Age: 32 Goal: To understand how much I consume each day and to take the guessing out of dining out Confession: I’m a grazer. I’ve never been one to stick to eating three solid meals a day. Instead, I eat many small meals and snacks — some so small I don’t know if they qualify as a snack. I have a hard time passing through my kitchen without grabbing something, whether it’s a few almonds or grapes or a sliver of banana bread. I know this isn’t a good habit, and it’s especially problematic because I pass through my kitchen a lot since I work from home often. I’m not concerned with losing weight right now, but I did want to get a handle on how much I’m taking in on an average day. I try to eat a healthy diet that is mostly pescatarian (I don’t eat meat but do eat fish), and yet I’m sure all of those mini snacks here and there add up to something. But what? Is this habit more detrimental to my healthy-eating goals than I ever thought? So when I had the opportunity to try Suggestic, a nutrition app that creates personalized eating plans, I jumped on it. I wanted to see if it could help share some insight on my eating habits and push me to become healthier.

What Is Suggestic?

Suggestic calls itself an “AI-powered personalized nutrition platform that uses advanced technology to create and deliver customized eating plans that are individually tailored to each person.” It’s an app that’s available to download for free, though some of the eating plans are only available to those with a premium membership, which costs $12.99 per month. It guides you in selecting an eating plan (or “Program”) and then shows you how to best stick to the plan by offering recipe ideas, meal planning tools, and a nutrient tracker so you can see how much carbohydrates, protein, and fat you’re taking in. The “Program” button on the bottom right side of the app outlines your plan and clearly lays out the foods you should eat more of, less of, and not at all. But Suggestic doesn’t leave the “can I eat this or not?” questions to you. The app goes a step further and proactively recommends what to eat within the “Recipes” tab, with an “Adherence Score” next to each recipe to indicate how well the recipe fits within your plan. The score is a number on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being the healthiest or best fit. There’s a restaurant feature too, and the app can help you find your perfect order at more than 500,000 restaurants around the United States. You can use this feature by clicking on the “Restaurants” button and seeing nearby restaurants and dishes that fit your plan. Or, you can try the Suggestic Lens feature: Point your phone at a restaurant menu, and you’ll see suggestions that align with your diet and goals. (Note: I couldn’t try out this feature firsthand because I was using the app during a shelter-in-place order due to COVID-19, but a spokesperson for the app told me it has the ability to scan over 35 million menu items.) Many of Suggestic’s basic meal plans, such as vegetarian or Mediterranean, are free, but there are also six premium programs, including the 21-Day Vegan Reset, 10-Day Wheat Belly Grain Detox, and Dr. Mowll’s 28-Day Metabolic Reset. These premium programs cost $12.99 per month or $59.99 per year and offer more support than the basic ones. They’re created by experts and come with an invitation to a private Facebook group where you can lean on a community of people who are also following the program, as well as monthly coaching calls from registered dietitians. RELATED: The Best Diet Plans of the Year, According to U.S. News & World Report

Here’s What Happened When I Tried It

I downloaded Suggestic on my phone and upon signing up was asked to choose up to three health goals from the following:

Weight lossPerformanceDigestive disordersInflammationEat betterEnergy, fatigueSkin conditionsFocus, brain fog

It then asked me how experienced I am at changing habits and how I prefer to eat, whether gluten-free, low-carb, paleo, Mediterranean, keto, mostly vegetables, intermittent fasting, or a balanced approach. I have a somewhat restrictive diet because of my preferences, not allergies. I don’t eat meat or dairy, but I’m not vegan because I do eat eggs and fish. The app then recommended eating programs based on my answers, and I had the option to choose one. I chose to follow Suggestic’s Pescatarian Diet for one month, which aligned with my usual eating style. The plan called for avoiding meat and eating eggs, veggies, fish, fruit, legumes, nuts, and seeds. Once I signed up, I began receiving emails from Suggestic cofounder Shai Rozen with tips on how to best use the app and motivational messages to keep me on course. RELATED: Smart Health: I Tried Noom for Weight Loss — and It Worked

3 Things I Liked About Suggestic

Here are three things that set Suggestic apart from other weight-loss and food-diary apps I’ve tried:

  1. It creates a personalized meal plan for you. Not only does the app factor in how you like to eat, it also gives the option to enter allergies or foods you avoid, such as dairy, eggs, gluten, peanuts, and soy. You can choose from over 50 different preferences and specify foods you’re simply not interested in eating. Not into broccoli? Enter it, and the app will filter it out of its suggestions. I don’t have allergies, but my dad has about a dozen, and I could see this being extremely helpful in broadening his usual menu.
  2. It suggests recipes that fit your plan. Anyone else find it annoying to flip through a food magazine or scroll through a website and be drawn to a specific dish, only to find out that it contains tons of ingredients you’re avoiding? The app eliminates that frustration by showing you recipes that fit within your eating guidelines.
  3. Its restaurant tool is super convenient. Dining out while on a diet can be frustrating — staring at a menu wondering what you’re allowed to eat sucks the fun out of the whole experience. If you’ve ever been there, Suggestic’s restaurant tool is a godsend. When you pull it up in the app, you’ll see a list of nearby restaurants and information that notes how many menu items at each restaurant fit your plan. You can also search by restaurant name or cuisine type. I didn’t need this feature too much since I didn’t change my usual eating habits, but I could see this feature being extremely helpful for people following a restrictive diet, like keto or paleo. RELATED: 27 Best Restaurants for Keto Diet Followers

