Would you like to have a nutrition coach cheering you on toward your chosen goals with you all the time? As a busy professional and mom to an active kid, fitting in one more appointment — even social activities — isn’t very easy. I welcomed the opportunity to review the app 1:1 Nutrition Coaching by Rise.
It is a food diary app that allows you to log your meals and snacks with photos and/or descriptions, but the big difference that Rise offers is a personal nutrition coach who reviews what you are eating, asks questions, and makes suggestions to help you meet your goals. You can request a supportive coach or a tough coach, but even my tough coach was kind. No one is going to be yelling at you or even messaging you in all caps.
I chose my own goal — decrease sugar — and she offered suggestions and general tips both as feedback to my meals and in separate messages. As someone who lives with food allergies and centers my diet on vegetables and protein, I wondered what kind of advice I would be given since my diet doesn’t meet the general guidelines. When you sign up for 1:1 Nutrition Coaching by Rise, you can enter in dietary restrictions, and she must have paid attention to them because it never came up. She seemed excited by the amount of vegetables my family eats regularly and unconcerned by eggs for breakfast and steak for dinner.
The day is organized by three meals and two snacks with daily suggestions based on your chosen goal. I am not generally the person who photographs food, and we have a strict no TV, phones, or toys at the table rule. My family got used to me snapping a picture then putting the phone away, but I also had the option to log meals later just using text. I couldn’t bring myself to photograph my plate at a wedding, so I just filled that in later. There is not an easy way to log eating outside of the general three meals and two snacks outline. You can add things to a meal or snack later, but it didn’t feel like there was a place for a bedtime snack. I don’t think I should be eating after 8pm, but it was easy to just not log that cup of mango juice I had, even though it is important to decreasing sugar.
If someone is committed to their goals though, they will be honest with themselves and the professionals helping them to reach their goals. If you aren’t entirely committed, this could be an update that would help you. Beyond the convenience of the app, the technical support was extremely helpful as I needed to make some adjustments to my iPhone settings to get full use of the app.
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This is primarily a weight loss app, so I thought it was interesting that there was not any place to log exercise habits. I did discuss it with my coach, because I think it’s helpful to log these things as well. We all tend to over-estimate exercise and under-estimate eating. Logging food can make you more thoughtful about what you are eating, particularly if someone else will review it. For me, logging exercise makes sure I keep it as a priority and don’t get too busy too many days in a row.
1:1 Nutrition Coaching by Rise is a subscription service, but the cost is very reasonable considering you get a daily check-in from a professional nutrition coach from the convenience of your phone. I can toggle between texting my friend, messaging my coach, and responding to client emails while my son is taking his bath and putting on pajamas. Rather than $300/month you may pay for a live dietitian, the plans are available for as low as $15/week. They report that their services sold out in the first two days and in that first week, their subscribers lost more than 500 pounds! It is a five-star rated app. I will recommend it to my clients with diabetes trying to make some dietary changes or anyone interested in accountability for dietary changes and/or weight loss. I will continue to use the Rise service even after this review. If you have tried it, I would love to hear what you think as well.a
Also Read:
The Only Fitness Tracker Review Guide You Need
Keep the Tits in Dietitian, and 11 More Common Fitness Misspellings
What the Apple Watch Means for Your Fitness
While Brooke was provided complimentary access to the Rise app, we were under no obligation to provide a review or specific comments. This review reflects Brooke’s own opinion.
Images via TechCrunch; Brooke Randolph