I don’t actually know much about health/fitness web startups, so maybe this is already being done but I’m just unaware. I know some people publicly are “fatblogging” (the practice of blogging about their daily struggle to get in better shape).
Mint.com is a cool service for your finances — and it doesn’t require much work at all; it automatically goes into your financial accounts, pulls information for you, and puts that data into context that actually means something to you.
Health/fitness is a different animal that would require the user to input their habits daily, but I think it could be made simple. This website would allow me to easily input what I eat during the day [quickly/easily], what I drink during the day, and what exercise I do during the day (and duration). It can then estimate the calories and fat [and other nutritional info – vitamin c, iron, etc]. And based on knowing my shape, size, weight, height, and body fat (maybe that is calculated at a health club; or via one of those scales you can buy at the store). Daily or weekly it could also ask for your weight — and maybe it’ll be able to more accurately calculate calories burned and such at that point.
It could put you on a plan to “budget” your eating, drinking, and work-out habits. You could set goals — losing 10 lbs in 10 weeks, or something. During the 10 weeks, it can tell you if you’re ahead of the curve, or behind, or on a good pace. It’ll estimate calorie/fat intake you need.
The interface would be super simple. I could input eat/drink/work-out stuff easily via my webpage [and see what my peers are up to — kind of a Twitter but for health/fitness stuff]. Heck, I could even Twitter when I eat/drink/work-out [i.e. “@healthy just drank 12 oz water”].
It would show me all these pretty charts and such. It would be my website for my fatblogging. It would give me tips on what I’m eating — if I’m eating white bread, it’ll suggest wheat bread to increase my fiber intake. If I’m drinking too much coffee, it’ll suggest I try cutting down on that. Kind of like Mint.com does with my finances [i.e. “get a better interest rate with X credit card instead”].
Revenues come from any advertisers related to health [healthy foods, gym memberships, free food samples, etc].
If this is already being done, great! Please let me know in the comments as I’m looking for something like this.