Race Report: Toronto Waterfront Marathon

December 06, 2024 in Health and Fitness

I’m back from my third marathon! Those 3 hours and 15 minutes on the race course were an expression of months of training and time invested so it’s special when it all comes together for a great day. You may know me as a runner, but I don’t actually race marathons often! Each of them is still a cool/special milestone in my life. My first marathon was in 2018, my second was in 2021, and I ran one this year. Complete the pattern and that means I’ll see you back here in 2027.

Note: Just looking for my experience using the V.O2 app and the VDOT system? Check out the training section below.

Why this particular marathon?

The idea for Toronto started with the running club I meet up with 1–2 times each week. Atomic Habits fans will recall how identity (“I’m a runner”) and a group (“my friends are runners”) influence the actions we take. I’ve met some amazing people there who I’m blessed to call friends-friends now (i.e. not my “running” friends) and this year we thought it would be fun to travel as a group for a race with some sightseeing to follow. The Toronto Waterfront Marathon in the fall is one of Canada’s largest and most well-organized races, and that made it a good pick. Bonus for me: Toronto is an amazing city by worldwide standards and, despite having seen a lot Canada already, I hadn’t visited yet.

About that broken arm…

Some of you know that I broke my arm badly in March 2023 while exercising (I knew it was bad when the X-ray technician gasped at the first glimpse of the scan). It required surgery to repair and that experience dramatically changed my approach to fitness. I learned the hard way that I’m not invincible. This also meant adjusting my approach to be less about pushing limits and more about living to exercise another day. Setbacks are significant and I still don’t have even close to the strength that my arm once did. I might never have it all back! I’ve come to terms with that.

So for running, this new approach meant not going into the training block with a particular time goal in mind, or even a desire to get personal record (PR). Instead, I would train hard yet conservatively, with the intent to run my absolute best on race day.

Training

I started building up my cardio fitness in April at around 35 kilometres per week, but training started in earnest once I got back from Korea in June. I had my eyes on the Edmonton Half Marathon as a midpoint race in August. So it’s fair to say my running “season” lasted about six months this year.

The following is not a formula for success, but is a record of what I did. It’s brass tacks and a good candidate for skipping/skimming unless this kind of stuff excites you (yes, all eight of you).

Over the training block I increased my mileage by 10% on the weeks I felt recovered and strong. That peaked at 90 km (55 miles) per week in the end.
I started by running four days per week, then increasing to five and eventually six. I increased the number of running days per week when individual easy runs were taking too long to complete.
My long runs never exceeded three hours which I think was the right call.
The biggest difference in this training block is that I had three “quality” days per week instead of two. Quality refers to a hard day like a long run or a speed workout. The other 2–3 runs during the week were easy. Taking them easy meant I was recovered enough to “drop the fucking hammer” on hard days. (Not sure where I pick that phrase up but it's stuck)
I think I could’ve ramped up faster and gotten to six days of running per week sooner. But you know I took a very conservative approach this time around (see the part about the broken arm above). I didn’t get injured (yay!) but I definitely left some fitness gains behind (I’m okay with that)

The above mostly comes from the famous running coach Jack Daniels (No, not the whiskey because that’s his actual name.) I hear his approach has some flaws and has since been improved by others, but I love the simplicity and it works great for me. I’ve poured over his training book, but his company also ships an app called V.O2 that makes implementing his method drop dead simple.

Summary: I finished the training block with no injuries and very high compliance with the training plan. That’s a great feeling and confidence booster going into race day.

Race day

You know what isn’t a great feeling on race day? Getting to the start line and realizing your race bib and timing chip is still in your hotel room. This is why we have buffers people—in both time and money. So: bib acquired → back to start line → re-adopt the “let’s do this” mindset.

The race started and I felt great immediately. Toronto’s course is flat but there’s a small uphill in the first two kilometres of the race which then descends gradually over kilometres 4–8. I knew that by the time those uphill and downhill sections were done I should be locked into my guideline pace—something between 4:37/km and 4:40/km. (Note: I didn’t treat this as an aspirational “goal” pace, but instead as the realisitic guide that I should be capable of hitting based on training. Small but important mental shift.)

The middle kilometres clicked by with aid stations, gels consumed (maple syrup, natch), and some inspiring cheer sections. Then, the key moment in many marathon courses: the point where the half marathoners go home and the marathoners go further.

A race course with directions to guide runners

In my past two marathons the sense of relative ease disappeared around kilometre 28. That’s when I’ve historically started to feel the work. Imagine my surprise at how great I was doing post-28 this time.

