To be honest, I've downloaded at least five or six diet apps following the trend, each time vowing to stick with them, but I ended up uninstalling them all within a week.
It's not that I lack perseverance; those apps are just too exhausting to use. Right off the bat, you have to spend over ten minutes filling in details: height, body fat, target weight, and they calculate a daily calorie limit for you. Then, to log a meal, you have to manually search for ingredients, estimate weights—it takes five minutes to record one meal, and by the time you're done, you've almost forgotten what you ate. Not to mention the daily check-in reminders; if you miss a day, seeing the broken streak on the calendar is annoying. And if you exceed your limit, it marks it in red—'over limit.' Eating was supposed to be enjoyable, but it makes you feel like you've done something wrong.
In the end, not only did I fail to form a recording habit, but I became more anxious the more I used them. So I just deleted them all for peace of mind. It wasn't until I stumbled upon EtinAI that I realized: it's not that I can't stick with it; it's that the tools I chose before were fundamentally wrong.
No Mandatory Goals, Eating Shouldn't Have a 'Standard Answer'
This is my favorite thing about it, and the biggest difference from other apps.
Other apps first set a fixed daily calorie limit for you; even one extra bite is 'over limit,' as if there is only one correct answer for eating. But for ordinary people like us, how can we eat exactly by the numbers every day? A colleague shares a piece of cake today, a friend invites you to hotpot tomorrow—it's perfectly normal.
EtinAI doesn't do that. You can skip filling in your weight, set no goals, and even omit gender and age. Just use it purely as a photo food diary. It won't give you scores, won't alert you that you've eaten too much, and won't give you any 'self-discipline rankings.' Whatever you eat and however much, it quietly records it—no right or wrong, no good or bad.
When I first started using it, I subconsciously checked if I had overeaten, but later I realized no one cares, so I gradually relaxed. Recording isn't about completing some KPI; it's just to see what I ate each day and have a general idea.
Simple Enough to Use, Low Barrier Makes Consistency Possible
The main reason I gave up on so many apps before was that they were too troublesome.
To log a bun, you'd have to search for 'pork bun,' then select 'medium size,' then estimate the weight—by the time you finished, you'd already finished eating long ago. Work is busy enough; who has time to spend ten minutes recording a meal?
How simple is EtinAI? Open it and the camera is ready. Take a photo of the food, and in two seconds it recognizes everything—portion, calories, and three macronutrients. No typing, no database searching, no calculating. It takes about the same time as paying for a takeout order.
Don't underestimate this difference of a few seconds. It's the seemingly insignificant barriers that determine whether you can stick with something. I used to think that recording food had to be serious—you need a scale, you need to calculate carefully. Now I realize that what you can sustain long-term is always something that doesn't require effort. A quick snap without thinking, no psychological burden—it naturally becomes a habit.
No Check-in Pressure, No Guilt for Missing a Day
Many apps love to have continuous check-in mechanisms, giving badges for consecutive days and resetting to zero if you miss one day.
At first, it seemed motivating, but later it became a burden. If I forgot to log one day, seeing the broken streak made me not want to use it anymore, and I'd just give up.
EtinAI has none of that. No check-in calendar, no consecutive day count, no sign-in rewards, and even push notifications are off by default. Record if you want today; forget it and no problem—no reminders, no 'punishment.'
Sometimes when I go out on weekends and have fun, I forget to log, and I don't feel regret. I just pick up again on Monday normally. Recording is for your own comfort, not to rack up consecutive days for others to see. Without the pressure of check-ins, it's much easier to keep using in the long run.
More Than Weight Loss, It Helps You Shed Anxiety
After using it for so long, my biggest gain isn't how much weight I lost, but a change in mindset.
Before, I would agonize over eating a piece of cake, then feel guilty afterward, thinking I was 'undisciplined.' Now I eat when I want, take a quick photo afterward, know roughly how much I consumed, and then eat normally for the rest of the day—no guilt at all.
It's like a mirror, helping you see your eating habits clearly, but it doesn't dictate what you should do. You know when you had too much oil, so next time you'll go a bit lighter; you know you didn't eat enough vegetables, so you'll add more next time. These are natural adjustments, without force or internal conflict.
Many people always talk about self-discipline and controlling diet, but the more you control, the more likely you are to rebound. When you stop being anxious and have a clear picture, your eating habits actually improve gradually.
To Be Honest, It's Not for Everyone
Finally, to be honest, it's not perfect, and it's not suitable for everyone.
If you're training for a competition and need precise calorie and nutrient data down to the gram, then it's certainly not as reliable as a food scale. There will be some margin of error, and it can't meet such high precision requirements.
But if you're like me—an ordinary office worker, not intentionally trying to lose weight, just wanting to have some awareness of your diet, and you find other apps too troublesome and anxiety-inducing, and you've given up on many—then it's definitely worth a try.
In fact, I still think that a good tool should be invisible. It doesn't constantly demand attention or create anxiety. It just sits quietly on your phone, and when you need it, you use it to save a bit of effort. That's enough.
EtinAI is exactly that for me. It's not a weight loss miracle; it's just an ordinary little tool that feels comfortable to use. And it's precisely that comfort that has kept me using it until now.
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