Google search “weight loss plans” and you’ll encounter a dizzying array of options that suggest everything from Weight Watchers to the South Beach Diet to Nutrisystem.
While these diets often ask for your current height and weight when creating a plan, there’s one factor they generally don’t take into account: your DNA. That’s where Boston-based company Lose It! hopes to set itself apart from the pack.
Founded in 2008, Lose It offers a weight loss app that says it’s helped more than 30 million users lose over 63 million pounds. Up until recently, Lose It! did this primarily by offering calorie and fitness tracking, as well as community support to encourage healthy and sustainable weight loss.
“What makes Lose It! unique is that we don’t ascribe to fad diets,” said Lose It! Director of Marketing Erin Webster. “Our methodology is around helping users figure out what works best for them.”
Using the app, members could track their daily food intake and fitness activity while creating goals, finding coaches and joining fitness challenges with other Lose It! users. In the summer of 2017, however, Lose It! unveiled a new weight loss plan that harnesses users’ DNA to provide even more personalized weight-loss regimens.
With embodyDNA, we’re giving people actionable insights so they can have a more sustainable and successful diet approach."
Calling it “the first DNA-based weight loss plan,” Lose It!’s new embodyDNA product has partnered with Helix, a personal genomics platform company, to analyze individuals’ DNA from a small sample of saliva that users mail into a CLIA-certified and CAP accredited lab for sequencing.
Within six to eight weeks, they receive a report via the Lose It! app that reveals their genetic predispositions toward 22 different traits across four categories that include nutrition, fitness and weight loss, sensitivities and even tastes.
This informs users how well their body handles the foods they typically eat, as well as how crucial exercise is to their weight loss. Then, nutritionists provide recommendations to help users put their learnings into action, like suggesting they limit certain foods or beverages, or try a different fitness plan.
“With embodyDNA, we’re giving people actionable insights so they can have a more sustainable and successful diet approach,” Webster said. For example, if users see they have a saturated fat gene, embodyDNA might analyze how much saturated fat you consume every day via the Lose It app and make suggestions for adjusting your diet.
Always wondered whether you were lactose or gluten intolerant, or whether your “sweet tooth” is actually all in your head? The app claims to be able to give you insight into how your genetics might play a role here, too, and will provide suggestions for altering your diet to feel better while still eating some of the things you enjoy.
“Other companies give you a healthy meal plan,” Webster said. “But that stuff is general for all people. We give people specific plans based on things like predisposed traits, foods they like, etc. It’s a personal approach.”
