When you want to work on your fitness, calorie counting, meal planning, mindset, and tracking your steps, water, and weight simultaneously, you probably think you have to use several different apps. I was surprised to discover the BetterMe Health Coaching App, which combines all of these in one convenient digital place you can carry around with you on your Apple watch, phone, or tablet. The title ‘Better Me’ is premised on becoming a better version of yourself, and this popular app is strategically designed to help you level up your health and fitness with a personalized plan, engaging workouts, useful trackers, and more.
What is the BetterMe Health Coaching App?
An app refers to a type of software you can install and use on numerous devices. The BetterMe Health Coaching App is a health and fitness application with over 150 million users available from the App Store or the Google Play Store for iOS and Android devices. BetterMe offers a seven-day free trial and the monthly subscription costs $19.99. You can check out the BetterMe store for exercise equipment to go along with the app. Many of the workouts don’t require any equipment.
What I loved
The BetterMe app is like a handy companion for everything health and fitness. The idea is that BetterMe acts like your virtual personal trainer or workout teacher, nutrition coach, motivator, and more, all in one neat little package.
Here are the eight things I loved about BetterMe.
1. Highly personalized
I love the highly personalized plan, thanks to the detailed onboarding process where you answer multiple-choice questions. These questions include everything from your height and diet type to your ideal body shape and your current energy levels throughout the day. You can choose your main goal from options like keeping fit, building muscle, and losing weight, as well as the three main activities you’re most interested in from options like running, yoga, dancing, fighting, and calisthenics.
I love the ‘personal coach’ chat feature where you can select from five different coaches and ask them direct questions or have a virtual nutrition consultation. There is an extra fee for personal coaching and some of the other additional challenges, such as the ‘meditation for beginners’ challenge.
2. Special programs for limited mobility
I love that BetterMe offers special programs, such as:
- Limited mobility (wheelchair)
- Prenatal program
- Postnatal workouts
- Sensitive back
- Sensitive knees
- Limb loss
There’s something for everyone at most activity and ability levels.
3. Track your progress and schedule workouts
BetterMe provides a summary of your fitness level today as a baseline starting point so you can easily track your progress. The advanced calculator predicts the date when you will likely achieve your goals, which is a big motivator. I also love that you can schedule your workouts and set reminders and notifications. As you make progress, you collect badges, which are also motivating and make it feel a little more like you’re leveling up in a fun game.
4. User-friendly
Sometimes, when an app is as jam-packed as BetterMe, it’s difficult to navigate, and you can feel lost amidst the clutter. The clean, user-friendly home screen or dashboard and the app layout are just some of the many things I love about BetterMe. You can easily find your way around and read articles and tips, track your drinking water and steps, log your calories and current weight, and complete your workouts and mindset modules.
5. Customize dietary preferences
You can select from a multitude of different diets, including vegan, keto, Mediterranean, and paleo. If you struggle to come up with ideas and meal plans, BetterMe provides you with daily meal plans and recipes to suit your dietary preferences. You can easily log your meals and click the heart to ‘favorite’ recipes to further customize your meal plan. The fasting timer is another awesome feature that allows you to track how long you fast between meals.
6. Impressive library of workouts
BetterMe really does offer an impressive library of workouts for the monthly subscription of $19.99. Each day, there are three suggested workouts and a vast range of other high-quality exercise routines to explore to keep it interesting.
7. Workouts by real people
I love that there’s a real person showing you how to perform the exercise with proper form while a narrator also clearly explains the exercise. The movements are labeled, so you know what you’re doing.
You can go at your own pace, and there are warm-ups and welcome rest breaks. There’s also a timer, music, and fun, interactive sounds that make you feel like you’re playing a game. You can switch the music off or connect it to your own Apple Music or Spotify if you prefer.
8. The power of the mind
BetterMe helps you invoke the power of your mind as you listen to or read 3-10 minute self-improvement learning modules and learn more about how the brain works. These modules are geared toward improving self-love and your relationship with dieting and food, which could be especially beneficial for weight loss and developing long-term healthy nutrition habits. When you finish a chapter in the mindset module, the app provides you with a new chapter the following day.
What I didn’t love
My overall experience with BetterMe was positive, but it took longer than most other apps to get started and answer the many detailed questions.
1. Additional cost for some features
If you’re interested in the challenges and additional features, the cost can climb, so whether or not BetterMe is right for you depends on your goals and how much you’d like to spend on an app. Some people don’t want to pay more than $10 per month for a health and fitness app. At $19.99 per month, BetterMe is not the cheapest app out there, but it has so much more to offer than many other apps, including meal planning, calorie counting, top-quality workouts, and more. On the plus side, it’s cheaper than most gym memberships, provides more than guided workouts, and you can choose if you want to pay for the additional challenges and features like the personal coach chat. There’s also the free seven-day trial.
2. Time-consuming onboarding process
It’s a little time-consuming to complete the onboarding process with so many questions, but it’s worth it for those who want a highly personalized plan that goes beyond many of the other health and fitness apps out there. Some people might not want to answer all of these multiple-choice questions about their hobbies, sleep, and bad habits, and that could deter them from even beginning a workout. There are also questions that ask, ‘How do you relate to this statement?’ which could delve too much into psychology for some people, and they might not want to fully comprehend these statements.
In Conclusion
I’m impressed with the expansiveness of the BetterMe app and the quality of the workouts. I love how the layout is clean, and the app is so easy to use. It’s probably the next best thing to in-person, one-on-one personal training because it makes you feel like you’re taking a workout class or working with a coach virtually. If you’re looking to get serious about ramping up your health and fitness, I’d say the BetterMe app is an excellent choice.
