I love the idea behind this app/program. As someone who has for years looked to dieting as the way to lose weight I now see the key role that making behavioral changes plays in achieving overall health - which is in actuality my overall goal. One main issue (and reason for the missing star): One part of the program consists of missions of which the user has the option of accepting or declining one or both. If declined another is offered. There are times I’ve declined a mission that I’m certain I would benefit from simply because I may be unable to complete it within a specified time period because of circumstances outside of my control. MY ISSUE? I get the response that the mission may not be right for me so I won’t be offered that mission again - no questions asked. For me personally that’s very disappointing because as I indicated above, the mission (s) declined may be some that I desperately need to complete in order to make the behavioral changes necessary to help me achieve optimum health.

I started using Shapa for motivation but I haven’t found what was expected. The daily missions are often not in line with my IF or OMAD lifestyle and the fact that they only offer two per day is demotivating. If I reject a mission because it does not fit with my lifestyle and I have to wait for the next day for a new suggestion which also often doesn’t fit. The result….I spend days waiting for a mission that actually will help provide a small change and all the while the mission completion rate remains low. Potentially would help if they targeted specific lifestyles rather than assume everyone eats three meals per day and loves leftovers or have a large network of like minded people who want to work out with me. I requested to see more water consumption challenges and have only seen a couple in the past 5 months. While it is not helpful for me, I can see how it may he useful for someone following a standard calorie in calorie out diet approach.

The guy who is handling the customer service is absolutely the most rude customer service I have ever dealt with. Not sure why the CEO of Shapa is handling customer service because HE IS HORRIBLE AT IT. Anyway..HE HANGUP ON ME MULTIPLE TIMES. I was in the middle of explaining the error situation with the apps and he cut me off saying “I'm on the phone. Call u back in 5 minutes” and he hang up and never called me back. Fantastic! He always cut me off whenever I explained something, always rushing, super unfriendly tone almost sounds like he is yelling. Seriously horrible! He is the only one who handles all the customer service. I have never talked to anyone else but him.And I bought the subscription in March, but the apps still shows it’s expired til now (now it’s September). So he helped me again, AFTER I LEFT HIM AN UPSET VOICEMAIL. He sounded super frustrated on the phone, just overall annoying tone, and when he got the apps finally running, he quickly said “BYE!”. No apology, no thank you for your patience, NOTHING! I finally got my one year subscription running. And this is gonna be my last year using this scale. SHAPA CUSTOMER SERVICE IS NIGHTMARE.

The only reason I’m sticking with this is because the Vitality program that the company I work for uses awards points for just weighing in, no matter the weight gain or loss. Issue #1: Not ideal for women who have periods.For women about to get their period, weight retention starts before the period starts. I feel as though if you put your period dates in and say that your periods don’t match the standard 28 days, the app should still be able to tell that your period could be coming and not have as much of the shaming text when your weigh in color is grey. I’m not sure what it does when you say you have a reliable 28 day cycle but, hey Shapa programmers, fyi “period weight” (I call it fluff) starts before your period begins. Issue #2: Useless for women trying to get pregnant or who are pregnant.Most women get pregnant and miscarry multiple times before successfully getting/staying pregnant. And then most women do get pregnant, just like most women do get periods… SO, this app desperately needs a pregnancy setting. Like, at minimum, let me tell it I’m pregnant just so the shaming text when my weight is grey doesn't show up. Please. Very frustrating. And when a pregnancy setting is developed, PLEASE don’t try to predict how much weight gain is normal when someone is pregnant. Just don’t. We get shamed enough at the doctor’s office (well, I don’t, I’ve banned them from talking about my weight 😉).