How’s My Eating?

• “Breathe”

• "The food’s not going anywhere."

• "Are you in a race?"

I eat too fast. It’s something that’s been an issue in my life for as long as I can remember. I always finish my food way faster than the people around me.

Sitting in front of the TV, barely chewing my food, and missing the moment when my body tries to tell me I’m full—binge eating can be a challenging habit to break, mostly because it’s really, really hard for me to pull my concentration away from the act of eating to the act of self-control.

There are a lot of benefits of slowing down:

• Mindful eating habits lead to healthier food choices

• Avoiding overeating by listening to your body

• Quality of life increases when you actually taste what you're eating

I’ve tried a lot of different ways to slow down my eating like matching my bite pace with someone who eats slower and counting my chews.

These strategies have their downsides:

• Distraction from social interactions

• Not allowing yourself to enjoy the flavors

• And it's just hard to maintain long enough to build habits

Having other humans chime in with reminders to slow down does work, but as you may have noticed, it’s hard to hear those phrases without feeling a bit defensive.

However, I do get told to 'Stand up,' 'Walk', 'Sleep' without feeling like someone is ordering me around--

"There's an app for that"

“How’s My Eating?” is an app designed to provide real-time notifications about your eating habits. Specifically, the app would monitor your eating pace or chew count and alert you if you’re eating too fast. This could lead to:

• Healthier eating habits

• Better digestion

• More enjoyment of food

How to Make It?

To achieve this, I decided to focus on kinetic data—movements and patterns captured by devices like AirPods. This method is less intrusive and more feasible for users who value privacy.

As seen above, rotation rate seems to be a good indicator of whether the mouth is open or closed.

Here’s Where I’m At in the Process:

Data Collection

• Currently recording data on my own eating habits using an iOS app that collects audio, visual, and kinetic data from AirPods.

• The app will soon be available for download. You can follow its development on GitHub.

Data Labeling

• Creating a system for labeling this data.

• Still deciding the framework to use, but leaning towards FastHTML so I can get back to developing with Python.

Model Training

• Start with Google’s Teachable Machine for simplicity.

• Move to more robust frameworks like PyTorch or CoreML, depending on the results.

App Development

• Integrate the trained model back into the iOS app.

• Create a system that detects eating habits through kinetic data alone.

• Send notifications to your phone or watch, prompting you to slow down if necessary.

What's next?

I’m excited to continue developing “How’s My Eating?” and share my progress with you. This is the first post I’ve made in this format, so I hope it came across well. I plan to develop a schedule to keep these updates coming, but for now, let’s aim for one post a week.

My hope is that this app will help others, like me, who struggle with eating too quickly. By leveraging technology, we can create a tool that provides gentle, real-time reminders to slow down, enjoy our food, and listen to our bodies.

If you’re interested in following along with this project or contributing, check out the GitHub repository: https://github.com/ZSturman/Hows-My-Eating