I’m guessing my nutrition strategy helped. I stuck to 200 calories worth of gel or maple syrup per hour (yes, let the Canada jokes flow like our golden rivers of edible sap). This is more than I’ve eaten in past races. I also essentially doubled my hydration by drinking electrolytes and chasing with water at each aid station. In the past I’ve alternated between picking up electrolytes and water at aid stations.

But around kilometre 33 the ease disappeared and that was okay/expected. It has to get difficult eventually. I can’t remember where I heard it, but this quote has been insanely helpful for my pacing: “the marathon is a 32 km warm-up and a 10 km race”. Physiologically I knew I was capable of continuing because of all the training, but one by one, different parts of the body started screaming to stop. The quads feel every step, the shoulders tighten, the right achilles tendon aches.

My only two tasks for the last 45 minutes of the race:

Taking the next step
Mentally transforming exertion and pain into pure sensation, not judging if the feeling is good or bad

Kilometres 33 to 39 were simply hard, and kilometre 39 even ends with a small but challenging hill, but it’s all (metaphorically) downhill after that. I felt that energy going into the finish line at 42 km. In 2021’s marathon, the urge to walk at the end was strong. I remember myself saying “this hurts so much, why does it matter to go so fast, I’m already getting a PR”. This time I’m proud to report a slightly older and wiser me was on course and no bargaining even started. I ran it right into the finish line, not letting up at all. Bliss followed. I immediately fired off text messages to my family back home thanking them for their help. Then I met up with my friends and we basked in the afterglow.

Recovery ⛱️

Here’s a Nike ad with exclusive footage of me walking around the day after the race (not actually me, but you get the idea). I’d say the wobbly feeling lasted for three days. Fourth day was stable but still some soreness. I went for my first run one week after the marathon. The recovery plan said 35 minutes so I took it easy, but I could feel an unordinary amount of fatigue after only 20 minutes. I finished up the run okay, but it’s clear there’s a lot more recovery that needs to happen.

What’s next ⛷️

No running races (hah). Going full multi-sport mode this winter. Can’t wait to get in the pool for a swim, ride the bike indoors, do some more strength training again, and go cross-country skiing. Next year I am pondering a season of sprinting instead of endurance running, so we’ll see what happens. Live to exercise another day.

P.S. Yes, it was a personal record 🥇

A man flashing the peace sign with an exhausted look on his face

Happenings: A Broken Arm, Practicing ChatGPT, and 2023 Reading Goals

March 26, 2023 in Life, Books, Health and Fitness

Let’s start like we usually do by taking stock of the season. As I was writing this, a big-ass slab of snow fell off the roof across from me. The ice ruts in the road threaten an extra 15-minutes to everyone's commute lest your vehicle gets stuck in the micro-crevasse. We certainly have some short-lived April snows on the way, but we are “unlocking” and safely on the other side of winter. Dripping water from the melting snow is the prevailing sound. Let’s go, Spring.

The broken arm

The biggest news is that I broke my friggin’ arm. It’s a humerus break (long bone between shoulder and elbow) on my non-dominant side, which is a surprisingly debilitating injury. My doctor described it as breaking the femur of the upper body. I’ve had many micro-milestones over the past two weeks. I put on my socks without help, got more toothpaste on my toothbrush than in the sink, and fastened my own seatbelt as I'm chauffeured around by my parents who I (temporarily) had to move back in with. Milestones still on the horizon: driving, cooking, and running.

The relative good fortune of this injury is not lost on me. “It could always be so much worse” is brutal, yet truthful, life advice. To avoid feeling sorry for myself (but let’s be real, I had a few days of that) I’ve kept something in mind that my meditation teacher once said: “At any moment, there are probably over a billion people who would trade places with you.” Case in point, I was waiting in the day surgery area, worrying about how the surgeon was about to split my entire bicep in half to affix two plates and screws to my fractured bone. At the same time, I overheard my hospital bed neighbour expressing thanks that “the cancer didn’t spread to [her] brain.” Talk about perspective. In a bizarre twist, I was lucky to have a close friend handle my general anaesthesia. My life was in his hands, and I couldn't be more grateful.

