I Used ChatGPT to Count My Calories

Author(s): Dr. Leon Eversberg

Originally published on Towards AI.

Comparing my calorie count to the AI-generated estimates from ChatGPT-4o with different prompts in a self-experiment

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My calorie counting versus different ChatGPT estimates. Image by the author

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2022, 43% of adults were overweight and 16% of adults were obese [1].

Weight gain or weight loss is primarily determined by the amount of calories consumed, often summarized as “calories in, calories out” [2].

That’s why counting calories is one of the best ways to manage your weight, usually with the goal of either losing weight or gaining muscle.

Unfortunately, counting calories requires you to measure everything you eat. This is tedious and requires a lot of discipline. It is also difficult to do in real life, such as when someone else is cooking for you or you decide to eat out.

Using AI to conveniently track food intake could have a massive impact on public health and improve our quality of life.

But how accurate are the calorie estimates that AI can give us? To find out, I conducted a one-day experiment of my own.

I tracked all my calories for a day using a food scale and compared them to estimates from ChatGPT using different prompting techniques.

· How Good Is ChatGPT for Nutritional Advice?·… Read the full blog for free on Medium.

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Published via Towards AI