Calorie Tracker

Problem Statement

A calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree celcius. A kilo-calorie, often shortened to kcal, is one thousand calories.

Food consumed by humans provides a certain amount of calories. Somewhat confusingly when people talk about "calories," as might be reported on food labels, they really mean kilo-calories.

For most of the history of the human species food was not an abundant resource. As such when food is abundant our brains are predisposed to consuming as much of it as possible. This is a behavior likely evolved in order that one best withstand periods of famine.¹

The problem is that, while many places in the world still experience regular food shortages, many people have an extreme abundance of food available to them at all times. Not only that, the food they do have access to is often designed to be as addictive to consume as possible.

As such many of these people gain extreme amounts of weight. This, in turn, lead to many health problems.

Whether someone gains or loses weight over a given period of time comes down to "CiCo" - Calories In, Calories Out. If someone eats more in calories than they burn they are at a calorie surplus and will gain weight. If someone eats fewer calories than they burn they are at a calorie deficit and will lose weight.

There are also people out there in the world with the opposite problem. Not eating enough leads to starvation. Whether because of trauma, upbringing, or some other circumstance: some people will not naturally eat enough even when food is available to them.

Your Goal

Your goal is to make a program that helps someone track the number of calories they have consumed in a given day.

The intent is to help them be intentional about the number of calories they are consuming.

We will count it as a success if the program you produce at least helps them track the total.

Future Goals

When you learn enough to do the following, come back to this project and expand it.

• Make it so that they can also track a "calorie goal" and see how they are doing with respect to that goal.
• Make it so that they can also track the name of the food.
• Make it so that if the computer running the program is turned off they do not lose information.
• Expand the program to also help them record the macro-nutritional value of the food they ate.
• Make it so that they can more easily track foods they eat often.
• Expand the program to also let them track their weight over time.
• Make it so that they can track their progress over multiple days, months, or years.
• Anything else you can think of.