Show HN: Lyle – An AI-Powered Weight Loss App for Men | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Lyle – An AI-Powered Weight Loss App for Men

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21 pointsphiliplyle56 comments

> “How did you hear about me?”

Hacker News

> “I don’t understand that. I’m getting on the subway - give me an hour!”

While paraphrased, the above conversation is essentially the extent of my conversation with Lyle. I would really recommend removing dialogue from the bot that makes it seem like a real person. I know your app didn’t just get on the subway.

thanks for the feedback. We thought making him human-like was a good thing. Can you share more about what you don't like about the interaction? Something I can discuss with the team. Thank you!

It's disingenuous? Why not just say "I've got to look into that and will get back to you."?

A conversation like that would turn me off using this

Sounds interesting, and I'll probably try it when it comes out for Android. Though at the minute I am just inputting my calorie intake into Samsung Health and making sure I don't eat more than 1500 calories a day (weekdays anyway, it all goes to hell a bit at weekends). Nevertheless I lose about a lb a week so the naieve approach seems to work. I presume if I don't tailor my food intake appropriately I could be in danger of malnutrition.

I guess my question is, what does the app offer above and beyond calorie counting?

We're not actually a calorie counter at all. In fact, we kind of are against it. We provide weekly nutritional programs, let you order the groceries you need from the programs and then we check in with you daily to make sure you're sticking with it. Just like a dietitian or nutritionist would. People fall out of love with trackers and calorie counters very quickly so we wanted to create something that was to the point, provided value and didn't require you to log "225g of chicken breast" every time you had one :)

Why would a weight loss app for men be different from one for women?

Typically men want to get rid of their boobs. Women don’t.

Also (edit: some) women tend to be worried about weights work making them 'too big' (despite this being much less of a risk) while men often enjoy weights more than cardio.

Maybe some have that concern. Others of us recognize that it's silly. Also that you can't target weight loss to avoid affecting your boobs. Seems like education is the problem, not gender.

This app has nothing to do with weightlifting, though.

And for the record, there are literally millions of female lifters out there...

in a nutshell lol

AFAIK it's impossible to target where you want your weight loss, so this should be irrelevant.

True. But sufficient amount of broscience can convince people of the contrary.

Thanks for asking. When it comes to leading brands or apps within the weight loss space they are all heavily geared towards women. Think of the top 3 brands, weight watchers, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig. With apps you got the same problem or you pretty much faced with just trackers. So, just from a branding play alone something needs to exist that men feel comfortable using while receiving guidance. I don't know any guys who would use weight watchers or sweat by Kayla. Guys want things straight with no fluff which is why we're not a tracker or a calorie counter. We tell guys what to eat and offer them the option of having the groceries they need delivered. Men need more options.

Some of us ladies want things straightforward too. Just saying.

Totally! We just felt that women have way more options than guys who just want to lose a couple of pounds.

What app are you talking about that is geared towards women?

Have you not heard of My Fitness Pal?

Did it not occur to you that you’re losing out on a huge market that also needs a no-fuss way to lose weight?

Women aren’t stupid. You don’t need to make things pink to sell to women. You don’t need to exclude women entirely to appeal to men.

Men and women have different nutritional needs and physiologies?

That too!!

Not really.

Don't they burn completely different amounts of calories a day as a baseline?

If you count around a 10-20% difference as "completely different amounts". Your height, weight, and activity level play a bigger role.

I mean I'd change jobs for a 20% difference in salary so yeah I do consider them "completely different".

That’s purely a matter of size.

While on average men burn more calories a day, the ideal macronutrient ratios for men and women are exactly the same. Gram amaounts of each macronutrient will be different depending on the person’s weight.

A minor note about marketing — it took me a while to find the link to the app in the post. I was about to give up but ended up finding it just before so I got to the App Store.

I’d suggest adding a “get on App Store” link somewhere prominent so others don’t give up before at least seeing the app.

Thanks for the feedback! Updating now

I'd love to test your app and approach but alas I am a woman and my boyfriend is on Android. I lift weights, I do HIIT cardio, I do yoga, I will try a lot of physical activites. I've also tracked calories, something I hate doing and I just can't bring myself to do this at the moment. I will never do Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers bullshit. Love to see a different means of enabling greater fitness.