Since the fracture, there’s a newfound slowness in my life. Instantly, plenty of hopes and hobbies evaporated. I know this is post-injury rationalization from my brain, trying to create meaning from a meaningless event, but this fracture might be the reset I needed. I can’t believe it took breaking my humerus to snap me out of a self-imposed expectation to personally and professionally redline every day. All I know is that right now there are few things better than sitting on the bench in front of my parent’s house with the sun on my face and listening to the birds chirp. I used to joke about getting “LAST TIME” tattooed on my knuckles, but perhaps a more fitting reminder to permanently ink on my hands would be “SLOW DOWN.” I want to carry this slowness with me after this season of life comes to an end.

ChatGPT predicts my day

In an effort to keep the next generation entering the workforce from taking my job (sorry Gen Z), I’m “practicing” prompt crafting with the latest and greatest AI language model that I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about. I was speaking with a friend about my experiments, and she suggested I write something up. Now it’s my turn to contribute to the growing list of novel uses.

I provided GPT-4 with all my journal entries from the same date, spanning each year back to 2011. It's similar to a five-year journal, but with a larger collection of entries. Once it had the source material, I started asking questions about the text. For example, what do you think is important to this person? What are his blind spots? How would you score him on the big five personality traits? What is the sentiment of the text?

I can’t say there was anything revealing, but it was fascinating (validating?) to hear certain qualities and patterns reflected back at me (i.e. conscientious family man who values self-improvement, even if he is slightly neurotic). The best part was when I asked the model to generate a hypothetical journal entry for 2023. It’s not perfect, but it’s hilarious and unnerving how close some of it is. Here’s a good example that could’ve definitely come from my real journal:

Enjoyed a simple but delicious dinner on the balcony, taking in the warm evening air. I've been keeping up with my piano practice, and I'm starting to see real progress.

Or this other plausible one:

Had a fantastic run today. I've been incorporating Stryd data into my training more effectively, and it's been paying off. The weather was perfect for a run, and I felt strong and energized.

Worry not though, there was also this one which is absolutely bananas:

Decided to take a caffeine pill midday instead of my usual Red Bull – still can't believe how effective they are. It's been a year since I started using them, and my focus has improved, although I'm still careful not to overdo it.

Let’s not get distracted by the fact I’ve likely consumed less than 10 Red Bulls in my entire life and even fewer caffeine pills. The real giveaway? I would never set off a phrase with spaces around an en dash like that.

Some other fun things I’ve tried (based on looking at my ChatGPT history—is this the new Google search history cringe?):

Basic GREP and text manipulation functions in a dataset (e.g. remove trailing commas but keep the rest, then sort onto new lines)
Solving Wordle problems (e.g. give me a list of dictionary words after swapping in [valid list of letters] in underscore positions 1 and 2 for this word; __ush)
Giving ChatGPT a CSV export of my entire Goodreads “want to read” list, telling it what kind of book I was looking for, and asking it to deliver a shortlist (mixed results, but a good starting point)
Summarizing a long email newsletter (no, not yours, Steven)

I’m uncertain if I’m more amazed by the technology itself, or just how pervasive it already is. About a month ago, I walked into the gym and overheard a perfectly ordinary dude (read: not a nerd like me) discuss his unsuccessful 30-minute internet search for an answer compared to the instantaneous results he received from ChatGPT.

Next up, I’m hoping to explore ChatGPT’s code generation capabilities, but I’m not even sure where to start.

Another take on reading goals

Back in 2019 I watched Captain Fantastic. His kids, the so-called philosopher kings, inspired me with the depth of knowledge they picked up from books. Watching this film created a clear before and after picture for what reading in my life looked like. Almost immediately, I set out to read a book a week, and 2019 turned into one of the most vivid years in memory. (Although the actual reason for the vividness isn’t completely clear—maybe the end of my decade long romantic relationship in 2018 had something to do with that as well).

As I made my way through the reading challenge, I learned that 52 books (or any book quantity goal for that matter) incentivized the wrong behaviour in me. I was eager to learn, but that meant I was picking short, cursory books and passing up longer ones. I still learned a lot in 2019, but I had to shelve the 600-pagers for another time. To remedy this misstep, I picked a page goal in 2023. Conveniently, the math for fifty-two 200-page books comes out to around 10,000 pages. So, 10,000 pages is the goal this year.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to track that goal in Goodreads, but you can track your current pages read for the year by manipulating some URLs and peeking at your year in review *checks calendar* nine months early. Here’s how the URL pattern works:

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/[year]/[userID]

That being said, it’s probably easiest to find an old year in review and swap the date in the URL instead.

Before we move on, I have to share something about the platform that has brought me joy for many years. Despite its extraordinary popularity, Goodreads has been the subject of many product design and user experience jokes since it’s… uh… a little rough around the edges. My favourite drag is this one:

(If any Goodreads designers are reading this, I just want you to know I love what you’re doing with the place and the new book page is wonderful.)

