories burned through exercise is also something that's pretty unreliable. In my experience, different activity trackers vary massively from one to the other.

The inaccuracy alone would be enough for me to have no interest. But I also think you may be underestimating some of the practical implications.

If I were you, I'd focus a little more on the problem you started with, rather than being tied to any particular solution.

Good luck in your research.

MouseMan01

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, maybe you could express various forms of exercise in terms that make local references - your half-hour of moderate intensity spin burns the same calories as running from where you are now to [notable destination], or cycling to [other notable destination]". That kind of thing. This could be personally tailored by users inputting their personal details (like weight) and their location (if you didn't want to use location services). People could then be challenged, or construct challenges for themselves, to do exercise over a period of time which accumulates to the equivalent of cycling to Malin Head and back, or whatever.

Thanks Peregrinus. Gives me something to think about.