You've automatically excluded me from your accepted audience. So sucks to be you? Or does it suck to be me? Or maybe we are eating the suck because you don't get my money, and I might miss out on an effective solution for health improvement.

Oh well...

Would love to test it, but it's not available in the German App Store

Hey, yeah we're only available in the US at the moment we'll be open to other countries later this year. Thanks for trying anyways!

Is there a particular reason?

german language parsing perhaps?

They could just make the English version available.

They could have made the English version available globally.

Americans think 'country' == 'language'.

We still figuring things out with the product before we open it out to all countries. We also offer grocery delivery to paid users who follow our nutritional programs so as we're a small team we wouldn't be able to manage that well at the moment.

Do you have a site/mailing list where we can sign up for alerts regarding launch of the Android app? I'd like to try this, but do not have an iPhone.

Without having tried the app, my biggest complaint with apps such as these is that they recommend recipes/meals (great!) but cannot take into account certain things that I won't eat (tomatoes, most cheeses, low preference for fish). Does Lyle take these things into account when making meal recommendations?

before you sign up and start talking with Lyle we do ask about your preferences where you can say whether you cheese, nuts etc. Tomatoes not at the moment unfortunately but we'll be getting smarter for sure.

Okey so I say I am interested in "Keto" and it just prints me a cookie-cutter keto diet to follow? I think I am very much interested in looking at the app screenshot after the initial phase. In any way this is a very nice idea and I'm glad that there are people who are pushing healthy apps.

Also, to anyone that wants to lose weight - just count calories, eat same thing every day for couple of months and do cardio/hiit. It's not a rocket science.

You'll get weekly nutritional programs based on your preferences yes.

Weight loss isn't rocket science you're right but counting calories and eating the same thing every day is exactly why we exist, people don't want to do that anymore. It's pretty boring and restrictive which is why the average American diets 3-5 times a year :)

> It's pretty boring and restrictive which is why the average American diets 3-5 times a year :)

It's also why average American is overweight. Justsayin'.

In the screenshots I see "Protein:xxg", and series of letters for the other macros. On another I see a picture of salmon and is says "A easy almon". On another I see "Eggs beaten with a dash a water".

So overall, that's pretty shocking and for me a huge red flag about the quality of this.

Are you planning an Android app? I'd love to try this, but don't have an iOS device.

Yes absolutely. hopefully by the summer

I find it silly that this product is exclusively “for men”. The biggest weight loss apps out there — My Fitness Pal, LoseIt, — are gender neutral. I’ve never even seen a “female-centric” weight loss app.

This turned me off immediately.

Since I don't have an iOS device, I'm just going by the screenshots I'm seeing, but I'm wondering what exactly does the app do?

Recommend recipes based on a diet? What makes the AI useful in this case?

Congratulations on launching!

hit a weird bug initially, got to the point where it asked how much water I drank-- I answered "5", and then it reverted to telling me it'll never put me on a diet

Hey, thanks for trying it out! yeah, we asked a few questions that require you to rate things from 1-10 so in order for Lyle to differentiate we asked that you add "glasses" at the end of your answer. but we need to work on making that flow clearer. Thanks again for trying it out.

I ran into the same issue.

If you haven't, I'd check out some other popular chat bots for their UX. Ex.: Woebot https://www.facebook.com/drwoebot/

Having buttons for things like "continue", "go on" or "not right now" is something I took for granted. No need to have me type it if there's a limited set of acceptable responses.

Thanks for checking us out. We haven't come across these guys before. We played around with having buttons or going with NLP to make it more realistic. Perhaps we should have both, thanks for the feedback!

May I ask why you chose Lyle as the name?

> We started Lyle because there’s nothing out there for guys who just want to lose a few pounds.

What?? There are so many resources for anyone who wants to lose weight these days (http://reddit.com/r/fitness, http://reddit.com/r/loseit, http://reddit.com/r/progresspics).

I'd sell this on a different argument in the line of "modern/smartest/easiest way"... with AI!

Appreciate the feedback! Will definitely be reviewing our messaging as we evolve

"For Men". As a man: no thanks.

Seems overly hostile. The post makes it pretty clear that it's targeting a market it feels is under-served: men who want to lose some weight but aren't trying to get ripped. Fair to debate if that is a good niche or not, but such outright dismissal seems uncalled for.

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