Food Tracking Apps: Foodvisor

Foodvisor describes itself as a personal nutrition guide. In addition to tracking what you eat by taking a photo, scanning a barcode, or typing in the name of what you ate; the app also includes access to registered dietitians via chat, recipes, and motivational tips.Foodvisor's Set Up Process:Setting up the app goes beyond putting in height, weight, age, sex, and activity level. Foodvisor asks questions about:

• How motivated are you to achieve your goal?
• Do you have any food allergies or intolerances? (Examples include vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, gluten-free, lactose intolerant, nut allergy, etc).
• Do you have any health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, an eating disorder, a heart condition, kidney disease, liver disease, etc?

There are also questions about your lifestyle and environment.

• • How much time do you have to dedicate to diet (a lot, moderate, a little)?
  • Are you a parent or guardian of young kids?  
  • Are you a student?
  • What about work? Do you work too much? Do you work and it feels great? Do you not currently work?
  • Is money a factor in your health journey?
  • Do you feel supported by your friends and family? 

Questions about habits and behavior are also part of the set up process.

• • • Is snacking an issue? 
    • What triggers a snack? Boredom, hunger, seeing food, stress, strong emotion? 
    • Which statement rings truest?
      • My diet is mostly healthy.
      • My diet needs a lot of work. 
    • When is it the hardest to eat healthy? (Breakfast, lunch, dinner)? 
    • Why is it hard to eat healthy?
      • Hard to eat different than everyone else
      • No access to healthy food
      • Not much time to cook
      • Don’t know what’s healthy.
    • How often do you drink soda? 

Finally, the set up process prompts you to take a closer look at your needs.

• • What would you be interested in learning? (Options include nutrition, habit creation, stress management, dealing with failure, motivation helpers, behavior change, sleep, etc).
  • What would your perfect program include? [For example, healthy and delicious recipes, personal nutritionist (a human one), being part of a community, water challenge, workout routine, cognitive behavior therapy, sleep, etc].
  • To be successful, what is most important to you? (Examples include seeing fast results, being able to eat everything, no workout or cardio, easy to follow, etc).
  • What would success look like in 2 weeks? (Would you feel more energized, eat healthier, sleep better, be able to run more, etc?).
  • In a typical day, how much time do you spend sitting?
  • Do you currently work out? 

Diet Options:There are various diet programs to choose from, such as clean eating, keto, low carb, detox, intermittent 18/8 fasting, and pregnancy. There are even plans using HelloFresh recipes in a 4-week meal plan as well as a custom 28 meal plans for 4 weeks if you want something specific to follow. Fitness programs include a running program, bulking up, toning, and a Beach Body program. Each program comes with an overview of the program, weekly tips and suggestions as well information like "3 tips to eat more fiber," "what are macronutrients," "what to eat to sleep well," etc.Monitoring Progress:Foodvisor uses a positive, motivational messaging approach. In the progress tab, you’ll find calorie tracking as well as macronutrient breakdown for the week, the past 30 days, and the past 90 days. For example, after one week of using Foodvisor 18% of my calories came from protein (70 grams on average), 36% came from from fat (35 grams per day on average), 44% came from carbohydrate (169 grams on average) and 3% came from fiber (27 grams on average). The more complete and accurate the information I put into the app results in more accurate results. I’ll be honest – I didn’t log 100% of what I ate each day. Sometimes I couldn’t find the exact food I ate so I picked something that looked similar, and sometimes I couldn’t figure out the amount I ate.A Dietitian's Impressions:Food tracking apps can provide useful information about our food choices, and Foodvisor takes this a step further by incorporating positive messaging and individualized help from a registered dietitian. Foodvisor is available on both iOS and Android for $29.99 per month with an initial 2-week free trial.And there you have it! An overview of Foodvisor. If you'd like to know more, don't miss The Pros and Cons of Foodvisor.By Lynn Grieger, RDN, CDCES, CPT, CHWCReferences:

1. Ferrara G, Kim J, Lin S, Hua J, Seto E. A Focused Review of Smartphone Diet-Tracking Apps: Usability, Functionality, Coherence With Behavior Change Theory, and Comparative Validity of Nutrient Intake and Energy Estimates. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2019;7(5):e9232. Published 2019 May 17. doi:10.2196/mhealth.9232
2. American Psychological Association. Teaching Tip Sheet:  Self-Efficacy. https://www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/education/self-efficacy created 2009. Accessed 3-28-22
3. Foodvisor. https://www.foodvisor.io/en/