DietBooster: A personal weight loss expert by your side 24/7

DietBooster analyses changes in body fat, investigates eating habits and exercising behaviours, and provides personalized recommendations for people who want to lose weight and change their lifestyle in a quick and effortless way. Using this innovative state-of-the-art app, one will have total control over the weight loss program.

Indrek Saul, the founder of DietBooster, explains that this new health application monitors a person`s fat metabolism based on the readings of a smart scale that measures body fat percentage. “Simply put – either fat is being burnt or not,” Saul says, adding that the method is patented in both Estonia and the US.

“We made DietBooster because counting calories really sucks! While the “Harris-Benedict Equation” method is widely used among dieters, it is simply not enough for effective weight loss. Even more, the formula is not nearly as accurate as many “dieting experts” claim it to be. Several years ago, I looked at my bathroom scale that measures body fat percentage and, as an electrical engineer, I began to explore its possibilities,” Saul explains. He started experiments with the smart scale and came to the conclusion that the scale can be turned into a “wicked tool”: “I found out that I can indicate the exact period of time when unhealthy lifestyle began to affect the fat burning process.”

The web–based diary calculates the user’s daily caloric balance and assesses whether or not it has been achieved. After joining DietBooster, the user steps on the scale each morning, and then the app records the readings. The user only needs to mark which weight loss advice he or she had followed the previous day. “The app analyzes the changes, compares them with the indicators and trends for past days, and accordingly indicates whether or not fat is being burned,” Saul explains.

Virtual Guide

“Our goal is to see our virtual advisor take over 50-80% of the weight loss advisor`s work. We are able to describe virtually what a person trying to lose weight is doing wrong and depending on the situation, guide the person,” said Saul.

As long as the results remain positive, Jenny provides positive feedback. “As soon as the weight loss comes to a standstill, Jenny starts questioning:´Why did you stop losing weight? What did you do yesterday?`” Jenny poses a series of questions to clarify the causes of the situation. Having discovered the problem, Jenny generates appropriate advice. For instance, if the person has not been going to the gym because he does not have a training partner, Jenny asks to find a new one. If some unusual circumstances occur, Jenny directs the user to a ´live`consultant,” adds Saul.

People have probably heard Jenny`s recommendations before. Our program is unique and appealing because it is wise enough to figure out the exact reason why the client has stopped losing weight. Thus, we focus on the concrete problem of each client and provide personalized recommendations,” says Saul.

Systematic dieting world

“One of the aspects that supported creating the new knowledge was applying analytic thinking in the dieting world. The other aspect was applying systems thinking,” says Saul. Much time was spent on the systematic categorisation of the mistakes the dieters make and the reasons for making the mistakes. “We reasearched the entire diet world and listed about 25-30 common mistakes that overweight people make when trying to lose weight, for example, eating too infrequently or exercising too intensively,” Saul explains. “The potential reasons can be divided into three categories: reasons associated with skill and knowledge, those associated with opportunities, and motivational reasons,” Saul adds. DietBooster`s team has identified 150 reasons for not losing weight. For each reason, they have generated 100-150 recommendations. For each recommendation, there are about 200-250 unique recommendations.

The DietBooster team is backed by three domains of know–how. “The first involves the question of whether or not a person’s lifestyle can be analyzed using a modern scale,” Saul said. Studies by researchers at Tallinn University of Technology and Tartu University have confirmed that modern bathroom scales really can be used to accurately measure daily changes in body fat, and these changes can be associated with lifestyle changes.

The second domain module comprises the knowledge of weight loss and recommendations. The most challenging part was to convert the weight loss wisdom into a form suitable for computers: after all, computer has to pose the right questions and produce personalised recommendations. This is a particular branch of artificial intelligence – expert systems. “We received help from the Institute of Cybernetics – in cooperation with the specialists of expert systems, we worked on the main ideology of how to diagnose different situations,” says Saul. “The reason weight loss expert systems have not been used up until now is that doctors do not know how to formulate or shape their wisdom in a systematic form, while software engineers, who understand the form, do not understand the content which requires form.”

The third domain module consists of general knowledge for nutrition: the know-how originates from Estonia`s best nutritionists. “To a small degree, we have been involving the know-how from the area of physical exercise. We do not focus on training specifics, but we analyse several types of physical activities and choose the most suitable activity for the client,” adds Saul.

In our sights: the US Market

“Since our application is web-based, it will be globally available to everyone. The only question is: who is our target market? We did some reasearch and analysed the following data of multiple countries: population, proportion of overweight people, GDP, internet access, and many others. Based on the outcome of the reasearch, the public launch will take place in the US since it would be the most profitable for us.”

Saul admits that DietBooster`s developing process has been far too long. “I have been actively involved for many years. We concentrated on developing part and completely forgot the marketing and sale aspect. We tried to enter the markets as a white label product but the results were not good. We have gained a lot of experience and, today, we are able to market our product perfectly well.”