The good good

Without further delay, here’s the random assortment of high-quality media and objects that have entered my life lately.

Aftersun

I walked into this film on a whim after a blood donation one day. Thankfully, the theatre and the clinic are neighbours. I hardly knew anything about it, but this movie thoroughly wrecked me. I cried so hard when the credits rolled that two women (who were also crying) just about came over to console me when the lights came up.

Watch Aftersun

One Without by Oliver Coates

In fact, Aftersun hit me so hard, I immediately tried to track down the soundtrack. It wasn’t available at the time and I forgot about it… until the almighty music suggestions algorithm recommended it a few weeks ago. I’m linking to my favourite song. As one astute YouTube commenter put it, “this is what it sounds like to be haunted by good memories.”

Listen to One Without

Triangle of Sadness

I wasn’t expecting this film to be so hilarious and accessible. A worthy contribution to whatever we’re calling the genre that takes down the ultrarich. Will anyone learn any lessons! Watch and find out. Bonus: Marea by Fred Again.. is used to great effect during a tense moment in the film.

Watch Triangle of Sadness

My brother’s Kenya travel video

My brother visited Kenya in 2022 and stayed at a wildlife sanctuary for a large part of the trip. I missed out, but he’s such a great videographer, it feels like I was right there alongside him after watching his video. Since I’m his obligate hype man, he gets a link right here on the blog.

Watch Kenya 2022 on YouTube

On Hold by The xx

Another breakup, and I was on the receiving end this time. It sucked, mostly because it was hard to believe that things dissolved so rapidly. In a moment of emotional maturity, I didn’t reach for my usual sad songs playlist that is the gasoline to my despair fire. Instead, I found solace in an old tune called On Hold by The xx. It’s a surprisingly upbeat breakup song that nailed the disbelief I was feeling. We live to love another day.

Listen to On Hold

Yamaha P-515

It felt like the right time to upgrade from the $500 piano I bought in 2013 after graduating from design school. Queue up a search that ended with the Yamaha. I love the Bösendorfer sound engine and the heavy keys for the jazz I’m playing right now.

Buy a Yamaha P-515 (lol)

Syncing an Apple Watch to Strava with HealthFit

May 19, 2021 in Health and Fitness

I’m a big fan of Strava. I think it’s a positive social network focused on being active and living a healthy life. Not only that, but I’ve made some wonderful friendships through the app that have translated into real world meetups for running and cycling.

Despite the upsides of Strava, it was sometimes challenging to get activities from the Apple Watch into Strava. Thankfully, that’s changed in recent years and there are more ways than ever to get activities from an Apple Watch into Strava. Let’s look at three to figure out which one is right for you.

Option #1: Use the Strava Apple Watch app

Strava has their own Apple Watch app, but I’ve heard from multiple people that their calorie burn and active minutes aren’t accurate despite setting up their weight and gender settings correctly inside Strava. This is unfortunate because if your goal is to lose weight, Strava will misreport your calorie burn to any food diary apps.

I'd pass on the Strava Apple Watch app. I know they've improved it recently, but I don't think it'll ever beat the built-in Workouts app by Apple. If you do continue with the Strava watch app, definitely make sure your weight and gender settings are correct in Strava's settings. That will help with their calorie estimation.

Option #2: Import workouts into Strava from Apple Workouts

If you can put up with some limitations, this is a great method that’s relatively new. The big benefit is that you can continue using the Apple Workouts app. After initial setup in Strava, your workouts will be ready for import. Your calorie burn and active minutes come straight from the Apple Watch, so they’ll look familiar.

If your goal is to get your workouts into Strava only, I think it’s worth trying this method first. Strava has a help article to get you going. That being said, I've heard from some people that this method is somewhat finicky, which leads me to…

Option #3: Use the Apple Workouts app and send workouts to Strava via HealthFit

This method has been around longer than option #2, and even though it’s not a direct method like #2, I think there are some benefits worth considering.

With this option, HealthFit is a bridge to move your health data around. HealthFit reads your health metrics and workout data, then sends it to other sources. This is the method I use since I send a copy of each workout to Strava, Training Peaks, and iCloud Drive (for backup). For the privacy-conscious, all processing happens on the device and no data is uploaded to HealthFit.

