City College graphics student creates innovative calorie-counting website

Alan Fransham, a graphics student at City College Brighton and Hove, has created an innovative new website, FutureSelf.co.uk, which works as an online food diary, activity diary and calorie counter.

Alan created the site because he was having trouble controlling his weight and knew it was something that many others struggle with. He had identified that despite the vast array of different diets, they all generally rely on the same principle: the energy you consume has to be less than the energy you use.

The way FutureSelf works is that you tell it what food you've had, what activities you've done and it works out how many calories you've had in total. It also tells you how many calories you need every day to lose weight at the rate you want to.

Alan says:

“Alarm bells really started ringing when I was told by my doctor that I was obese, so FutureSelf arose out of a personal need really. Many people in the UK want to be able do something about their weight but there’s so much confusing advice around and a seemingly limitless variety of diets ranging from the bizarre to the downright dangerous. It occurred to me that weight loss will only occur if a person takes in less energy than they use. It's that simple."

“I searched around to see what was available on the web and I tried a number of online food diaries but I found them either unnecessarily complicated or not suitable for regular use for other reasons. So in the end I decided to create FutureSelf because I believe there’s a real need for a simple tool that allows people to see the relationship between the energy they consume and the energy they use. When you become aware of this relationship, it all makes sense.”

Alan’s tutor Phil Jackson says:

“Alan has shown that a good business idea combined with ideas and skills learned whilst on the City College course can be a winning formula. I’m finding more and more entrepreneurial students are utilising skills acquired whilst on City College courses in this way.”

Of his studies at City College, Alan adds:

“I realised that for this project to be successful I was going to need to be able to use graphics in an intelligent way. My background has been more technical than graphical and so to bridge this skills gap, I decided to see what training was available.

"I looked around for courses but many of them seemed to be specific to particular software tools or would either require too much of my time to be able to continue working, or would not cover the subject in enough depth to be sufficiently useful.

"City College had just the thing I needed in their BTEC Graphics course. There's quite a lot to cover but I'm finding it very enjoyable and I feel I'm developing the skills I need to address the requirements of my current project, and I know it will definitely help my work on other projects in the future.”

For more information, see: www.futureself.co.uk

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About City College Brighton and Hove

Situated in the heart of Brighton, City College Brighton and Hove has become an international centre of vocational excellence. Every year 2,000 full-time, 10,000 part time, over 500 Higher Education and 250 14-16 year old students as well as many international and European students choose City College as their place of further and higher education training. In addition, the College provides training to over 2,000 businesses via its ‘City Business Skills’ department which focuses on employer training needs. Offering over 700 courses from basic level right through to business and postgraduate training, City College is working with its partners to develop the workforce of the future.