The NHS Weight Loss App: What It Does and What It Does Not

The NHS Weight Loss Plan is a free 12-week app. It has weekly guides, a calorie diary, a weekly weigh-in and a daily calorie target. It has no barcode scanner, and the NHS Food Scanner is a different app. Between July 2020 and February 2021, 864,403 people downloaded the plan and 8,305 completed the 12 weeks.

What is the NHS weight loss app, and what does it cost?

In the stores it is listed as NHS Weight Loss Plan. The NHS Better Health page describes a free app where you set a 12-week goal, track what you eat and set a daily calorie target. Both stores list the Department of Health and Social Care as the developer.

The App Store listing adds the details: 12 weekly guides, a daily diary, an in-app BMI calculator and a weekly weight entry. It showed 4.47 stars from 5,922 UK ratings and version 3.7.2, released on 24 September. Google Play showed 4.6 stars from 8.89k reviews and 1m+ downloads. The NHS says more than 4 million people have downloaded the app.

Next comes a BMI check, which the app uses as a gate. Public Health England’s evaluation of the app says people whose BMI fell in the usual range or below were told the plan wasn’t for them. It also links to Beat Eating Disorders, a charity for people with eating disorders. If you get that message, take it seriously.

What do the 12 weeks contain?

The app builds on a printable plan that the NHS published first, according to the PHE evaluation. I read the printable 12-week guide to see what each week asks. The app’s own guides may differ in detail. The printable guide aims at 0.5 kg to 1 kg (1 lb to 2 lb) a week and gives every week one job.

Week	Job in the printable guide
1	Set the daily target, record weight and waist, plan meals
2	Start 150 minutes of activity a week
4	Cravings and snacking, with 100-calorie snack ideas
5	Calories in drinks
6	Halfway review of what is holding you back
7	Eating out
8	Five portions of fruit and vegetables a day
10	Comfort eating triggers
11	Plateaus
12	Keeping the weight off

Week 10 has a note I would stick on the fridge. The guide says people tend to eat more on Fridays and Saturdays than on other days. It asks you to follow the advice every day.

Does the NHS weight loss app count calories?

Yes, as a diary, so it works as the NHS calorie counter many people search for. You log food by meal, pick a portion and watch the day’s total against your target. The NHS calorie counting page says the app lets you set a goal, select portion sizes and track calories through the day.

Where does the target come from? The first release used fixed targets of 1,400 kcal for women and 1,900 kcal for men, according to the PHE evaluation. Later versions personalize the target from your height, weight, age and gender. The NHS page gives two reference points. The average is 2,000 calories a day for women and 2,500 for men, and it suggests cutting around 600. Subtract 600 and you get 1,400 and 1,900. That match is only my arithmetic, since nobody has published the formula behind the app’s targets.

I tried “around 600” on five starting points. The floor comes from the 2013 AHA/ACC/TOS guideline. It lists 1,200 to 1,500 kcal a day for women and 1,500 to 1,800 for men as usual targets. I treat the bottom of each range as a line. No plan I write goes under it.

Usual intake	Minus 600	Floor	What to do
Woman, 2,000 kcal	1,400 kcal	1,200 kcal	Use 1,400 kcal
Woman, 1,700 kcal	1,100 kcal	1,200 kcal	Stop at 1,200 kcal, a cut of 500
Woman, 1,500 kcal	900 kcal	1,200 kcal	Stop at 1,200 kcal, a cut of 300
Man, 2,500 kcal	1,900 kcal	1,500 kcal	Use 1,900 kcal
Man, 2,000 kcal	1,400 kcal	1,500 kcal	Stop at 1,500 kcal, a cut of 500

A fixed cut is a rule of thumb for the average eater, and your body may sit well away from average. If your own total lands under the floor, cut less. For pace, the CDC calls about 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 0.9 kg) a week a gradual, steady rate. A 600 kcal cut adds up to 4,200 kcal over a week.

Log three ordinary days first, before you change anything. Then apply the cut to that average and read the scale as a trend, not a morning. A weight loss tracker app that draws the line does that for you, even when single mornings go up.

How do I split the day’s calories across meals?

The printable guide does it for you. For the 1,400 kcal day it gives a woman 280 kcal at breakfast, 420 at lunch, 420 at dinner and 280 for everything else. The 1,900 kcal day gives a man 380, 570, 570 and 380 (12-week guide). Drinks and desserts count inside those figures.

To cut from your own day, use the split on the NHS calorie counting page It takes the 600 kcal cut as 100 from breakfast, 200 from lunch, 200 from dinner and 100 from snacks. Here is that split on a made-up 2,000 kcal day.

Meal	Usual (kcal)	Cut (kcal)	New target (kcal)
Breakfast	450	100	350
Lunch	650	200	450
Dinner	700	200	500
Snacks	200	100	100
Day	2,000	600	1,400

Snacks lose half of their calories, and I’d expect to feel that cut first. The same NHS page says to count the oil and spreads you cooked with, toppings like cheese or yoghurt, and sauces. Drinks count too, including alcohol, fizzy drinks and juice. Those are the lines people skip in week one.

How many people finish the 12 weeks, and how much do they lose?

Very few complete it. Those who do report losing about 5.8 kg (just under a stone). The evaluation covers 27 July 2020 to 9 February 2021, the months right after the relaunch. Here is how the downloads thinned out, with the shares worked out by me.

