BetterMe Review: An App That Takes Health Coaching to the Next Level

We’re approaching the height of the holiday season: Thanksgiving is behind us, and we’ve started enjoying a full month of dinners and parties filled with beloved friends and family. It’s an exciting time of year, but also one that a lot of us approach with some amount of anxiety. It’s the time that maintaining a healthy body weight — one that makes us feel our healthiest — can be the most challenging.

It’s tempting to go on a fad diet, but overly limiting diets always go the same way: we start the day off feeling great about our choice to avoid eating our favorite holiday foods, but by 5pm, we’re obsessively thinking about nothing but whatever food we’re “not allowed” to have. This leads to a constant cycle of guilt and regret, and let’s be real: that’s not a functional way to change habits to healthy ones, it’s just a way to feel bad about ourselves, which is absolutely not the goal.

Traditional diet and exercise plans tend to make us feel bad about ourselves, and that’s why we’re eager to do things in a way that’s healthier for both our minds and bodies. Of all the health apps out there, the BetterMe app looks to nurture from the inside out by teaching us to treat ourselves better and develop our physical well-being and mental health simultaneously — not punish ourselves.

There’s an incredibly important psychological and behavioral element to achieving a healthy weight, and once we begin to understand the mind-body connection, that’s when we can start to make serious changes.

Changing your behavior

The BetterMe app uses experts trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help change our behaviors in a positive way, not a self-deprecating one. We all have our bad habits, but here’s the truth: those habits are learned, and that means they can be unlearned. Whether we are looking to be more mindful in our eating or our exercise, or spend time nurturing ourselves through meditation, these behaviors can help us to feel better about ourselves and be better to ourselves. It’s all about using positivity to change our mindset and thus change our behaviors to better habits and patterns.

Meal plans

We all enter healthier eating plans with our own specific needs. Perhaps we need to avoid certain ingredients because we have allergies, sensitivities, or aversions. Maybe we’re vegetarian or gluten-free, or we keep kosher. All of this will impact how well we are able to follow and adapt to a meal plan. The BetterMe meal plans are personalized and developed by nutritionists, so they can be tailored to the best fit for you and your specific dietary needs. Once you’re set on a meal plan, there’s an in-app tracker that will help you log your meals and encourages you to adhere to the plan. It also keeps track of important components for your overall health, like water intake.

Inclusive workouts

Workout apps can sometimes be frustrating because they feature seemingly perfect people teaching fashion models how to do intimidating exercises. That does nothing for our self-esteem and is the reason many people avoid the gym and group fitness classes in the first place. However, the BetterMe app is inclusive, and features workouts that are geared toward everyone, including older people, those with injuries, and folks who are plus-sized. These exercises are also available at all skill levels, from beginner to advanced. You choose the fit that is right for you, so you’re more likely to stick with it and feel confident enough to continue.

Individual attention

We’d love to say we can do it all alone, but trying to treat ourselves better and live a healthier life can often feel lonely and isolating. We try to eat foods that are better for us even while our friends sometimes discourage us and entice us with the foods we are trying to avoid. BetterMe’s app has a personal coaching option, with certified nutritionists and fitness instructions available all day, every day, to give advice, answer questions, or offer much-needed emotional support.

Be kind to the mind

It’s not just about the body. What we eat and how we move is important, but it’s also important to take care of your emotional and mental health. This is available through the app’s meditation break options. These moments of calm and thoughtfulness are important in retraining ourselves to have good habits and treat ourselves with love and acceptance. Stress is terrible for the mind and body, and many of us eat too much or the wrong foods because of that stress. Changing that mindset and healing the mind can lead to our body being better primed to burn fat — and also make some good choices.

It’s easy to blame ourselves for everything that is going on with our lives and our bodies, but retraining our minds to replace negative habits with positive ones can be a crucial first step in losing weight, feeling healthier, and feeling better about ourselves overall.

What better gift can we give ourselves in the new year?