Tracked as a goal
Calorie tracking
- Unit
- kcal
- Default goal
- 2,000 kcal
- Direction
- Reach
What it is, and why people track it
A calorie is a unit of food energy. Tracking it is the closest thing nutrition has to a universal number, which is why it is the default metric and the first thing a meal card shows.
The reason calorie tracking fails is rarely the concept and almost always the entry cost — searching a database, guessing portions, doing it three times a day. Estimating from a photograph removes most of that, which is the whole argument for AIM.
Setting your number
AIM starts at 2,000 kcal a day, the reference value used on nutrition labels. It is a placeholder, not a recommendation — your own number depends on body size, activity and what you are trying to do, and it is the first thing worth changing.
How good is the estimate?
Calories are the nutrient a photo estimates best, because they follow from portion size and composition, which is what an image actually shows. The largest remaining error is invisible cooking fat — oil in the pan does not appear in the picture. Saying “fried in butter” fixes it.
Questions
- How accurate is estimating calories from a photo?
- It lands in the range people achieve estimating portions by hand, and takes seconds instead of minutes. AIM prints its assumptions under each meal so you can correct the one that is wrong, and every number is editable.
- Does exercise change my calorie goal?
- AIM reads active energy from Apple Health, so exercise is reflected in your day rather than leaving your intake looking excessive.
Track calories without a database search
AIM estimates it on every meal from a photo or a sentence, and lets you correct anything it got wrong just by saying so.