Saturday: Pro Fuel and Hydration app: User inquiries

After some consideration, @IvyAudrain and I believe this housecleaning thread is the best approach to protecting the quality of discussion in other threads in this tremendous forum.

Disclosures: This app will be a for-profit venture. It will only be in the nutrition & hydration space, not training.

Here are the FAQ from other threads:

  1. Where can I sign up for beta?

    • Sign up is closed, but you can download iOS & Android versions of app now!
  1. What is it? Available on iOS / android?

    • EDIT: NOW! (see links above)

We’re so grateful for your thoughtful feedback and I’ve been amazed and humbled by how much folks are willing to contribute.

I’m indebted to all of you here on the @trainerroad forum, on which I have gained more than I have ever contributed. Truly an honor being here and learning from & with you.

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Curious to hear your thoughts on this app? Seems like they’re doing something similar to you?

Also loving the app so far. It’s been really interesting. Seems like I’ve been over fuelling on shorter intervals rides.

I’ll probably have to refrain from commenting on other similar apps, just out of an inability to appear neutral if I have any criticisms. I’m glad that it exists!

Edit to add: most of what I do on this forum for the purpose of nutrition guidance is “share ways to improve it” and I don’t feel right taking my typical approach!

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Congratulations on the new thread/further work. Excited to see the progression. :+1::tada:

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Thanks Justin!

Dr. Harrison, would you like feedback or posted here or in an email? I have a few usability notes I’m happy to help provide after using it just a few times :grin:

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Thank you for taking the time to check it out and most of all, offer your feedback. It’s so incredibly valuable at this stage.

You can shoot me an email at support @ saturdaymorning.fit , or join Private Beta Tester Channel on Discord.

Easier to catalogue the beta feedback that way!

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It’s to have a public outlet for feedback and questions. How about I kick of a small Q&A:

  • Is it better to overshoot or undershoot your recommendation for water, carbs and salt?
  • I know from experience that I need more liquid on the bike when training indoors. How should I treat your recommendations?
  • You give ratios to make your own sports drink. Do you have any instructions? What about flavors?

Good questions:

The app recommends optimal amounts based on your user settings. If it’s a scenario where your carbs are being reduced for a very short or easier ride, because you’ve selected “satiety management” instead of performance, then overshooting will have little harm.

If it’s a long ride or harder ride, the app may have prescribe up near what it thinks a good upper limit is for you. It might be risky to overshoot carbs in those scenarios.

Me too! I always rate my indoor training with very high sweat rates using the sweat slider. That typically keeps my fluid & sodium intake pretty appropriate during indoor sessions, and I’m a REALLY heavy sweater.

The app helps you build a recipe for your ideal fuel for each training session. We’re definitely working on really spelling out a step-by-step how-to guide, without cluttering up the screens.

Help me understand what you mean here. Do you mean more instructions for how to put it all together?

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Are there plans to add a post ride check. I.e. did you actually drink all the fuel, how did you feel, etc… I would think this would also let you aggregate data for research in the future.

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Yep!

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Checking out the app. Super cool and very quickly actionable. Low cognitive load which I love.

Any chance at getting custom products to be scaled by weight; if my product lists info per 100g, can I enter in the info assuming the 100g amount while having the app scale appropriately up and down automatically?

Me too! I’d rather spend my brain power elsewhere :slight_smile:

Precisely. The app assumes it this way.

Reiterating just to confirm: If you enter the amounts for a 100g serving of that thing, then when you tap the (+) or (-) buttons to add more or less servings of it, on the PREP screen, it’s always referring back to your preferred serving size.

We’ve had a bit of unexpected demand. We’re closing beta testing to new testers for now.

Please sign up for future openings in beta testing if you did not yet download the app. beta sign-up

Grateful to have your feedback and I look forward to reopening it.

If I may…

May I ask why you love the low cognitive load, specifically? What about that is so appealing?

And, what specifically about the app, makes it feel pretty low cognitive load to use?

(That was my intent in the way I designed it, but just would love to hear your take.)

Ah ok. This needs to be clearer. Looking at the custom product app, that doesn’t indicate that 100g is the assumed size when entering in data. Definitely need to state that from a UI perspective

Some other thoughts and recommendations

  • Metric / imperial switching options (literally never use imperial. Fight me.)
  • In the prep section, could we have options to change sugar directly? I know it auto changes the value of sugar to 0 as you add more products but i tend to not use sugar generally so having it off screen might be nice (small suggestion). Maybe substitute to carbs?
  • Would also suggest that the EU user recommendation in the custom area be like a button / switch from sodium to salt to make it easier to see
  • If you could have bulk maltodextrin / glucose powders also listed that would be great. As a UK user there is myprotein and bulk which offer such items.
  • Maybe a flavouring option in the mix builder?
  • Serving size stated in terms of weight (grams ideally as well)
  • Total calories: I know the focus is performance but those counting calories would love this info off hand
  • Not clear when an activity becomes past. Maybe have a button to move a drink mix to past?
  • Need to be able to write feedback. If I make a godly drink, let me have some stars and a note pad to indicate this! Also a good point to jump off for sharing mixes.

I value the ability to to do the thing I want to do quickly very highly. I find that frictions tend to prevent me in doing what I need to do. Any chance to make something easier to do, I’ll take it so I can ensure consistency.

I forget my drink recipe every time I’m off to make it. Even if I write it down (which I do), I may like to tweak due to adding some flavorings or change the amount of salt. Becomes hard to make adjustments on the fly like that without knowing what changes. This app does that all for me and so I can just go, “oh ok this works, lets fire that up”.

Sorry, I misspoke! App assumes that whatever inputs you give it for carbs and sodium are the serving size that you want. But I can see how that could be made clearer in the UI. Noted!

Where are you seeing that you are locked into imperial? I use metric too!

Great point. What do you typically use?

Safe to assume you are indeed in the EU?

Planned!

Planned!

Planned!

Dicey due to issues surrounding eating disorder psychology, but we are debating internally how to manage this very well. Suffice to say: planned and will be careful and respectful of a wide range of user experiences :slight_smile:

Planned!

Super duper ultra planned and hotly requested :slight_smile:

You and I will get along great.

Beautiful. Me too.

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Thanks for the quick response. Great to see so many planned features! Very excited

I see now that I can switch. Maybe a default option can be included?

Typically use pure glucose / maltodextrin. Glucose / fructose breakdown may be a nice advanced option.

(Rule Britannia vibrating in head while eyes tear up) “I wish”

Maybe an opt-in button that allows you to show it? Understand the need to hide and am extremely sympathetic to how it could affect people.

Whats you’re opinion of “memes”

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Great point. Also planned!

Planned!

We’ll carefully consider this method and a few others. Thank you for this.

May I ask what country you are in, if you’re seeing the EU notice, but not in the EU? I think I may need to fix something here.

I dabble.

If only someone could help me with this racoon one:


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