AI Calorie Tracker: ParrotPal 17+

Much Promise

No more searching food databases that are updated by users and our usually wrong. I subscribed for a year because I think this has so much promise. I also want to support a developer that gives us an option other than MFP which since the redesign I just will not use. I think they’re spot on about not getting lost in the minutia of details that don’t really matter when it comes to getting weight under control. Personally, I feel the pendulum has swung a little too far to minimalist side and I would definitely appreciate an update that tracks, carbohydrates and fat. The balance between that and protein is a fairly good predictor for me for how I feel during a given week and where my weight is headed.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for the review! We're glad you're enjoying the app and see the benefit of it. The reason we focus on calories, protein & steps is because the research is clear that once these 3 are hit and are controlled, any changes to fats or carbs ratio/intake makes no difference to weight loss results. So if more of the world could simply hit these 3 key factors over time, we think that is transformational. But we understand users want to see carbs and fats, so that is in the roadmap to add to your weekly check-ins and to turn "on" to track if desired. We do however think, most people don't need to worry about carbs/fat intake if their calories & protein are in order. We appreciate the feedback and support of the app and can't wait to see your results over the next 12 months!

Absolutely incredible - exactly what I was looking for

This appears to be a very new app, but you can tell that it’s incredibly well thought out, including the support model behind it (with companion videos and podcast episodes).

This is pretty much exactly what I’ve been looking for, an app that tracks your calories by just speaking what you ate. The relatively minimalist, text-message-like interface is also brilliant, as it makes it so quick to track any meal, I find I’m much more likely to do it than I have been in the past with other apps, where I need to do a lot of searching and selecting to track different items. I really hope this breaks through all of the many other diet apps out there, as it very much deserves to have a spot at the top.

Developer Response ,

Hi Walt

Thank you for the review. It's exactly what we made it for!

We've been in the health & fitness game for many years, and we have built apps before, so this new app is the accumulation of all of that.

We asked ourselves what would an app look like that focuses on weight loss without the overwhelm? How would an app look like if it was more conversational vs entering 100s of data points? How can we help users understand what to do and get them motivated every day? What are the key metrics that matter, and what if we followed the "addition via subtraction" way of thinking?

So after a lot of testing this is the result. We will continue to deliver daily podcasts for app users which shares insights into studies, behaviour change, motivation, Stoicism and so much more.

If you ever need support you can email us support@parrotpal.com and make sure to join our support Whatsapp group! (Found at the bottom of settings).

And one more thing, we've just launched our "custom meal plan generator". So you can get a meal plan made for you tailored to your goals and preferences.

Good luck Walt! Keep it up

Buggy and unfinished

ParrotPal...potential but still very basic, buggy, and overall has an unfinished feeling.

- The big selling point that you can chat your entires is pretty neat...when it works. Very often you simply get a "I'm ParrotPal, your fat loss specialist." reply and fails to enter your meal/calories.
- Want to create a meal or a recipe to calculate your calories? Not so fast...the barcode scanner scans but fails to retrieve the item so you are forced to manually enter/search your items. After you've entered all the details if you decide you want to go back to modify the mean/recipe...well you can't. After you have saved your entry it forgets the details and only shows you the total calorie combined for all items not a n itemized list of ingrediants.
- On a daily basis it forgets I have a subscription and asks me to pick a subscription plan which I proceed to choose the same plan and then says you are already subscribed.

The above is just some of the bugs encountered, for the price you'd think this app would be further ahead in development and quite frankly feels like a beta app not a production app. I really like the chat function to enter the meals but not there yet...basically paying a monthly fee to beta test an app.