positiveEats vs Cadence

A study shows 97% users abandon food journal apps within a week. If you are one of the 3%, stop reading now. Why are they so hard to use? First, they throw up too many roadblocks to the straightforward task of logging food. Second, they have a reductionist view of food. They turn food into a tally of nutrients, ignoring its broader context. Ironically, it actually takes more work. PositiveEats is based on the Positive Eating Plan, which employs science to eliminate worries, not to introduce them. When you open PositiveEats, you start logging food with the first tap. There is no need to create an account, complete a questionnaire about your weight loss goals (or emotions), or decline trial offers. Logging a cup of black coffee requires just three taps, while recording a more complex dish like a baked egg recipe with onion, tomato, spinach, eggs, and pesto takes only nine. Other apps, by contrast, would demand that you create a custom recipe for the dish, and a sub-recipe for the pesto. Simplicity is the greatest feature of PositiveEats. Mark Twain once said that he didn't have time to write a short letter, so he wrote a long one. The Positive Eating Plan is the short list of rules that result from taking the time to think through the science. Key features of the plan include: 1. It's positive. Telling people not to do the wrong thing doesn't get them to do the right thing. The Positive Eating Plan emphasizes filling up on the right foods, thus reducing the temptation to eat the wrong ones. The goal for each category is the minimum you need to eat, not the maximum you can eat. 2. It tracks food in broad categories. While a balanced diet with variety is essential, food tracking need not be overly granular. Whether you ate a peach or an apple matters little in the broader scheme of a varied diet. Similarly, whether your bread is whole wheat or white is of less consequence if bread plays a minor role in an otherwise balanced diet. Tracking six broad categories of food offers a more nuanced view of your diet than a single calorie count. 3. It tracks real food, not nutrients. Real foods offer benefits beyond the sum of their nutrients. Scientific studies demonstrate that vitamin A supplements, for example, do not replicate the benefits of consuming carrots. Nutrients interact differently within whole foods, as evidenced by the higher absorption of fructose from orange juice compared to whole oranges. 4. It tracks weight, not calories. Calorie tracking often requires weighing food, identifying it precisely, and looking it up in a database—a process fraught with complexity. The USDA database, for instance, lists over 1,000 entries for French fries alone, with calorie counts varying by as much as 100 kcal for small servings. This complexity often leads to frustration and abandonment of the effort. 5. It leaves room for you to eat freely. You don't have to swear off ice cream. Balance, mental and nutritional, is key to sustainable eating habits. PositiveEats and its underlying Positive Eating Plan simplify the process of food logging, making it accessible, manageable, and ultimately, more effective.

Step tracking that stays out of your way Cadence helps you build a consistent walking habit without the usual noise. No social feed. No gamification. No upsells. Just an honest, clear picture of how you move every day. Weekday and Weekend Goals Most days aren't the same, so your goals shouldn't be either. Set separate targets for weekdays and weekends. Cadence automatically applies the right goal each day, and your history always reflects the target that was active on that specific day. Past records are never rewritten. Changed your mind about a goal? You can apply any update retroactively across your entire history with a single tap. Heatmaps You Can Actually Explore See your walking rhythm hour by hour. Scrub through today's heatmap to pinpoint exactly when you were most active, or zoom out to spot long-term patterns across weeks, months, and years. Beautifully color-coded and easy to understand. No chart reading required. Steps, Distance, Floors, and Calories Every day shows your full activity picture — steps, walking distance, flights climbed, and active calories. See how your week is shaping up with a projected end-of-week step total based on your current daily pace. Apple Watch and Complications A native three-page Apple Watch app gives you today's steps and progress, your full week chart, and goal settings directly on your wrist. Eight thoughtfully designed complications work beautifully on any watch face. Goals sync instantly between iPhone and Watch in both directions. Private by Design No account. No sign-up. No ads. Your health data stays on your device and syncs privately through your own iCloud. No analytics. No tracking. Your History, Restored Install Cadence on a new device signed into the same iCloud account and your complete history restores automatically — goals included. No exports or manual backups needed. Core step tracking, the Apple Watch app, and all complications are completely free and will always remain free. There's an optional tip jar if you'd like to support ongoing development.