There’s a new food diary on Twitter that forces you to eat healthier by making everyone see what you are and aren’t consuming.
Stress, sadness, PMS, boy problems, hangovers. What do all these things have in common? They cause us to snack. It starts out innocently enough, with a Tim Tam here and a few spoonfuls of Nutella there, but, soon enough, the jar is empty and you’ve devoured the final biscuit, desperately hoping that a sexy genie will appear to grant you a refill.
Since pigging out on “naughty food” is usually done when you’re alone – so no-one can witness your grizzly guts behaviour – it’s easier to let bad habits slide. Now consider this: What if your friends and family were with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, observing every little thing you ate? Would it curb your consumption at all? That’s the logic behind the new craze Tweet What You Eat – an online food diary that everyone can see.
What are you eating now?
Tweet What You Eat (
tweetwhatyoueat.com) or TWYE, as it’s referred to by its users, is a virtual food diary linked to social networking site Twitter. Members log on and, using their mobile or the Net, record everything they consume – all in the hopes that seeing it on screen and sharing it with the entire Twitterverse will encourage them to be more aware of their food choices and more inclined to eat healthily.
The site markets itself as “the easiest food diary you’ll ever keep”, and has a feature that calculates the energy intake in popular foods, plus a tool that records your daily exercise and how many kilojoules you’re burning off.
Since launching in January 2008, TWYE has attracted more than 18,300 users. Little Britain funny guy Matt Lucas is a fan, claiming to have lost just over 3kg in a fortnight, thanks to the site. Software developer Alex Ressi created TWYE in a bid to help him lose weight for his wedding. He chose Twitter as the communication platform so that he could update his food diary on the go.
“TWYE is about building awareness of what’s going into your body so you can affect change,” Ressi says. “Going through the process of typing and sending ‘chocolate milkshake’ from
your mobile is going to make you think twice about that shake and whether or not it fits within your lifestyle goals.”
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