Since this method still treats Apple Health as the source for your health data, it also means food diary apps that are linked with Apple Health will report calorie burn correctly. You’ll likely be able to remove any direct integrations between apps (e.g., linking Strava with Lose It) and still see accurate calories burned inside the food diary app.

Setting up HealthFit

The initial setup for HealthFit takes a bit of work, but the app runs mostly on autopilot after that. In my case, I only need to open it every once in a while when iOS decides to put the app in the background.

It’s also worth noting that HealthFit only exists on the iPhone—you don’t need to set anything up on the Watch. Using Apple Workouts will add the workout to Apple Health, which is then picked up by HealthFit and sent out to any other destinations you choose.

To get started, download HealthFit from the App Store.

Open HealthFit and give the app “read” access to your health data during initial setup. Your workouts should show up in HealthFit now! Next, we’ll make sure they are sending to Strava.

Go to the “More” tab and scroll down to Strava. Tapping on Strava will open up an authentication flow so HealthFit and Strava can start sharing data.

Once HealthFit has permission to send data to Strava, turn on automatic workout synchronization. With this turned on, HealthFit will send workouts to Strava as soon as they happen without you needing to do anything.

And that’s it! You’re set up. When you complete a workout using Apple Workouts on your Watch, HealthFit will pick it up and send it to Strava.

If you’re seeing double…

There’s an easy fix if you’re seeing duplicate workouts in the Apple Fitness app. If you previously gave Strava “write” access for the Apple Health app, You’ll want to turn that off in Apple Health.

This is likely the case if you’ve ever used the Strava iPhone or Watch app to record a workout. Go to Apple Health > top-right profile icon > Apps > Strava. Turn off all the “write” switches since Apple Workouts and HealthFit handle those now.

Bonus: Preferred settings for HealthFit

These are a few helpful settings you may want to consider. They’re all found in the More tab of HealthFit.

Other Platforms > iCloud Drive: On

Turning this on creates a HealthFit folder in iCloud containing .fit files for backup and safe keeping. It also makes it easier to move the files around to a source not supported by HealthFit (e.g., AllTrails or Gaia GPS).

Workout naming: None

Turn workout naming off to see activity names that look like “Morning Run”, “Afternoon Cycle” or “Afternoon Activity”. When workout naming is on, any activities uploaded to Strava automatically pull in the nearest location as the activity name, instead of the activity type.

Workout synchronization: Automatic (with overrides)

There’s in-depth customization for each platform you’re sending to, allowing you to send certain workout types automatically and leaving other workout types for manual upload. For example, I keep most workouts syncing automatically, but I turn off indoor cycling since I need to upload my Zwift virtual cycling activities manually.

Start exercising!

While it might require a bit of a setup, using HealthFit as a bridge between various services adds many options for sharing workout data. It’s also a set-it-and-forget-it thing—a small amount of work up front translates to a lot of time saved manually moving .fit files around.

Switching to Cronometer After a Year and a Half With MyFitnessPal

March 27, 2021 in Health and Fitness

September 1, 2023 update: Since writing this back in 2021, Cronometer has implemented or fixed many of the detractors I listed at the bottom of the post. The recent foods list is more predictable, it's much easier to access favourite foods, there are quick actions now (not to mention homescreen widgets), and they updated their app icon. I'm still a happy subscriber.

Keeping track of the food that enters your body is a deeply personal thing. We all have our favourite foods and recipes, so when the food tracking habit sticks, tremendous amounts of personalized data accumulates in food tracking apps like MyFitnessPal or Cronometer. This can make the idea of switching apps a complete non-starter. Starting over my food database from the beginning? A daunting task for even the most committed.

And yet, despite these drawbacks, I switched from MyFitnessPal to Cronometer back in June 2020. If you’re like me and also considering the switch I thought it might be helpful to share what I learned along the way.

I’m writing this post for someone already familiar with food trackers—especially MyFitnessPal—but who may be thinking about a switch. It’s split into four sections that should give a comprehensive picture of my experience with Cronometer: what triggered the switch, what I love, what I don’t love, and what’s missing.

Why I switched after a 540-day streak

Not quite the final streak, but still a noteworthy number

I started tracking my food back in January 2019. By then I had built a successful daily exercise habit, but my caloric intake remained a mystery. I had always been too skinny, and was unhappy with how I looked. I downloaded MyFitnessPal on a whim and quickly realized just how little I was eating compared to my activity level. The newfound visibility into my nutrition hooked me and the streak started.

