From the Lab
What we shipped in BurnWeek and the eating-behaviour science behind each release — mindful eating made measurable, with the studies that shaped every decision.
Mindful eating, with numbers: the science behind how BurnWeek works
Awareness training reliably disappoints on the scale; food logs reliably get abandoned. The evidence for building a tracker on the join between the two.
What changed when BurnWeek went daily
The app began with a rolling seven-day budget. We replaced it with a day that starts fresh each morning. The reasoning, and what still looks at the week.
BurnWeek now speaks Estonian and Russian
A food log is written in the words you think in. The interface now follows your language, Estonian or Russian, and dictation never asked which one you speak.
Reading the calorie and protein numbers in BurnWeek
Calories left and protein to go look like the same kind of number, but they describe different goals. Here is how to read each one on the screen.
BurnWeek reminders: the few you get, and why
A well-timed prompt can help a little; repeated alerts go with lower acceptance. Here are the few reminders the app sends, and the evidence behind the line.
Why BurnWeek has no streaks
A streak counter works until the day you miss, and food logs have gaps during travel, illness or busy weeks. What the research found, and what we show instead.
Connect your AI assistant and analyze your nutrition
Breakfast in the app, lunch in chat, one food diary to review. Ask useful questions about the meals you logged, and check the evidence behind each answer.
Your first BurnWeek estimate: get a number, then correct it
Required clarification adds effort whenever it appears, before you see any number. Here is why we stopped asking first, and what you can correct instead.
BurnWeek on Apple Watch: log the meal at the table, phone in your pocket
People eat more with friends, and those are the meals that go unlogged. Calories left on your wrist, and a spoken log without the phone.
I cooked a ChatGPT recipe, then planned two meals from the same pot
A three-portion recipe from ChatGPT, a portion planned for Thursday and resized, and the rest of the pot carried to Saturday, with two snags along the way.
Close the kitchen: a two-tick ritual that ends the eating day
If-then plans lifted goal attainment by d = 0.65 across 94 tests. A two-row evening checklist, tied to brushing your teeth, that closes any day, light or heavy.
Every log lands on Today: fixing meals filed on the wrong day
Recall accuracy fades by the hour, yet meals were landing on whichever day was open. New logs now go to Today; backfilling is a deliberate one-shot unlock.
Small things, September 2026: fewer taps, visible guesses
Photo logging fell from 40 entries a week to 7 in one trial. Six small changes cut repeated effort: frequent-first Library, voice Start over, visible guesses.
Rough days: a quiet yellow mark for days your log ran out early
Food diaries fail by omission: dieters under-reported intake by 47% in one classic study. A passive marker now flags past days that look unfinished. No nudges.
Your week, every Monday: the weekly report
Self-monitoring works best when something closes the loop. A Monday report turns seven days of logging into feedback you can check line by line.
Log a meal without leaving the chat: BurnWeek is a published ChatGPT app
Same program, different medium: 92 days logged by app against 29 on paper. A one-sentence meal log now lives where you already type.
Close the day, not the deficit: the Finish Today redesign
Guilt about cake predicted less weight loss, not more; a broken diet made restrained eaters eat more. A redesign built for the hour the logging habit breaks.
Log without unlocking: why we put BurnWeek on the iPhone lock screen
App loggers managed 92 days, paper loggers 29. The difference was not intelligence but distance from the hand, so the log moved to the lock screen.
A day you can see: meal thumbnails, the grid view and the memory science behind them
A generated plate is a label, your own photo is evidence, and the grid is built to tell them apart. The memory research behind putting pictures on every meal.
Plan ahead, phone away: why BurnWeek now plans your day before you eat it
The one randomized trial to isolate planning roughly doubled two-month weight loss. The release that makes the plan the log and the deviations the only entries.
Weigh it, or just say it: the BurnWeek scale and logging from ChatGPT
Dietitians keeping weighed records still came in 223 kcal a day short. Weighing kills one error and leaves the other, so the scale has a button you talk to.