FoodT review

FoodT is an app that aims to help you curb your cravings for sweets, chips, sodas and other high calorie, low nutrient foods. If it can help curb cravings for these items then it could help people who are struggling to diet longterm begin to lose weight in a sustainable manner.

I used FoodT at least once a day for 30 days in order to test how effective I personally think it was.

I had serious doubts about FoodT when I did my initial reaction to it. And after using it for 30 days, I think my initial reaction was spot on.

At best it distracted me when I was having an unhealthy food craving – sugar is my weakness. But because it was encouraged to use it before an actual meal, not a snack, it was rather pointless. If you are the type of person that eats on the fly and thus ends up grabbing what you're craving in place of a real meal then you have bigger problems to work out than controlling what you crave. A much simpler method than a training app to deal with that is to plan and prep your meals beforehand. No risk of ending up with a Snickers for lunch if you already have a perfectly good bowl of beef, broccoli and rice waiting for you. Meal prepping once a week probably took only slightly longer to do than playing this game once a day for the same week.

I still don't understand why the random objects are mixed into the rounds. Am I supposed to think coats are bad and socks are sometimes good but sometimes bad? What are staplers?! I'm having a crisis about clothes and items on my desk now! Do I throw them away or keep them?! Kidding. No crisis, but I still don't get the point of them being mixed in there. Seems to serve no purpose in training your brain.

I started really craving Dots after doing the test the first few days. Seeing them pop up across the screen so many times made them look really, really yummy. A red circle around them didn't make them look less sugary and delicious. I think having the opposite of the intended effect is generally bad, right?

After doing it a few days I zoned out on what I was actually looking at. I had my finger over the picture half the time to better push the screen faster – it encourages you to go faster. So I couldn't even subconsciously register what was inside the green or red circle I was pushing. I just saw the circle's color around the edge of my finger and pushed or didn't push based on that. Nothing to learn there beyond green means go and red means stop.

And finally, I have no idea how they are going to use the data they collected. At the end they collected my weight and information again, as well as asking if I thought the app helped. Well I lost weight so depending on how they calculate that into the study, it may look like I benefited from the app (even though I told it I did not feel it helped at all). I lost weight because I have already been steadily losing weight and taking steps to change my lifestyle to ensure it stays off. The app didn't have anything to do with any of the changes made before, during or after its use.

I'd be interested to see the final results and a write-up for how the data was separated on collection (if people who felt the app didn't help were included in weight loss results or are put on a separate chart of some kind, etc.). But ultimately, I can't imagine this had many positive effects for the average user. Zoning out was too easy, the 'bad' food flashing before my eyes made me want to eat it not carrots and mushrooms and the non-food objects just make it confusingly weird.