The Automatic Diet Planner

January 30, 2012 2:40 PM

Swole.me is a completely free automated diet planner that creates meals according to your goal calorie intake and how many meals you’d like to eat per day.

Before embarking on any kind of eating and exercise plan, always consult your physician.

1. Figure out what your goals are. Do you want to lose weight or gain weight? This will probably be obvious to you.

2. Use the calorie calculator to estimate how much you should eat.

3. Craft a diet to follow (this is where Swole.me comes in!). Customize the food choices to your liking and then fine tune your plan in the sandbox mode.

4. Either follow the diet exactly or use it as more of a guide. Err in the direction of your goals. Your results will likely reflect your effort.

5. Exercise is important in controlling your weight and health in general.

6. Stick with these programs until you can manage your diet and exercise without them. Given some time, controlling your physical health will become second nature.

posted by netbros (51 comments total)

Meal 1: 2 cups nonfat yogurt; 1 cup skim milk
Meal 2: 1 cup avocado
Meal 3: 6 oz chicken breast, 1 cup wild rice
Meal 4: 1 cup avocados
Meal 5: 1 cup cottage cheese, 1 cup sweet potato

This is why there are no great chefs that are also computers.
posted by synecdoche at 2:52 PM on January 30 [19 favorites]

Breakfast
1 cup Almonds
1 slice Bacon
1 cup Raspberries

Meal 2
1 cup Almonds

Meal 3
1 cup Almonds
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
posted by turaho at 2:53 PM on January 30

I feel like I'm part of a Vault Tec experiment, here.
posted by The Whelk at 2:55 PM on January 30 [13 favorites]

Oh my god, thank you, I have been waiting for this.
posted by Houyhnhnm at 2:57 PM on January 30

Breakfast
10 Eggs
0.5 cup Multigrain Oatmeal

Meal 2
1 cup Bananas
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
6 oz Sausage

Meal 3
0.5 cup Multigrain Oatmeal
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
6 oz Sausage

Vegetables
2 cup Squash
1 cup Broccoli
Eat these throughout the day
posted by ob at 3:00 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]

Man, every body building dude I know tells me to eat a dozen hardboiled eggs a day in order to get guns and while I do want to maybe have a six-pack some day I also want to live past 40 and having over 800% of a daily recommended cholesterol can't be that great for you. So when this thing tells me to eat 8 whole eggs a day I can't help but to be very very suspicious of the factors being considered by this diet maker.
posted by dubusadus at 3:01 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]

I want to see what 360000 calories spread across one meal looks like.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 3:08 PM on January 30

Full three course meal at Applebee's
posted by The Whelk at 3:10 PM on January 30 [4 favorites]

KevinSkomsvold: A single scoop of ice cream contains around 360000 calories. Seriously.

(Calories given on food packaging are kcal)
posted by darkfred at 3:12 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]

Vegetables
3 cup Spinach
Eat these throughout the day

I can count the convulsive laughter as exercise, right?
posted by pompomtom at 3:17 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]

This is why there are no great chefs that are also computers.

Only because they left out a few spoonfuls of LSD.
posted by indubitable at 3:20 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]

You'll get more normal meal-like meals if you hit the "choose foods" button and click "check all".
posted by Wolfdog at 3:29 PM on January 30

Well, more varied, anyway. "Normal" is debatable.

Meal 2
1 oz Bagels
1 cup Cheerios
3 oz Ground Beef
0.5 cup Multigrain Oatmeal
2 oz Pasta
30 grams Protein Powder
1 cup Whole Milk
posted by Wolfdog at 3:30 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]

Obviously a work in progress. It adds eggs no matter what I do, including when I deselect eggs everywhere I can. I opted for practically everything except eggs. Still eggs show up. 8 per day? Really?

It also won't let me choose 4% cottage cheese. I do not eat low-fat or no-fat or "diet" anything. Whole butter, whole milk, whole cottage cheese. I just don't eat/drink very much of them.


It also wants me to eat "breakfast" even when I select one meal per day, which I would strongly prefer be in the evening. I do not eat "breakfast" and will not do so.

So yes, work in progress. Will bookmark.
posted by yesster at 3:34 PM on January 30

This program really needs to be incorporated into an Iron Chef sort of TV show.
posted by IjonTichy at 3:35 PM on January 30

So you should totally combine this with Cron-O-Meter to get a sense of the micronutrients.

