Thin-Cam App for the iPhone: Dieting goes Digital
Doctors are always telling us to pay closer attention to what we eat, but carrying around a pen and notebook so you can record every morsel you consume doesn’t appeal to many people. David Edelson MD, the creator of Thin-Site.com, is solving that problem with Thin-cam, a new iPhone app that lets users photograph their meals with their camera phones.
What are some good reasons to keep a photo food diary?
- Just because you only ate one bowl of ice cream, doesn’t mean you only ate one portion.
- Sometimes it’s just too easy to “forget” to enter that bag of potato chips into your written food diary.
- It’s a pain to carry around a notebook and pen for writing down what you eat.
- Other calorie counting apps are inconvenient because you have to scroll through long lists of foods and brands.
- Counting calories doesn’t take nutrition into account.
- Your doctor told you to keep track of what you eat to see if you have any food allergies.
- Photos don’t lie, although Dr. Edelson will tell you why your scale does.
- You’re paying close attention to your nutrition because of an intense training schedule.
- You need to face the facts about what you’ve been eating and finally shed some weight.
- It’s fun!
Whether it’s for fitness, nutritional, medical or dieting purposes, keeping a food diary is actually fun with Thin-cam.
I was intrigued by this press release so I contacted the agent for more information. Although I was offered a trial registration with Thin-Cam and Thin-Site I have opted against it. I personally prefer to measure out my food and use the bodybugg system. I don’t revel in the idea of taking photos of my food at restaurants or at home. I get enough odd looks with the bodybugg on. This seems like just one extra step I don’t need and honestly as AT&T moves away from its unlimited data plans I just can’t see spending extra to send photos in directly from my phone or waiting to get home and upload from the computer.
I also believe that exercise and your calorie expenditure is the most important key to unlocking weight loss. Assuming more caloric burn than you really have is a detriment and no matter how well you eat if you put more calories in than out you won’t lose weight.
I contacted the rep for clarification of how the system works and I can think of several friends who would love this system. They enjoy taking photos, using the newest iPhone Apps and integrating technology into their lives. I think this program will probably help quite a few people, it just isn’t for me. Read on for more about the program
Thin-cam provides mobile access to all of the videos, articles and info on Thin-site, so it’s a mobile educational tool. You can see all of that content at Thin-site in the ThinTV and the ThinTalk areas of the site. But the really neat thing about it is that photographic food diary.
The way it works is the user creates a date entry and indicates whether he’s on breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack. Then he snaps a photo of whatever he’s about to eat. It’s suggested that you put a credit card in the frame to indicate scale (and avoid any trick photography that can make a jumbo burger look like a mini slider) and then put in a note if any clarification is needed. The entries upload to the user’s personal Thin-site page and can be reviewed or edited any time. They can be downloaded to show to a doctor or nutritionist as well. After at least 10 entries, a user can also pay $29.95 to have the Thin-site resident nutritionist give him an evaluation complete with diet and meal plans and supplement suggestions.
Dr. Edelson started Thin-site because generic fad diets don’t work. In order to lose weight effectively and in a healthy way, people have to look at their whole medical picture. In addition to considering things like insulin resistance, hormonal factors, medications, blood type, etc, a weight loss plan needs to start with an honest look at the person’s diet. What has he or she been eating and how have those foods affected his or her body in ways beyond weight gain? That’s why nutritionists and medical weight loss experts tell their patients to keep a food diary. By keeping those records, they can be assessed and adjusted later. They also let the dieter see in a clear and organized way where all of his or her calories are coming from.
