For training
Food tracking that knows what you did
Most food apps treat exercise as a calorie refund and treat every sport the same. Platey does neither: a gym session and a long run are different questions, and it answers them differently — then usually says nothing at all, because most days nothing needs saying.
Logging takes five seconds
Type it the way you would say it:
- “leg day”
- “5-a-side Thursday”
- “crossfit class”
- “5 mile easy run tonight”
- “90 minute bike ride”
- “18km long run Sunday”
That is read on your own device, instantly and at no cost, and you see what it understood before you save it. For the gym, a class or a game, naming it is enough — Platey knows roughly what an hour in the gym or a Sunday match looks like. Give it a real duration and it uses that instead.
Sessions can be planned or done. A planned one that did not happen can be skipped or moved to tomorrow, and stops counting. There is no language anywhere in Platey for missing a session.
Five sports, treated as five different things
Running
Easy runs, tempo, intervals, parkrun, long runs and races. The most detailed of the five, because it is where fuelling changes most between a Tuesday and a Sunday.
Carbs move a lot on a long run. Calories move a little. Sunday morning changes what Saturday night should look like.
Cycling
Commutes, easy spins, hard rides, long rides and sportives. Energy is estimated from your speed, so a two-hour club ride and a two-hour potter are not treated the same.
Much like running, with the longer sessions arriving sooner.
Weights
Gym sessions, leg day, upper body, heavy days. An hour of lifting costs far less energy than an hour of running — and needs something completely different afterwards.
Protein rises, carbohydrate barely moves, and nobody is offered an energy gel. Ever.
CrossFit
Classes, WODs, Hyrox. Genuinely hard and genuinely short, which is an awkward combination for most food apps and the reason this one treats it separately.
Sits between lifting and running: protein like the gym, carbs closer to a hard run.
Football
Matches, 5-a-side, training. Stop-start for ninety minutes adds up to more than people expect, and the day after a Sunday game is usually where it shows.
Behaves much like a hard run — carbs move, and a game after work changes the afternoon.
Pick as many as apply. A day with weights in the morning and a run after work is read as both.
The most important thing it does is say nothing
An easy thirty minutes after a normal day of eating produces “you’ve eaten normally today, so you don’t need to do anything special for this one” — and no suggestions at all. Half an hour of kettlebells gets the same treatment.
Fuelling advice has to be earned by duration or intensity, never by the mere existence of a session. An app that has an opinion about every workout is an app you stop reading.
What a normal week looks like
Monday — gym, upper body
Calories up by about 90. Carbs where they were. Protein held at a level worth hitting, with suggestions that get you there.
Tuesday — easy 30 minutes
Targets barely move. Nothing to read. This is most days.
Thursday — 5-a-side after work
Carbs up meaningfully, and a note about eating properly beforehand if you have been light all day.
Saturday — nothing on
A rest day, except that tomorrow’s long run raises today’s carb target without raising today’s calories.
Sunday — 18km long run
The biggest adjustment of the week, and the only day gels and drinks get mentioned — and only if you have said you use them.
What people ask
Should I eat back the calories I burn training?
Platey does not work that way, and deliberately. A session feeds through at a fraction of its estimated cost — roughly a quarter of it for something easy if you are trying to lose weight, up to all of it for a long session if you are not — and it is capped absolutely. Estimates of calories burned are rough at the best of times, so treating one as money in the bank is how people end up eating back a session they only half did.
Does a gym session change my targets much?
Barely, on calories — an hour of weights costs far less than people assume, and pretending otherwise would be flattering rather than useful. What changes is protein: on a day with lifting in it, Platey holds your protein target at a sensible level and suggests food that gets you there, spread across the day rather than in one hit.
What actually changes on a hard running or football day?
Carbohydrate, mostly. That is where a demanding endurance session genuinely shows, so the carb target rises as an increment on your normal one, scaled to what the session actually cost. Calories move a little. There is a floor under fat, so a hard day never turns into a fat-free one.
Will it suggest gels and sports drinks?
Only for genuinely long running and cycling, and only if you have said you use them. Never for weights, never for CrossFit, and never for a five-a-side. An app that recommends an energy gel partway through leg day has stopped paying attention.
What if I do more than one sport?
Most people do, which is why you can pick as many as apply. A day with weights in the morning and a run in the evening is read as both: the protein floor from the lifting, the carbohydrate from the run.
Can I lose weight and train at the same time?
Platey assumes you are trying to, because most people using it are. On a hard or long day it will not encourage a deficit, and if a genuinely demanding day is paired with a genuinely light intake late on, it says so once, neutrally, without diagnosing anything.
Do I need Strava or a watch?
No. Typing "5-a-side Thursday" is the product; Strava only saves the typing for runs and rides, and everything works identically without it. There is no heart rate, no splits and no history import.
Is there a training plan or a recovery score?
No, and neither is planned. Platey uses six plain intensity categories and nothing more complicated is ever shown. Training exists here to make the food advice better, not to become a second app.
Who this isn't for
Not elite athletes, and not anyone who wants a training platform. There is no training stress score, no fitness-and-freshness chart, no pace analysis, no lifting programme, no one-rep-max tracking, no coach, no streaks and no badges. If you want those, they exist elsewhere and are done well.
Platey is also not a physiotherapist or a doctor. It will not diagnose an injury, recommend a supplement, or suggest training through pain. How the food side works covers the rest of it.
Put this week's sessions in
Add what you're doing and watch the day move around it — usually a little, occasionally a lot, and never by handing you calories back.