In their own words.

I've used MyFitnessPal for 15 years, and I'm good at it — I record everything, good, bad, and different. But that's all it is: a record of what you did. It never helped me make a better decision. I've tried all of them — Weight Watchers, Noom, even hypnosis — and after about three days, I'm just over it.

What's different is that now I have to explain my choices to somebody. In MyFitnessPal I could own the garbage, because nobody was looking but me. Now there's this — I've decided it's a "he" — and he's looking. So if he's going to see it, I want to make good choices. And I love that he doesn't ping me. It's on me to check in. If he nudged me all day, I'd turn it off in a week.

I'm allergic to milk, wheat, corn, and soy, and I get little empathy from humans about it. My favorite moment so far: I mentioned a protein bar, and it said, "I'm sure you know, but that one says it may contain soy." My friends are rarely that empathetic about what I have to watch for.

It remembers things, too. It'll ask, "Do you have PT today? How's your hip feeling?" The conversations feel very human — like checking in with a partner, not recording data. When I think I've had a bad day, it'll look and go, "It wasn't that bad — one day isn't going to derail you." It even helped me figure out that my craving for chips at lunch isn't really about chips — it's crunch I'm craving. So now I slice up an apple instead.

I'm 60, and women in their 50s and 60s are so frustrated — menopause, your body changing, weight that won't come off the way it used to. I have a whole crate of my favorite dresses in the basement that I can't zip up right now. Honestly, it's less about the number on the scale and more about feeling good and wearing the clothes I want to wear.

And especially for women, you just don't talk to your friends about this. Now I have this private experience. I know it's not a human on the other end — but the empathy is built right in, down to the little heart and muscle emojis. It's just part of my day. It's not asking me to take on some journey. It's just there when and where I need it.

I saw LivingLean pop up on Instagram — Rob's face, of all things — and I figured I'd give it a try. Once I spent some time on it, I started telling my friends about it: I've got this AI coach now, and it actually works for me.

I've used Noom before and I always get sick of it — the scanning, navigating the app, taking quizzes, all the guesswork, and any real coaching costs extra. With LivingLean, I just type it into the chat and it's so much easier. This one's held my attention in a way those never did.

One of the big draws for me is the learning. LivingLean breaks things down for me and the information resonates with me more than other weight loss apps. For instance, LivingLean suggested a small tweak of having half a banana before I left for a 5:30 am gym class, to encourage a more productive workout with less cortisol production. It has been a game-changer. My body is not under the same stress anymore and my afternoon crash stopped.

I know it's not a person, but I feel accountable to it anyway. The back and forth exchange has led me to make more mindful choices. It gives me encouragement, constructive feedback and helps me plan my day. It guides me to meeting my protein targets, which are oh so important at my age, and even helps me find room for the treat I'm just not quite willing to give up. Plus, if I'm going out to eat, I can send the restaurant's menu and it will help me decide on a wise but satisfying meal.

What's great is that it didn't hit me with calorie counts on day one — it started by just learning my habits and food preferences, no pressure, and it kind of followed my lead. It keeps track of everything I tell it. It'll say, "It's Tuesday — don't you have tennis today?" and I think, this thing actually remembers. Meanwhile, I've been playing tennis on the same day and time every week for the last six years and my husband can't even remember! Or it'll say, "eating those flaxseed crackers on an empty stomach usually bothers you, next time reach for a protein." Or, "How was the street fair?"

It's definitely a great tool with tons of benefits. I'm enjoying it and can't wait to hear how it works out for my friends.

I just turned 40. I spent years in B2B software sales — I was good at it, but it was all-consuming. I'd run seven Zoom pitches back-to-back from my desk and completely lose track of myself. Somewhere in there I stopped taking care of myself. I used to be a regular at the gym; by 40 I'd slipped. My husband and I both hit 40 around the same time and decided it was time to change that.

I'm an entrepreneur now — I run a fractional COO business, so I work from home and I'm often heads-down with a client. I'm also a detail person and a cook, which means I care a lot about accuracy. For me, accuracy is what builds trust. If I'm going to rely on it for my calories and macros, I need it to get the numbers right, and I've been honest with the team about where it still needs to be sharper.

What keeps me coming back is that it's not just numbers. I used MyFitnessPal before, and that's all it ever was — numbers. This is an actual back-and-forth, a sounding board for my food choices. I know it's not a person, but weirdly, I feel accountable to it anyway — I'll think twice about something because I know I'll have to log it. That accountability is real.

I log by just talking to it, which I love, and it remembers what I've eaten before. I'm a heavy AI user — my friends joke that I'm "married to my AI tools" for work — so I went in skeptical about whether this was actually different. It is. Regular AI can't keep a running log of my progress the way this does. It feels built specifically for a weight-loss journey.

The protein part surprised me. I learned I had to eat a lot more of it than I expected, and I wasn't sure I could hit that — but I got there fast, and the payoff was that I stopped feeling so hungry.

And the streaks are weirdly motivating. I opened this whole conversation bragging that I'm on a 37-day streak. It works.