But I was never 100% happy with MyFitnessPal. There always seemed to be bugs regardless of the regular app updates. I didn’t like landing on a newsfeed of fitness articles when all I wanted to do was track some food. And I can’t count the number of in-progress recipes I had lost because the app would crash partway through. It also didn’t feel like there was active development in the areas I cared about (although I was pleased it received some UI love while I was using it). Even with all these misgivings, switching apps meant losing my recipes, meals, favourite foods, and recent foods; and that stopped me from going forward with it.

Around the same time I met with an old friend from design school who was working on a calorie and nutrition tracker called Cronometer. I happily gave it a try, but it didn’t stick for all the reasons above—I had too much data in MyFitnessPal and switching was too much of hassle when what I had worked good enough. But as time went on, Cronometer showed up more often on fitness and nutrition message boards. Once my MyFitnessPal yearly subscription was up for renewal I decided to give Cronometer a try and see how it felt.

I’m a convert now, and that’s why you’re reading this.

What I love about Cronometer

There’s lots to love about Cronometer. From the day-to-day food entry experience, to the bigger picture nutrition reporting and increased visibility, the whole experience is more enjoyable than what I had with MyFitnessPal.

Food entry

You’ll feel right at home entering food if you’ve used MyFitnessPal. There’s a barcode scanner, a search box with access to many food databases, and the option to add custom foods. Right away there are some differences, though. The databases (yes, multiple!) in Cronometer are outstanding, and they know it. Notable mention: I love that when I inadvertently choose food from a database with missing nutrient data, Cronometer offers to switch me to a database with more/better information.

Multi-entry

The multi-food entry works great too. It’s easy to queue up a whole meal’s worth of food (or more) and log it all in one go. I know this was possible in MyFitnessPal, but something about the implementation prevented it from becoming a regular part of my workflow.

Drag-and-drop between meals

I sure hope that MyFitnessPal has added this by now, but rejoice because Cronometer has drag-and-drop support for moving foods between meals. It feels crazy to call this a killer feature, but coming from MyFitnessPal where moving food from one meal to another involved a bunch of taps, it absolutely is.

Copy and paste from other days

If you’re consistent (aka boring) like me, you probably eat a lot of the same foods each day. At first, I desperately missed the “copy yesterday’s meal” swipe gesture from MyFitnessPal, but once I found multi-select mode in Cronometer that desire evaporated. See, with MyFitnessPal I’d swipe over a whole meal and then make any edits—deleting foods, moving them around, and adjusting portion sizes. It turns out that copy and paste is what I actually wanted all along because of the increased flexibility. With multi-select and copy and paste, I can omit foods I didn’t eat again when I make the selection, then paste them into the proper place in today’s food diary.

That being said, I do wish it was easier to get into multi-select mode. I know it’s only two taps away, but compared to an innovative and fast select mode found in Things, entering multi-select can feel a little slow at times.

Nutrition report

One of the Cronometer features I immediately fell in love with were the trends and nutrition reports. In MyFitnessPal I explored then promptly ignored these. In Cronometer, the reports felt highly actionable. They summarize the macro and micronutrients in your food and show you the areas where you could be doing better. I used MyFitnessPal for a year and a half and never noticed any deficiencies. I used Cronometer for two weeks and discovered significant zinc and magnesium deficiencies.

The trends section is also highly customizable. I have goals for weight, calories consumed, and protein intake; and these are available across web and mobile.

Flexible macronutrient planning

I love that Cronometer doesn’t force goals for each of the macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and protein). Instead, I can set goals by gram or percentage for calories, protein, and fats, then completely ignore the carbohydrate goal. Not because I love pasta and pizza (because I do), but because carbs will always be my “remainder” macronutrient after I hit my protein and fats goals.

Food entry during recipe creation is great

I deeply appreciate that Cronometer’s recipe entry uses the same food entry used in day-to-day entry. This sounds like an obvious thing, until you realize that entering a recipe in MyFitnessPal meant learning a completely new user interface missing favourite or recent food entries.

Explode recipes in the diary

Have you ever added an existing recipe to your food diary but needed to make a substitution? Maybe you only had cow’s milk when your recipe calls for soy milk? In MyFitnessPal I’d temporarily edit the recipe, log it to the diary, then revert the recipe. In Cronometer it’s possible to add the recipe to the diary, then explode the ingredients and make substitutions right inline. Side note: A more conservative designer (like me) would’ve called this feature “Expand Recipe”, but “Explode Recipe” is dope and I hope it never changes.