Alternatively, screw this thing and just use the Cron-O-Meter, which is like 10 times better.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:36 PM on January 30

So you should totally combine this with Cron-O-Meter to get a sense of the micronutrients.

Or it should be combined with the Crom-O-Meter to see if it sheds any light on the Riddle of Steel.
posted by The Tensor at 3:40 PM on January 30 [4 favorites]

I am reading all the meal suggestions in a Dalek voice, BTW
posted by The Whelk at 3:40 PM on January 30 [4 favorites]

I get "JSChart: Input data in wrong format for selected chart type" when I check Atkins/ketogenic, and then an endless series of error boxes.

And it's a little weird that there's set option for vegan or vegetarian.
posted by rtha at 3:41 PM on January 30

Ok, can de-select "Use Breakfast Menu" so my egg issue is disappearing. Click on "generate menu" and it will make a new random day for you. Not bad. Might help increase variety over my habits.
posted by yesster at 3:41 PM on January 30

KevinSkomsvold, Sandbox mode tells me that only 219 cups of almond butter will get you your 360595 calories. BUT NOT ON BREAD BECAUSE ATKINS SAYS WHEAT MAKES YOU FAT.
posted by davemee at 3:41 PM on January 30

Obviously a work in progress. It adds eggs no matter what I do, including when I deselect eggs everywhere I can. I opted for practically everything except eggs. Still eggs show up. 8 per day? Really?
I think the Egg Facts site is behind this. I'd complain if I were you.
posted by maudlin at 3:42 PM on January 30

It also wants me to eat "breakfast" even when I select one meal per day, which I would strongly prefer be in the evening. I do not eat "breakfast" and will not do so.

once the meal is generated, you can edit in "sandbox mode" and drag everything into one meal.
posted by billyfleetwood at 3:43 PM on January 30

No set option for vegan/vegetarian, that is.
posted by rtha at 3:49 PM on January 30

I see those egg concil creeps got you too!
posted by The Whelk at 3:59 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]

I saw this on /r/Fitness on reddit. It's kind of a neat idea, but I feel like it misses the point of meal planning, in that you're supposed to choose meals that fit with your lifestyle and diet and tastes, and all this understands is the roughest constraints of your diet.

Now, if there were a recipe DB website that tracked what recipes you liked (in terms of ingredients, numbers of steps, time to prepare meal, etc) and used an algorithm to predict what you'd like and also knew what your diet was, then we'd really have something.
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:03 PM on January 30

Swole is a term from Something Awful and I thought at first that this came from the goons in the watch and woot forum, but it doesn't seem to be so I guess I can tell you that SA does not want you to eat eggs.

I'll stick with weight watchers.
posted by Biblio at 4:13 PM on January 30

The Paleo diet option looks deeeee-licious!

Breakfast
4 oz Canned Sardines
1 tbsp Coconut Oil
posted by The otter lady at 4:24 PM on January 30

I've heard that coconut oil is a laxative in that amount. Have fun.
posted by mccarty.tim at 4:25 PM on January 30

No no no, but this does what meal planning has never done before for me: it avoids any and all sentimentality toward food, which is usually what trips me up. I don't get to substitute MY judgment about what would be good with something in place of the machine's judgment about how much I can eat. To be honest, I got quite a few good meal sketches based on the generator for a weight-loss diet. And because I could choose what it factored in, I was able to screen out all the gluteny foods that make meal planning so hard for me in the first place.

I love this! Thanks netbros!
posted by jph at 4:26 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]

Breakfast
1 cup sour cream


D:
posted by sarahsynonymous at 4:51 PM on January 30 [4 favorites]

My weight issues come from the fact that I love food. This site seems perfect for me in that it looks like the perfect thing to make me hate eating forever.
posted by lekvar at 4:54 PM on January 30 [6 favorites]

No coffee? What?
posted by desjardins at 6:06 PM on January 30

Meal 2
6 oz Greek Yogurt
30 grams Protein Powder
1 cup Yellow Corn

uh...
posted by fancyoats at 6:09 PM on January 30

All of these meals need to be preceded by a shrieking klaxon and the ore recorded shouts of COMMENCE CALORIE INTAKE.
posted by The Whelk at 6:21 PM on January 30 [15 favorites]

This thing is hilarious!

