The Rise App: Nutrition experts in your pocket

The Rise App: Nutrition experts in your pocket

Aside from moonlighting as a fitness and nutrition writer, I own a gym and act as a personal trainer and group fitness coach. My clients come to our gym for a number of reasons, including strength building, endurance training, weight loss, and general fitness. As a result, I try to stay up-to-date on tools that will help our members with their personal goals.

When weight loss is the goal, aside from prescribing a diet filled with lean meats, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, and no sugar, I encourage clients to keep a food diary, either manually in a notepad or with an app (e.g. My Fitness Pal or My Plate), to track and monitor their daily food intake. The hope is that together, my client and I will begin to notice patterns in their eating habits – where overeating occurs and what foods can either be reduced or taken out entirely, for example. While I provide my professional opinion to my clients when viewing their food diaries, not everyone has access to fitness and nutritional help on an everyday basis – until now.



A new app called, Rise, provides users with a nutrition expert at their fingertips. The app pairs the user with a coach, who is works with them one-on-one to help them reach their fitness and weight loss goals. The app is simple to use, affordable (costing as little as $15 a week), and provides a human element that simple calorie trackers cannot.

When signing up for Rise, you enter in the typical data such as your height, current weight, gender, activity levels and goal weight. However, Rise, takes the “getting to know you” data a step further and allows you to post your real reason(s) for seeking nutrition health – ranging from general weight loss to help with marathon training. Not only that but it also allows you to identify and distinguish how you generally eat to pair you with an appropriate coach: whether you are vegetarian, vegan, follow a Mediterranean diet, or in the Paleo camp, they have a coach well suited to your needs.

Aside from being paired with coach that understands your needs, the app is simple to use. Instead of typing in food items and searching for them in other calorie tracker apps, Rise, lets you simply take a picture of your food and submit it for review. The coach then offers his advice on each meal and offers suggestions based on what he sees. The end result something calorie trackers cannot provide – human accountability. You receive real feedback from a real person to keep you on track and your eating habits in line with your personal goals. You can even choose the type of feedback you receive, ranging from encouragement to tough love, whatever type of motivation you need to keep you on track.



Having a coach, whether face-to-face or via online, can help keep you accountable and motivated as you work towards your weight loss goals. However, the service provides you with more than accountability and motivation; it assists you in establishing healthy eating habits. Establishing good eating habits not only sustains weight loss but also provides you with better overall health. So give Rise a chance – the only thing you have to lose are a few extra pounds you have been holding onto.

Stay ahead of the holiday weight gain: A few tricks, so you can enjoy the treats!

Stay ahead of the holiday weight gain: A few tricks, so you can enjoy the treats!

Halloween is next week, and October’s spookiest night will kick off this year’s holiday season. Before you will be even begin to put away all of your candy, we will begin the short-lived, busy weeks heading towards Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then New Years. Over the course of the next couple of months, there will be parties with friends, work gatherings, and family dinners – which may make it difficult to get to the gym and to keep your diet in check. As a result, while you are putting on the final touches of your costume for the party, also consider using these few tricks to stay ahead of all of the treats (and calories!) you will likely encounter.  

Scan the buffet table. When attending social functions, make sure that you scan the buffet table for what is available before loading up your plate. Assessing your choices first before filling your plate will allow yourself to eat the best food available as well as allow yourself to splurge – but do so in moderation. While one or two small cookies are not going to cause your waistline to expand, trying all six options may leave you feeling a little guilty and a little less confident about the notch in your belt.

Savor what is special. It’s Thanksgiving, and your grandma makes a mean pecan pie. Since you only grandma’s pie only comes around once a year, you want to make sure that you can enjoy the indulgence. So be sure to plan ahead: eat smaller portions during the main course; try to exercise at some point during the day to make room for the extra calories; and savor your piece of pie. Eat slowly, enjoy it, and then avoid all of the additional dessert options that have always have never even come close to grandma’s pie.

Hold back on the drinks. Aside from all of the small plates and treats, drinking large amounts of alcohol not only leads to a lot of unneeded calories (but also the potential to being over-served – something you and your boss do not need to experience!) Try to limit yourself to one or two cocktails over the course of the evening; limit consumption by drinking a glass of water in between each drink and/or switching over to soda water. Aside from cutting back on the amount of drinks you are having in an evening, also try options that have less sugar, such as red wine.

Plan ahead. When you are traveling to and fro, try to plan ahead to ensure that you have some healthy options. Pack healthy snacks that are well-portioned and easily accessible for when hunger strikes. It may save you some cash on the expensive products at the airport and/or prevent you from indulging in that candy bar at the convenience store.

Work it out… anywhere.  During the holidays, all of the parties, gatherings, and traveling can cut into gym time. However, that does not mean you still can’t keep moving throughout the day. Simple things, such as parking further away in the lot while you run errands and taking the stairs instead of the elevator can help burn a few extra calories. Plus, even if you have twenty minutes to yourself, performing body weight exercises, for example push ups, sit ups, squats, lunges, etc., can help you get in a brief, hard-hitting workout.

The holidays are an exciting time of year, but can also be dangerous on your waistline if you don’t take proper action. So this year – stay ahead of the holiday weight gain, starting with Halloween, so you can take on a more inspiring New Year’s resolution (the next Great American Novel, anyone?) and, of course, enjoy yourself.