The web app is fantastic

This depends on your desktop and mobile usage, but I’ve loved having a web app that works great. It’s fast. Unfortunately, MyFitnessPal’s web experience always felt like a completely different app with different entry methods from mobile. With Cronometer, the apps feel like they’re made by the same team and there’s platform parity—even if things don’t necessarily look identical. In other words, once I learned the mobile app, I could use the web app without any issue. One more shout out to drag and drop because it exists on the web, too.

More visibility into gaining and losing weight

The more I use Cronometer the more excited I get about how it simplifies weight gain and weight loss. With Cronometer, my daily calorie goal is adjusted automatically based on:

Daily morning weigh-ins
Activity tracked by my Apple Watch

Let’s start with the daily weigh-ins and some examples. If I weighed 150 lb (ca. 68 kg) yesterday my basal metabolic rate (BMR) would be 1,996 calories. If I weigh 151 lb (ca. 68.5 kg) today my BMR would be 2,006 calories. Cronometer watches for these weigh-ins by connecting to Apple’s Health app, then recalculates the daily calorie goal completely behind-the-scenes.

Pairing Cronometer with something like an Apple Watch will also add calories burned during exercise and non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) to the daily goal, giving a comprehensive picture of total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) (the accuracy of fitness trackers notwithstanding).

If your eyes glazed over while reading the above, I can sum it up as follows. By weighing in every morning, wearing my Apple Watch, and telling Cronometer that I want to lose/maintain/gain weight, my calorie goal automatically adjusts every day.

Pairing all the above with a persistent weight chart on the web app’s dashboard has given me high visibility into my weight goal progress with much less manual effort.

Things I’m still not used to

That’s not to say the transition to Cronometer wasn’t without some issues. There are some things I’m either still not used to after making the switch or have learned to work around.

Recent foods are unpredictable

To start, the recent foods section feels unpredictable and unlike what I was used to with MyFitnessPal. For example, when I searched for almonds in MyFitnessPal, there was some kind of priority sorting in the search results for foods that I had previously and frequently logged. The almonds I regularly ate would appear at the top of the list. I haven’t found the same kind of priority sorting in Cronometer (or if it is there, it either isn’t aggressive enough or doesn’t seem as helpful). Even worse, my favourite foods don’t show up at the top.

I’m guessing that’s because once a food search starts, the app enters a strict list of results instead of a blend of recents/favourites/results. I’d prefer the blended results list with weighting toward favourites, then recents, then the remaining results. As a workaround, I’ve learned to rely more on the favourites list, as well as copying and pasting between days. I’d also love to see a little favourite icon in a food’s row to reinforce that yes, this is the exact food you’ve entered and favourited before.

Easier access to food entry filters like “Favourites”

I don’t think the increased reliance on favourites I talked about above would be as much of an issue if Cronometer also had easier access to the favourites and recents filter. Unfortunately, they’re buried in a drawer instead of presented as tabs across the top of the view as in MyFitnessPal. It’s not quite right to just count the taps to get into the drawer (because on the surface two taps doesn’t sound like much of an interaction burden). Instead, it’s the reorientation of where I am and the selection that makes food entry seem more tedious than it needs to be. Design nitpick: the drawer button is on the right, but the drawer opens from the left which disrupts the spatial feel of the app.

“Frequently eaten together” suggestions

I also miss the frequently eaten together section of MyFitnessPal. For example, I’ll have Wasa crackers with various toppings fairly often—maybe peanut butter one day, jam the next, then avocado on another. This variety means it doesn’t make as much sense for me to create a meal or recipe. When I logged Wasa crackers in MyFitnessPal, there was usually—but not always (maybe a bug?)—a little section that said frequently eaten together. From there I could pick my topping du jour and log it without needing to type peanut butter again. It was a handy shortcut and something I miss.

Updated logo and app icon

Finally, and I wonder how much of this comes from me also being a designer, I would love to see an updated logo or app icon for this company. The current logo does nothing but make this great product look dated. And since the nature and frequency of use means this app likely shows up on many home screens, it should be beautiful. Maybe Louie and Alexa could help?

Things that are just plain missing

Unlike the previous section that explained the differences between Cronometer and MyFitnessPal, the following are things that I’ve found to be straight-up missing.

Offline mode

I went on a hike in the mountains and the cellular signal wasn’t reliable. We sat down for lunch and a friend gave me a bar. I opened Cronometer to scan the barcode and was instead greeted by the login screen. There was no message about the app being offline and no “save a barcode for later” feature. There was just a blank login screen staring back at me. I intuited this was probably how they were dealing with offline mode, but there should’ve been at least a message to explain this. There was no hope for logging in without any cellular signal, so I noted the barcode for later.