Every meal plan is like something out of the Weekly World News that's guaranteed to slim me 5 dress sizes in 10 days. 1 cup avocado, 2 cups apples, 1 cup cottage cheese here I come! Mm, mm, good.

Now! Computer,calculate my meal plan again, only this time include as inputs oh, milennia of culinary history, a human culture, and individual preferences.

Computer?
posted by Miko at 6:36 PM on January 30 [2 favorites]

You can now de-select eggs (make sure you're de-selecting them from the breakfast menu also). Spoiler alert, it mostly replaces them with cottage cheese. Still, though, this is really useful, thanks.
posted by en forme de poire at 7:16 PM on January 30

Some of the things it spits out would even be fun culinary challenges.
posted by en forme de poire at 7:19 PM on January 30

The author made an update on the blog today. Look for the following updates in coming weeks:

timeline at the moment looks something like:

* Finish the redesign, including a large food database
* Include custom foods, i.e. enter your own nutrition values for a new food item
* Build out a recipe entry system and include recipe recommendations in the generated diets.
posted by netbros at 7:20 PM on January 30

That's what I was thinking, en forme do poire. It is like my very own little "Chopped" challenge! Since veggies aren't added into the meals, I get to play mix-n-match with them (and I've come up with some meals that I really wouldn't be ashamed to serve. I think in order to do this you have to be a little more creative in the kitchen and have good command of your spice rack. When I saw "Meal 2: 3 oz Lamb, 1 cup nonfat yogurt" I thought, "OH YUM! CURRIED LAMB!" But you know, most people would just look at that and go "why god why!?"
posted by jph at 7:23 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]

I think in order to do this you have to be a little more creative in the kitchen and have good command of your spice rack.

The only hitch is, I'm exactly that sort of person, and that's why I don't need this doohickie to plan meals.

But if you're not that sort of person, your meals are going to be weird.
posted by Miko at 7:25 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]

I instantly thought of pre packaged 6oz packets of raw spinach being dropped by a vending machine with the recording " Please enjoy the maximum nutritional value provided by Autodiet, Autodiet, making food, better."
posted by The Whelk at 7:32 PM on January 30 [3 favorites]

I am reading all the meal suggestions in a Dalek voice, BTW

EGGS-TERMINATE!
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:35 PM on January 30 [5 favorites]

Share and Enjoy!
posted by Miko at 7:50 PM on January 30 [1 favorite]

Too much thinking and planning. Like the Joker, I don't have a plan. I just chase cars. Well, in this case, the dial to Trendalicious, an implementation of John Walker's "Eat Watch" concept with contemporary visualization.

By putting in daily weight measurements, it extracts the trend line, and displays that in a gauge. If I'm losing weight, then EVERYTHING IS FINE, and there's nothing to worry about. No calorie counting, no carb counting, no math, just a tool for gaining the awareness I need.

"If the meter is green, you're getting lean!"
posted by mikelieman at 8:49 PM on January 30

I played with this earlier today and it really picked up on my love of lentils. It wanted me to have just lentils and olive oil for one meal and more lentils for one of the later meals.
posted by dragonplayer at 9:13 PM on January 30

Don't overthink the autogenerated plate of beans, dragonplayer.
posted by jph at 6:55 AM on January 31 [1 favorite]

This thing is just doing some math on some food it knows about.
posted by chrillsicka at 8:52 AM on January 31

6 oz Greek Yogurt
30 grams Protein Powder
1 cup Yellow Corn

Actually, I think you can make muffins out of this combo. Mmmm, corn muffins.

Can I be on Chopped now?
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 9:29 AM on January 31

Can I be on Chopped now?

I have come to the conclusion that if they replaced the professional chefs with complete amateurs, it would be the best show on television. I can't understand how the idiots at the food network haven't figured this out yet.
posted by billyfleetwood at 4:41 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]

This is also good, billyfleetwood: According to host Ted Allen, the show "was originally meant to be taped at some guy’s mansion with him and his crazy Chihuahua. A stuffy fellow in a tuxedo was to host, and the losing chef’s dish was then fed to the dog...it was too much for Food Network." (From the Wikipedia entry)
posted by Harald74 at 2:02 AM on February 1