3 Things I Disliked About Suggestic

Despite the personalization and accommodations for allergies and food preferences, there were a few things that kept me from falling in love with the app.

  1. Tracking food can be a pain. This isn’t my first venture into the world of food tracking. And I realized there’s a reason I never stick with it for too long: I find it to be a pain to log every bite I take. I know research shows it helps people reach their weight-loss goals. A study published in February 2019 in Obesity, for instance, found logging food intake digitally was an effective way to lose weight, and those who logged consistently lost more weight than those who did not. I understand why it helps, too. But in practice, I find it time-consuming and cumbersome. Most days, I’d forget to track my food immediately and completely, so it wasn’t as accurate as it’s designed to be. This isn’t Suggestic’s fault as much as my general disdain for tracking food. Still, I think I’d have been more likely to keep up with it if they offered push notifications to remind me to log meals (with bonus points if they were sent to my phone around my usual mealtimes!). Also, I would have been more diligent about logging every bite if I had a weight-loss goal in mind. I didn’t, so tracking fell by the wayside. But if your goal is to slim down, research shows tracking your food is worth it — you just have to commit to developing the habit of logging the foods as soon as you’re finished eating.
  2. The food database was clunky, making navigation difficult. Their food database is huge, which sounds great in theory, but I found it provided too many options. For example, I tried to log peanut butter and had to choose from about 100 different brands. Granted, the nutritional information was similar for them all so it didn’t matter much. Logging the correct portion size was also annoying. I had a slice of Irish soda bread and had to hunt for an option that offered the serving size as one slice versus ounces, because I had no idea how many ounces I’d eaten. If the app offered more portion options, such as typical serving sizes in addition to offering the usual ounces or cups, that would be helpful.
  3. Connectivity issues prevented me from using the app consistently. If the technology is working, great. But if you’re in a bad Wi-Fi zone or having connectivity issues, it can lead to a frustrating experience. Take one day when I tried searching for a veggie burger within my ZIP code. The three green dots indicated the system was trying to load suggestions, but it never did. To get around the issue, it might help to fire up the app when you’re at home or somewhere with good Wi-Fi and choose your restaurant and order in advance, just in case connection issues come up. RELATED: The 14 Best Weight Loss Apps for Every Need

My Final Thoughts

I didn’t lose any weight over the weeks I tried Suggestic, but that wasn’t what I was going for anyway. I did learn a lot about the way I eat, though, while using the app. For one, yes, all those bites and small snacks I eat throughout the day do add up and are more numerous than I thought. A small handful of almonds on my pass through the kitchen, though a healthy snack, still adds calories — about 200, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The app helped me realize I was consuming 600 to 700 calories per day from snacking, which is a significant slice of the 2,000 per calories day I should be getting, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It was a good thing for me to learn and is something I’ll need to seriously cut back on if weight loss becomes the goal in the future. But more importantly, and less expectedly, the app pushed me to broaden my horizons beyond my go-to meals. I branched out of my daily kale smoothie and go-to dinners and tried recipes the app suggested, including a vegan chia pudding with blueberries and a salmon quinoa bowl. I still heavily relied on the meals I’m used to eating, but it was nice to add something new to the rotation. Overall, Suggestic is so much more than a food tracker — there’s no question the app makes it easier to stick to specific eating plans. I don’t think the app is particularly helpful if you’re not completely overhauling the way you eat, but if you’re starting an entirely new diet or eating plan and need meal inspo, this is an intuitive and useful tool that could help keep you on track.

Other Ways I Maintain a Healthy, Balanced Diet

My general philosophy is to eat foods that make me feel good and limit foods that don’t. That’s what led me to the pescatarian diet in the first place. I experimented with a vegan diet for a few months a couple of years ago and loved the way my body responded to no dairy, meat, and other animal products. I had more energy and fewer post-meal crashes. But I didn’t love all of the restrictions, so I let some things back in — eggs, baked goods, and cheese occasionally — and you know what? I still felt good. I try not to be too strict with my diet (too many rules takes all the fun out of eating), but I know I’ll feel crummy if I eat junk food or too much fried food in one sitting. Factoring in how I’ll feel an hour later usually leads me to healthy food choices.