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Show HN: Workout.cool – Open-source fitness coaching platform

(github.com)
827 points surgomat | 4 comments | 18 Jun 25 12:33 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I was the main contributor to workout.lol, an open-source fitness app to easily build a workout routine. The project had traction (1.4k GitHub stars, 95 forks, ~20K visits/month), but was eventually sold due to video licensing hurdles. The new owner stopped maintaining it, and the repo went abandoned.

Over the next 9 months, I sent 15 emails to try to save it : no replies. Feature requests & issues were ignored. The community was left with a "broken" tool let's say.

I couldn't just let it die So I built the new version from scratch with the same open-source spirit, but a better architecture long-term vision, more features and no license problems.

It's called : Workout.cool (https://workout.cool). What it offers: 100% open-source, MIT-licensed - 1200+ exercises (with videos, attributes, translations) - Progress tracking - Multilingual-ready - Self-hostable

I'm not doing this for money. I'm doing it because I believe in open fitness tools, and I’ve been passionate about strength training for 15+ years.

If this resonates with you, feel free to: - Star the repo - Share with fitness/tech friends - Suggest features - Contribute code/design/docs

Together, we can build the open-source fitness platform we all wanted to easily build a workout routine and get in shape

Website: https://workout.cool GitHub: https://github.com/Snouzy/workout-cool

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paul7986 ◴[18 Jun 25 14:55 UTC] No.44310468[source]▶
I count calories and use chatGPT to do so by taking pics of my meals / what I eat.

I'm looking forward to Meta adding this feature to their Ray Ban smartglasses so the glasses automagically count my calories each time it sees food on my plate or going into my mouth. A feature they possibly should make optional, but for me who has prescription Metas it would be a big time saver (try to eat 1500 to 2000 calories a day and burn 250 to 500 in exercise). I think the knowledge of how many calories you consume done automagically would prompt 1/4 of people thinking and or on Ozempic to not do it.

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edude03 ◴[18 Jun 25 15:09 UTC] No.44310582[source]▶
You know counting calories by taking a picture literally doesn't work right? In fact, I'd argue it's one of the best examples of when an LLM confidently feeds you misinformation. An obvious example, a chicken breast fried in oil and a chicken breast air fried look identical, yet the oil fried one would have 3-4x the calories at least. Don't take my work for it though - this was just on HN the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44220135
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cogman10 ◴[18 Jun 25 15:56 UTC] No.44310994[source]▶
I agree in principle, but I'll say that the number of calories are likely not 3-4x. The 3-4x number is for deep frying chicken. You usually don't do that if you aren't also breading the chicken.

A pan-fried chicken with a little oil in the pan to avoid sticking/make better thermal contact will add calories but not 3-4x more. You're likely using about 1 tbsp of oil which is around 100 kcal. 100g of chicken has around 160 kcal. Even assuming all the oil ends up on the chicken (it isn't) that's ~2x the calories at most.

Perspective wise, though, it'll by the white rice or mashed potatos that are more problematic in terms of calories. Both have a load of calories and can't be eyeballed by camera. It's all about the weight for those. And if you threw in butter/oil, even harder to know what the actual calories are.

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1. busymom0 ◴[18 Jun 25 22:09 UTC] No.44313705[source]▶
Even a little bit of variation in the amount of calories consumed vs detected by AI will be the difference between gaining or losing weight. Also, since fats are the most dense calorie wise (9 per gram), and also hardest to detect by AI as fats are usually transparent (oil), it's even harder to get a remotely accurate measurement of calories.
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2. paul7986 ◴[19 Jun 25 18:08 UTC] No.44321041[source]▶
I think most important thing is calories consumed not fats and sugars, etc as it's simple the less you consume the less weight you can take on.

Having smart glasses automagically telling u how much your consuming for each meal & total caloric daily intake via audio or visually within the glasses i think would be powerful! Majority of people have no idea how much they consume and I'm betting they consume anywhere between 2000 to 6000 (heavier people) calories.

replies(1): >>44323174 #
3. busymom0 ◴[19 Jun 25 22:38 UTC] No.44323174[source]▶
I think you are missing the point. I am saying that a smart glass or AI will be unable to tell the amount of calories with any reasonable level of accuracy because fats (oil for example) are the most calorie dense while also the most invisible in pictures. And even a tiny bit of inaccuracy in this measurement is enough to put one from a calorie deficit (losing weight) to calorie surplus (gaining weight).
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4. paul7986 ◴[20 Jun 25 17:17 UTC] No.44329837{3}[source]▶
Guess you are talking about eating at friends for dinner as all chain restaurants offer calorie counts and im betting up to 20% of all restaurants everywhere offer nutritional info too. If less people choose not to opt at the other 80% more will follow. If a family member cooks it you surely can know how it was prepared if you arent preparing.

As for and noted I eat out always a health-ish chains. The AI is getting the info directly from their sites, so taking a pic the AI knowing my location/what restaurant and matching it with pics restaurants post ..it will be seamless vs. having to now pull out my phone and tell GPT or take a pic.