Two questions: how many apps have you downloaded in a quest for *health* and, secondly, and you have to be honest, how many have actually helped you achieve your goals?
We bet there’s a big ol’ tumbleweed rolling across the screen right now…
Perhaps the goals you’ve been chasing have been focusing on the wrong body part this whole time, putting all the emphasis on the rig and neglecting the noggin.
Enter BetterMe.
This app – BetterMe: Health Coaching, if it was introducing itself to you at a formal networking event – champions the mantra of changing your mind, not your body, and is a psychology-based app that flips the others on their burpee-obsessed heads.
Founded by Victoria Repa, who was done with slogging it out with boring gym sessions which were getting her nowhere (can relate), BetterMe has grown to have more than 100million users worldwide in just four years, which is testament to its shred cred.
Going deeper than a burning squat, though, BetterMe promotes a healthy and active lifestyle (or, if you’re a fan of buzzwords, #balance) free from fanatical weight loss or so-called perfect body ideals. The aim of the game is to teach users to create happiness within.
Victoria, the platform’s CEO, grew up struggling to reach her goals and having spent years sweating it out on the reg and, when she found she wasn’t reaching them the old school way, vowed to to make health and fitness more accessible to people worldwide.
Because hands up who has ever been personally victimised by the stairmaster?
Weight loss and maintenance shouldn’t mean punishing diets and exhausting workouts, but that’s what it’s come to be associated with, right? In a perfect world, it should mean accepting yourself the way you are, overcoming your own resistance to change, moving towards self-compassion, fighting against negative self-image, and loving yourself hard enough to embark on the journey of self-improvement.
Welcome to that mystical perfect world. Or, as close as we can get it.
Founded with the goal to help others achieve the balance of a healthy body as well as a healthy mind, with a strong focus on self-love, BetterMe is designed to meet you where you are and understand any personal struggles, since Victoria went through a lot of those issues herself – she gets it.
And, evidently, so do you. Research suggests many of us who do lose weight will gain it all back, and then some, within 12 months of meeting our target. On top of that, each year about only 5% of people who embark on a healthy lifestyle reach their goal.
Maybe it has something to do with being so obsessed with physical health and the number on the scales, that our brains aren’t on the same page. Sure, physical health is super important, we’re not telling you to throw out your runners, but it’s just as important to make sure we’re prioritising our mental health, too.
Our brain has a massive effect on how our body can bring about change, which starts with a healthy mindset. So think not of BetterMe as a tool for weight loss, but an instrument for behaviour that is life-changing.
How does it work, you ask? Fabulous question.
BetterMe is designed to support users for six to 12 months through a psychology-based daily plan that will take no more than 10 minutes to set up.
From there, it will help figure out the amount of calories you should be eating to stay on track, using the Mifflin St Jeor equation, with a personal coach on hand 24/7 to answer any questions you have and share encouragement along the way.
Each interactive activity includes content, infographics, quizzes, open-ended questions, diaries, scales, and tests, to make sure you’re getting the most and feeling all the support on your, ok, we’re going to use the word, *journey*.
After inputting your deets, what’s punched out at the end isn’t a gruelling and totally unrealistic plan you’ll ditch come Wednesday, but a sustainable, holistic approach to health put together by mental health experts.
When it comes to the workouts themselves, from beginner to intermediate and advanced, go at your own pace, with exercises catered to those with physical disabilities, as well as sessions for seniors, family and plus-size workouts.
The app, available in 10 languages, personalises content for different groups to make a healthy lifestyle as inclusive as possible, with bespoke fitness and diet courses (coeliac? Vegan? Sorted!) tailored to your specific needs.
So in the grand season of ‘new year, new you’, cut through the usual noise and know that BetterMe may be the secret you’ve been waiting for.
