Tough-Love iPhone App Gives You a Simple Choice: Lose the Lard or Face the Consequences
If you respond poorly to spiritual wellness drivel, positive reinforcement and soothing yoga music, then a new weight-loss app called Carrot Fit might be for you. Released in Apple’s App Store on Friday, the iOS app is a snarky motivational fitness assistant that comes as close as possible to a military-grade personal trainer spitting insults in your face, so that you can meet your fitness goals with the help of some well-intentioned tough love.
Its function is simple: You log your weight and weight-loss goals into the app and, depending on your progress, the sassy personal trainer will shame you into meeting those goals. It might be less funny coming from your mother or your spouse, but when a non-living thing refers to me as a meatbag, I can’t help but be amused.
This is how it works:
1. Download the app and open it.
2. You’ll immediately be presented with Carrot Fit’s mission statement.
(nom)
(Note the smoke).
3. You’ll then be forced to thank the app for its charity. (Do as it says.)
4. Carrot Fit will then guess your current weight.
5. The result will be an obscene estimate. Mine was 687.1 pounds (which, to be fair, is probably the weight of all the Oreos I’ve consumed in my lifetime). It will then ask you to confirm.
6. If you humbly disagree, it will laugh you off and ask you to choose an appropriate avatar. You can see your options by tapping on the arrows on the side of your screen. To make a selection, press the green Select button.
As you can see, your options are … unique.
7. Once you’ve made your selection, you’ll be treated to an animated performance of how you’ll be treated by the app. If you lose weight, you’ll be showered with gifts.
If you gain weight, you’ll be zapped by a James Bond-ish laser beam.
8. Then you’ll be asked to enter your current weight.
10. Once you’ve done that, you can leave the app and check back in the next day. Or, if you want to fill out your stats, click the bottom-right Menu button.
11. From there you can set your weight-loss goals and monitor your progress via a simple chart.
12. You can also enter your height, so that it will automatically calculate and analyze your body mass index.
And that’s pretty much it! Every day you can return and enter your weight, and every day you will be shamed into feeling bad about not working hard enough.
It might seem harsh to some, but as someone who has grown tired of all the New Age self-affirming vocabulary popularized by fitness cults like SoulCycle, this mean little sidekick is quite refreshing.
Get it in the Apple Store here for $1.99. And check out the video below to learn more:
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