What sets LivingLean apart for me is the immediate guidance. Instead of waiting days for someone to review a food log, it looks at what I've eaten — or what I'm about to eat — and gives me something useful right then. Whether I'm deciding what to make from what's in the fridge or navigating a restaurant menu, it helps me make a smarter choice in the moment.

It's not just recording what I already ate, the way tracking apps do. It actually coaches me through the day — real-time feedback on meals, how my choices line up with my goals, and what to eat next to stay on track.

After six weeks, the biggest change is how I measure progress. Instead of living by the number on the scale, I've learned to pay attention to how my clothes fit and how I feel. That shift has made progress feel more tangible and sustainable, and it's helped me build habits I can actually keep.

I'm 58, and I've got about 25 or 30 pounds on me I'd rather not be carrying. I want to stay ahead of it as I get older. I knew I had to drop the weight; what I needed was something to force me into some accountability. I saw Rob's story on LinkedIn and figured, let me give this a shot.

It's simple — it takes two minutes. I'm not writing anything down. I just tell it I had a tuna sandwich for lunch, and it says great on the protein, here are your calories, here's what you've got left for the day. That's it.

What surprised me is how well it handles the way I actually eat. I've got my own routine — I do intermittent fasting, nothing after 5:30 — and it's got those calculations figured out and works right around my schedule instead of fighting it. I didn't expect it to adapt to me like that.

And it keeps me honest. My wife always has cake and cookies out for the grandkids, and I walk past it all day long. It's hard. But I know I've got to answer to it in a few minutes, so I'm careful. I feel answerable to it, and I won't lie to it, because really I'd only be lying to myself. I had three slices of pizza the other night. I hesitated, but I told it. It didn't yell at me — it just showed me where I landed and helped me figure out how to still hit my protein.

I'm down about four pounds so far. But more than that, it's making me accountable for myself. That's exactly what I was looking for.

I'm on a 54-day streak and I'm down about 22 pounds — and the funny thing is, it doesn't feel like I'm depriving myself. I work from home, and I think I was just a constant snacker, eating out of habit without even realizing it. Now I'm conscious of it. I'll get to a meal and I'm not even hungry. I wanted to lose weight and get in better shape so I can enjoy more activities with my family — my boys keep me busy as a baseball coach, and I want to be more active at their practices. I'm feeling the results already.

I'm a technical architect — I use AI tools all day for my job, so I've definitely tried ChatGPT. Whenever I used it, it'd go off into left field pretty quick, get too extreme on things. This has good guardrails. If I tell it I'm having a rough day, it's understanding — brush it off, get back on track tomorrow — instead of going sideways. Could I prompt-engineer ChatGPT to act like this? Maybe. But it's already built in here. I'm able to just use this as a tool and get right into having results.

The biggest difference is that it actually learns what works for me. I tried Noom before and had some success — it taught me good stuff about calories — but it was canned lessons and badges, nothing personal. And you had to log every meal by entering the exact thing. This just asks about my day. I coach baseball, so it'll go, "You got any games tonight?" It knows me.

And I don't have to scan every label. I smoke a lot of meat, so I'll say I had pulled pork, and it asks, "How much — the size of your palm?" I'll say two palms, and it logs it. Is it perfectly accurate? No. But I'm getting the same results without the hassle — and that tedium is exactly why my wife wouldn't touch the old apps. She's doing this one right alongside me.

Here's what I learned the last time I did this: I lost the weight, figured I had it handled, quit — and fell right back into my old habits. What actually helps is having a constant partner you can stick with. That's what this is. I knew within about a week it was going to work. Now I'm just seeing how far I can take it.

I'm 52. I've never considered myself overweight, but there were long stretches where I was out of shape, inactive, and not focused on how I ate. At 40 I decided to change that, and for about five years I worked out consistently with personal trainers.

Trainers serve a purpose, especially early on when you need to learn proper form and how to train safely. But they're human. Life happens, and you'll see good days and off days, and varying levels of effort. They're running a business and managing multiple clients — you're not their top priority.

Two years ago I got seriously ill and spent a week in the hospital. I lost 18 pounds and a lot of muscle. In a matter of days, it felt like a decade of progress was gone.

Recovery became my top priority and I pushed to bounce back. Within a couple of months I was back to my routines, with one addition: walking 10,000 steps a day. For the most part it worked. But afterward I noticed my body composition had changed. The same habits no longer produced the same results, and certain foods led to faster weight gain than they used to.

That's when I came across LivingLean, and it turned out to be a complete game changer. After 45 days of using it consistently, it fundamentally changed how I approach nutrition. I lost 6 pounds — which doesn't sound like a lot, but those were the midsection pounds I was never able to lose, and I did it the right way. My energy levels are higher than ever, I feel better day to day, I'm stronger in the gym, and I can confidently say I'm in the best shape of my life.

I now work with a coach I interact with multiple times a day, and I'm always the top priority. The guidance is consistent and the focus never shifts from what's best for me. The objective is simple: my success. No human can provide this level of support — there are no business objectives, mood swings, or someone else's level of effort to navigate. We work through short and long-term goals, adjust as needed, and keep everything grounded and realistic. The discipline is sustainable, and the guidance is there whenever I need it.

You have to be willing to put in the work. But it's the smart food choices that truly make the difference.