Note: Since writing this section I’ve seen some limited offline support, but it’s hit-and-miss. Occasionally, I land on my food diary with a limited connectivity message, other times I see the login screen, and I can’t figure out why that’s the case.

I mention this omission knowing offline support is a difficult problem to solve. For example, the barcode I scanned that day wouldn’t have been able to match anything in the database. But I wonder if there’s an opportunity to leave notes for myself while the food database was offline. Or maybe I could select from my favourites? The workaround for the day meant opening Things and leaving a reminder to log my food later alongside a list of what I ate.

Not easy an easy feature to implement, and probably low on the list given its complexity and (I’m guessing) low frequency of occurrence. But at the very least, I’d like to see a customized and informative offline alert when opening the app—not a cold redirect to the login screen.

Quick actions

I’m still missing the home screen quick action to access the barcode scanner. MyFitnessPal had an option to skip straight to the barcode scanner from the home screen, and it wasn’t until I lost it that I realized just how much I used it.

Time- or meal-based food suggestions

This is not something that MyFitnessPal had, but I would love to see more suggested foods for a meal. For example, since my lunches look similar most days, I’d love to open the app at lunch and see some suggestions. Maybe some small piece of UI like “Logging lunch? Here’s what you normally eat around now” and then I could confirm or reject the suggestions?

However, even just a quick evaluation of non-happy path cases reveals a bunch of issues. What about when I forget to log lunch and log it in the evening instead? Would it still work? What if I go out for lunch that day? Are all these meal suggestion rejections a bunch of extra work? It’s full of complexity, but I could also see it being a big time saver, and potentially easing the habit building burden that newer customers face.

Reordering meals

Much like MyFitnessPal, I can’t reorder meals in Cronometer. Thankfully, I started off on the right foot because I knew my desired meal setup and learned my lessons from MyFitnessPal.

Here’s the use case: I started MyFitnessPal with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but as I got more into nutrition I started adding in my snacks. As a result, my meals ended up looking like this in MyFitnessPal:

Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Afternoon snack
Evening snack

It may not look like much, but having the afternoon snack entry listed after dinner in MyFitnessPal always threw me off.

Since that’s two food tracking apps in a row that don’t allow meal reordering I’m starting to wonder if there’s some hidden technical complexity here.

Better iOS citizen

Finally, I wish the app was a better iOS citizen, but I fully acknowledge this is likely my designer bias coming through and not something that most people would notice. There are a few specific things worth mentioning. There’s some of Google’s Material Design creeping into things like all caps buttons and date pickers. We’ve grappled with the same problems in our apps at YNAB and decided to use the individual OS’ resources wherever possible instead of adhering to perfect consistency across platforms. Buttons in our apps look like the corresponding iOS or Android buttons. The same goes for tabs, navigation bars, and segmented controls. I think it makes the app feel more at home on the operating system, thus, more familiar for the customer.

Additionally, I use my iPad quite a bit and the lack of split screen and multitasking has tripped me up a few times. When I was logging my food after the hike that day, I tried putting the food notes in Things on the left and Cronometer on the right, but that wasn’t possible. It’s also not possible to place a recipe app like Paprika on the left and Cronometer on the right to copy over the ingredients. Fewer and fewer apps have this split screen limitation so when one does, it tends to stick out. My workaround involves using the web app on my iPad where things are a little more responsive. Speaking from experience, this was not a small undertaking for the app I work on. Prioritizing iPad work is usually tricky because it’s a smaller audience and there’s an endless list of iPhone, Android, and web features/fixes that would affect more customers.

Wrapping up

I’ll sum it up like this: I wish I made the switch sooner. Cronometer makes for a more enjoyable food tracking experience. I’m also thrilled to support a Canadian company. (It’s a bonus that they’re semi-local! Hi Revelstoke!) But supporting something local is a tougher sell if the product you’re getting is inferior in some way. Thankfully, the folks over at Cronometer made the decision an easy one because there’s a lot to love about the product.

Happy gaining/losing/maintaining! And give Cronometer a try if you’re thinking about a switch.

Disclaimer

I know a designer who works at Cronometer (hi Laura!) and we naturally talk about our work when we get together. I was gifted six months of Cronometer Gold (the paid subscription tier) because I’m a friend of Laura, not because I’m writing this post. The six months have since expired, and I’ve been a happily paying Cronometer customer for some time now.