NHS Weight Loss Plan 17+

I had really lost faith in losing weight until I found this app. I have lost 1 stone and 8 pounds since last April which sounds like a long time and it is but tracking the food I eat has been the only way to reflect daily on why I have eaten in order to change my eating habits. I am still technically obese but moving in the right direction. I feel like I’m in control and if I don’t reach my target I just start the 12 week programme again. I used to avoid thinking about what I’d really eaten over the day and never weigh myself! Now I do this weekly I can reassure myself that it’s easy to get back on track rather than telling myself it’s all gone wrong after a week of being less careful or over Christmas etc. the app has great advice that if you really reflect on and follow you will do it. I’m on my fourth programme now and I can now get into my some trousers I never thought would be possible again! People have told me I look great. Slow and steady is the best way to relearn how to eat healthily and to reflect on your relationship with food. I put a reminder on my phone every day at 7pm to update what I’ve eaten and it takes 5 minutes once you’ve got all your favourites recorded. Thanks NHS app!

The app is fine if a little on the basic side. I like that is doesn’t ask you to other think weight-loss as a lot of the more complicated apps do. My one issue is that the app has an over simplistic and slightly dangerous mindset of ‘weight loss = good, weight gain = bad’. For the first 3 weeks I was using the app I lost weight through healthy eating and exercise which the app responded well to. However, when I gained muscle, the app merely saw this as a bad thing when really it’s just an indicator that I’ve formed a healthy diet + exercise routine.

The app gives you an option each day to input any exercise you’ve done and the time you did it for but it has no bearing on the overall experience whatsoever, as the data is not taken into account at all so the feature might as well not be there. If it took time spent on exercise during the week into account, I think the app would understand that I’m not gaining ‘unhealthy’ weight (fat) but ‘healthy’ weight (muscle), and creating a much healthier lifestyle for myself which is ultimately supposed to be the whole purpose of the app. I think this is especially important as this app is attached to the NHS. No doctor would view a patient gaining muscle as a result of physical exercise and good diet as a bad thing- in fact it would be the exact opposite- so it’s a big flaw in the app that it’s oversimplified design causes it to do exactly that.

Having previously used the Nutra Check App to lose weight I am familiar with the concept of the food diary . About to fork out again when I spotted this free option and thought I would give it a go . It is not as refined as previous App ie with it all you had to do was enter quantity of food and it would work out calories for you . This would be a good step to further develop the App . Another good thing was if you regularly ate a certain home cooked meal you could enter all the ingredients once then just had to click on a portion of say Shepherds Pie to enter the calories . This was stored under ‘your recipes’.
Regarding excercise , again previous app recorded calories used and this came off your total for the day thus encouraging excercise.
However for a free option I am happy enough to work out things for myself . Am only on first week so can’t comment on weight loss yet but recording what you eat certainly makes you cut down and chose healthier options .