A message from our founder

I created MealPilot because I wanted something that didn’t exist.

For as long as I can remember, people have said things to me like “you eat so quickly”, “it's not a race”, “there are seconds”, “this isn't your last meal”, and “I can't believe you finished that”. I have been the subject of countless remarks, both positive and negative, about my weight and physical appearance from friends, family, classmates, colleagues, and doctors. These comments were generally intended to be helpful, but regardless of their nature they always made me uncomfortable.

As a child, I developed disordered eating and body image issues that continue to this day. My weight has fluctuated significantly since I was about eight years old. Regardless of what the scale said, I never felt like I had a “good” body. I put “good” in quotations because I know now that there is no such thing as a good or bad body. Nevertheless, if you are reading this, you can imagine and perhaps relate to the impact that had on my daily self confidence and approach to life.

I tried everything to lose weight. All kinds of diets, running, biking, walking, weights, sports, fasting, mobile apps, and more. Sometimes I would lose weight. Sometimes there was no difference. Sometimes, to my surprise, I would gain weight. The long-term trend through these cycles was that my baseline weight crept higher and higher.

As I entered my 30s, I learned about the practice of mindfulness. At a high level, mindfulness is about being present in the moment and aware of your thoughts and feelings, in a non-judgmental way throughout the process. There are many ways to practice mindfulness, like meditation, breathing, “micro” exercises, and more. The benefits can be immediate, and consistent practice can yield tremendous mental, physical, and physiological results. The caveat: it’s not easy. It’s even less easy than it may seem when you are first introduced to it.

As I expanded mindfulness into various aspects of my life, I became curious about mindful eating. Yet, even being mindful during meals did not produce some of the results that I was hoping for. I wanted to build habits like savoring my food more, eating more slowly and nutritiously, spending more time talking to people around the table, improving digestion, and (yes) losing weight. I learned that being mindful did not necessarily change my approach to food the way that I hoped.

I started searching around for a mobile app that could be my companion to help me habituate these changes. Plenty of applications popped up that claimed to relate to mindful eating, but not a single one did what I wanted. In fact, many of these apps were masquerading as mindfulness but in reality were just calorie counters, fitness trackers, or diet guides. Don’t get me wrong: apps like that can be effective at helping people achieve their goals. But I knew that using “weight loss” as a primary goal did not work for me. I wanted to feel like I was building toward positive changes with my relationship with eating – whether I lost weight, gained weight, or just stayed at the same level.

That is when I decided to create MealPilot: the first mobile app that is your personal co-pilot for navigating your meals on your terms. Only you can determine what this means to you, and it will likely differ from what it means for me and for others. In my experience, I now eat smaller portions more frequently and at a more measured pace. I feel less full after eating, I stay more hydrated, and my digestion has improved. Yes, I’ve lost weight, but that’s not the point – the point is to keep your mind, your body, and your meal in sync. MealPilot does just that.

I won’t lie to you that my body image issues and disordered eating have miraculously lifted. MealPilot can help, but mindfulness is no panacea for any perceived problem. I hope you will use MealPilot, but I want you to know that it’s not intended as a substitute or replacement for anything you are doing now or may think about doing in the future. You can use MealPilot on its own, with dieting or exercise, or even with Ozempic. You can use it as much or as little as you like. The fundamental goal is to make you realize: it’s the journey that counts.