If you’ve ever tried losing weight, you’ll know that the journey isn’t easy.
This is something that software developer Hazmi Irfan experienced.
“Like many, I gained a lot of weight during the pandemic and tried numerous times to shed it, but I always ended up giving up,” he said. “The main issue I found with existing apps is that they ask you to do too much—they expect you to change your diet completely, cook all your meals, or even fast. It felt overwhelming.”
Facing these challenges, he decided to create his own solution—Tied.
Forming a habit
An app available on Apple App Store and Google Play, the whole objective of Tied is to make calorie-tracking a habit. And the answer to doing so is simple: simplification.
Tied makes it easy for users to log meals through AI. Users can simply take a photo of their meal, and the app uses AI to provide a calorie estimate, removing the need for manual entry or searching for food by name.
A common concern here, of course, is accuracy. But to that, Hazmi typically explains it this way.
“Imagine you have an expert who knows the calorie content of all meals,” he said. “If you show this person a photo of your meal and ask them to estimate the calories, they might not always be spot on, but they’d give you a pretty good guess.”
Similarly, Tied’s AI is pretty accurate, but not perfect. It might mistake Teh Tarik for coffee—a mistake that humans might make, too. Despite occasional errors, the AI seems to perform well with local dishes.
If the AI makes a mistake, there’s a feature that allows users to provide feedback, which is used to improve the accuracy over time.
That said, it has been a challenge to get the AI to accurately estimate calories while still providing fast responses. Hazmi has been working on improving it with user feedback and ongoing adjustments.
Aside from the AI tracking, the app also has a streak feature that tracks how many consecutive days users log their meals. This helps keep users motivated and engaged. To encourage the streaks, the app sends reminders.
The app doesn’t ask users to weigh themselves every day because that can be discouraging, especially with daily weight fluctuations.
Rather, it’s all about focusing on meal-tracking to help build a healthy habit without adding any extra pressure. The idea is to make calorie tracking easy and encouraging, so it just becomes a natural part of your routine.
Trying Tied for myself
Having used the app for a couple of days at this point, I find that I do really enjoy the simplicity of the app. There are no ads, no unnecessary frills—just a clean, simplistic user interface.
Starting out, they asked for my weight and height, as well as how often I exercise. From that, they determined the number of calories I should consume to lose weight.
Logging the foods I ate is not just simple but quite entertaining. There were a few times when I forgot to take the image of the food I was eating, but I find that describing the food is quite fun, too. It’s able to pick up on my key words, elaborate on what ingredients were likely used, then come up with an estimated calorie count.
Something I appreciated about the app was that it maintains a level of positivity, unlike other fitness apps I’ve used that sometimes use aggressive wording and harsh colours to motivate you.
For example, instead of using red to indicate a missed goal, it uses soft grey instead.
Hazmi shared that he understands that calorie tracking can sometimes be tough on mental health, especially when there’s no apparent progress. That’s why he intentionally kept things positive and supportive.
“Instead of fixating on strict calorie limits, I just want users to track their meals consistently, even if they go a bit over their goals,” he said. “If you exceed your intake today, just keep tracking. If you exceed it tomorrow, keep tracking.”
They say it takes 21 days to form a habit (though new studies disprove that), but with the user-friendliness of Tied as well as the element of fun with the AI component, I find that the habit of calorie-tracking might just be easier than ever.
Simple but effective
Currently, Hazmi balances his day job with developing Tied.
“Whatever free time I can carve out, I spend on developing Tied. It’s challenging, but I’m passionate about it, and that keeps me motivated,” he said about juggling his commitments.
So far, the reception has been positive, Hazmi said. Users are impressed by how accurately the app identifies food. “Some are surprisingly disappointed when it gets it right,” he added.
At the time of writing, the app has 150 active users. While that number may seem small, 150 people actively logging their calories daily is quite an impressive impact.
“This shows there’s a real need for this kind of app, and it’s a great sign for the future,” Hazmi pointed out.
Tied is free to use right now, but the founder plans on rolling out a subscription model eventually. He aims to keep the core features free to access, and would only charge for extra features that “offer real value”.
“What exactly those paid features will be is still up in the air—I’m taking my time to figure out what would be most beneficial for users based on their feedback,” he said.
Hazmi also shared that as a thank you to those who’ve supported Tied early on, anyone who registers before the subscription model is rolled out will get free access to the paid features, even after the full launch.
“It’s my way of showing appreciation for those who tried the app early and provided valuable feedback,” he expressed.
For now, Hazmi is focused on fine-tuning Tied based on user feedback, improving the AI, and ensuring it’s effective for calorie tracking—not just for losing weight, but also for maintaining and even gaining weight when needed.
Believing in the potential of his app, the developer hopes to eventually transition to running Tied full-time. This will aid in his journey to establishing Tied as the go-to app for checking calories with every meal.
“Given Malaysia’s high obesity rate, I’m driven to use Tied to help tackle this issue and encourage healthier living,” he said. “I see a lot of potential for Tied to grow into something even more substantial, with expanded features and greater impact.”
Featured Image Credit: Tied