BiteEmo App Development

For a long time, I’ve observed something quite common around me: most people aren’t struggling with their weight because they don’t know what to eat or how to exercise. Instead, it’s often emotional issues—stress from work, social pressures, or just feeling down—that trigger unhealthy eating behaviors. Managing these emotions, rather than merely counting calories or forcing workouts into an already busy schedule, can be the key to better health.

From my own experience, writing down my thoughts and feelings—doing what I call a “brain dump”—has always been incredibly therapeutic. It quickly brings clarity and emotional relief. Likewise, talking with friends has helped me immensely, but the reality is, friends can’t always be there at every moment we need them. This realization inspired me to create BiteEmo.

What is BiteEmo?

BiteEmo is a simple, personal app designed to help us become more aware of our emotions, especially right before we eat. The idea is straightforward: if we can pause and notice our feelings before we start eating, especially during moments of emotional eating or bingeing, we might have a chance to address the underlying emotion rather than simply coping with food.

How BiteEmo Can Help

Here’s what BiteEmo helps you do:

• Note your mood and meals: Take a moment before you eat to quickly log how you’re feeling and snap a photo of your meal. This small pause encourages mindful eating and emotional awareness.

• Chat anytime with a supportive AI: I built an AI chat feature specially trained to help with emotional eating. Unlike human friends, the AI is always there, providing immediate comfort and understanding whenever you need it.

• See your emotional patterns: You can log your weight and easily observe how your moods relate to weight changes over time. Seeing these patterns can be enlightening—like noticing how periods of high stress might correlate with weight gain.

• Keep detailed records: BiteEmo allows you to download all your logged notes and emotions. If you decide to seek professional help, these records can offer valuable insights to therapists or dieticians.

• Future plans: I’m also considering adding multimodal AI to help calculate calorie content directly from meal photos, making the app even more comprehensive.

The Development Journey

Before this project, I knew nothing about app development, but tools like LLMs and Cursor have paved the way for efficient learning and implementation. The entire development process—from idea to functioning app—happened in just one week. It’s incredible how the learning curve has flattened in the AI era, making it easier than ever to transform ideas into reality!

My 1-Week APP Development Roadmap:

1. Product Conceptualization: Defining the core problem and designing a solution focused on emotional eating awareness.

2. Learning Swift/Xcode: Diving into iOS development fundamentals with no prior experience.

3. Development Workflow: Using Cursor to write code efficiently while testing in Xcode.

4. AI Integration: Deploying LLM server for the AI chat feature, using open source models.

5. Secure Access: Implementing Ngrok to create a secure tunnel to my local server, providing a public URL that the iOS app could access from anywhere.

6. User Authentication: Implementing Firebase Auth for secure login functionality.

7. Data Management: Setting up Firebase Realtime Database for efficient storage and retrieval of user data.

8. Distribution: Creating an Apple Developer account and navigating the App Store Connect review process to distribute the app.

Have a try!

You can download the BiteEmo app from the Apple App Store (for iOS only), it’s completely free!

Contact

For questions, feedback, or support regarding BiteEmo, please feel free to reach out to me at: yifanwang@gmail.com