Stage	Users	Share of downloads
Downloaded the app	864,403	100%
Entered details in the BMI calculator	726,126	84.0%
Started the 12-week plan	68,942	8.0%
Completed the 12 weeks	8,305	1.0%

Of those who started, 12.0% completed it. Starters reported losing 2.4%, or 2.1 kg. Completers reported 6.5%, or 5.8 kg, and 64.2% of them lost 5% or more. Even so, 13.2% of starters and 4.4% of completers reported weight gain.

No comparison group, and users typed in their own weights. The report counts a “completer” as someone who entered weights in week 1 and week 12 and in at least 9 of the 12 weeks. People who stay for 12 weeks are not a random sample of everyone who downloads an app.

One finding surprised me. More days of logging calories went with slightly less weight loss, and the report recommended looking into an alternative to calorie counting. It can’t say why, and people who struggle may simply log more. Either way, the diary is a tool, not the plan. If counting itself is the problem, there’s a simple app weight loss review of a fasting tracker whose store text promises no calorie counting.

Women who logged reported eating 1,461 kcal a day on average and men 1,780 kcal, close to the original 1,400 and 1,900 targets.

Who finishes the plan, and who doesn’t?

The evaluation’s appendix breaks the drop-off down, and I worked out the shares. Among starters, 11.0% of women completed the plan (6,322 of 57,627) and 17.5% of men (1,983 of 11,315). Age makes a wider gap. Of starters aged 18 to 29, 7.3% completed (988 of 13,624), against 20.2% of those aged 60 and over (2,306 of 11,412), according to the PHE evaluation.

Of completers, 94% reported some weight loss, and 67% kept using the app after week 12. The report doesn’t say why younger users left sooner. I’d read the gap as a description. If you’re under 30, settle your own reason for sticking with it before you start.

Is there an NHS food scanner app?

Yes, but it is a separate app with a different job. NHS Food Scanner comes from the same developer. Its App Store listing says you find a barcode and see what is inside, drawn as sugar cubes, lumps of saturated fat and salt sachets. A cube is 4 g of sugar. The listing never mentions calories or a diary. A 2022 study describes the app as aimed at children aged 5 to 11 and their parents.

The two NHS apps don’t connect, so you scan in one and type in the other. Scan three things from your cupboard. Then look at the sugar cubes.

What does the NHS weight loss app leave out?

Its store listing named a diary, a BMI calculator, weekly guides and a calorie target. It did not name barcode scanning, photo logging or a link to Apple Health. An app can add things later.

Gaps show up fastest in the food list. I read the 500 most recent UK App Store reviews, from 25 October 2024 to 8 October 2026, and sorted them by what people complained about. About forty say foods are missing or the search is thin, and about ten mention having no barcode scanner or wanting one. Reviews lean toward people with something to say, so read those counts as a rough hint.

When the search fails, use the pack. The NHS says to weigh portions before cooking, with an example of rice: 260 calories for a 75 g portion becomes 520 for 150 g. Read kcal per 100 g off the label and multiply by your grams. Type in the total. Several reviewers say the heart icon, which saves a food to favorites, makes repeat meals quick, so add your usual breakfast once.

My reading is that the plan suits someone who wants 12 guided weeks and cooks simple food, since typing a few ingredients costs little. A week built on packaged or restaurant food is where the missing scanner hurts, because every entry becomes slow, and I’d start shopping for a replacement then. The checks in the best calorie counter app guide tell you what to look for in the replacement, and if you’re coming from a Points plan, the Weight Watchers app alternative write-up covers the fee, cancelling and your data.

How do I log a packaged food by hand?

Use the label on the back. The NHS label guide says every pre-packed food shows its energy in kJ and kcal per 100 g or 100 ml, and sometimes per portion. The portion is the manufacturer’s idea and may not be yours. So take the kcal per 100 g, weigh your own portion, and multiply. The NHS rice example, on its calorie counting page, is 260 kcal for 75 g, about 347 kcal per 100 g.

The same page gives the lines for a food that is high or low per 100 g.

Per 100 g	High	Low
Fat	more than 17.5 g	3 g or less
Saturated fat	more than 5 g	1.5 g or less
Sugars	more than 22.5 g	5 g or less
Salt	more than 1.5 g	0.3 g or less

Read those off the pack when you want to know why a food would score red on the front label.

How do I test a replacement in ten minutes?

Give a trial app these five checks, each with an answer you can verify.

1. Scan three packets from your cupboard. The kcal per 100 g on screen should match the label. A packet it cannot find tells you how often it will fail on your shopping.
2. Add a custom food of 75 g at 260 kcal, the NHS rice example, then change the amount to 150 g. The total should read 520 kcal.
3. Save a home recipe from raw ingredients, then log a quarter of it.
4. Find where the daily target comes from. The bottom of the usual range in the 2013 AHA/ACC/TOS guideline is 1,200 kcal for women and 1,500 for men, so an app that lets you set a lower goal without a warning fails.
5. Look for an export of your diary before you enter a week of data.

An app that passes four of five is worth a week. Keep the NHS app open beside it for that week, so you can compare your daily totals.

Who should talk to a doctor first?

Anyone with a medical condition, a special diet for health reasons, or an eating disorder now or in the past. The NHS says to talk to a GP or healthcare professional before you change how you eat in those cases. A weight loss app can’t weigh up your medicines or your history.

If counting calories has started to feel hard to stop, or eating feels out of control, talk to someone: ANAD in the US (1-888-375-7767), Beat in England (0808 801 0677), NEDIC in Canada (1-866-633-4220) or the Butterfly Foundation in Australia (1800 33 4673). If you’re in danger right now, call your local emergency number. Other UK numbers and crisis lines are on our crisis support page.