Why did I start ParrotPal?

What is One Day At A Time - Daily Wisdom?

Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.

Speaker 1: 00:00

Hello. Good morning, everyone. So I had an interesting question over the weekend, and it was why did I start PowerPal? So for some of you listening, you are PowerPal members. Some of you listen, you'd be Turtle members.

Speaker 1: 00:13

Some of you listening maybe even Rugby Warfare customers. So to understand why I built PowerPal and what the purpose of it is, maybe we need to go back in time a bit. And I did like a presentation on this for the Welsh business entrepreneurship like thing about a few years ago. And I used the Steve Jobs quote, you can't connect the dots looking forward, only backwards. And it's true.

Speaker 1: 00:36

So if I if I go back in time to when I was 16, I started my first fitness website then, And I was interviewing, like, top coaches and stuff on my website, and I learned how to rank number one in Google. And I actually got a job from a at Cardiff Sport Nutrition when I was in university because I was able to help him improve his rankings and connect him to coaches and trainers and fitness models and all this stuff. So the journey really started at 16 because, you know, once you get into the gym and you love it and I've got a where when I start something, I get and I get into it, I get into it. So for those next few years, I was, you know, all in on that fitness website and then in university working with Cardi Sports Nutrition. We still got a relationship with today.

Speaker 1: 01:19

And then I eventually sold our website. I was in Nando's actually, and I had no cash to my name, and someone emailed me saying he'd pay a few thousand, for it. So at the time, it was a lot of money for me. And I said, yeah, mate. And I sold our website, and I thought, what do I do now?

Speaker 1: 01:34

And then that's that's when I started rugby warfare as an idea of how can I help amateur rugby players get better at rugby by nutrition and training? So similar concept to the first website, interviewed coaches, interviewed professional players, and built a community around it, built a brand, and then built some clothing range. It's now mainly a clothing brand. You know? So I've always been in the industry in a sense fitness or sports or performance, whatever it may be, active stuff from the start.

Speaker 1: 02:02

And then, you know, Turtle Method was started, in late twenty eighteen, early twenty nineteen, And that came from again, it was linked to rugby warfare because Ryan, Libby, and Louise Thompson you know, Ryan, who is my cofounder, Louise, my cofounder with Turtle. Ryan was actually brand ambassador for rugby warfare because I knew his friend who said, hey. I got a meet. It would be really good. Free brand.

Speaker 1: 02:26

And I sent him some stuff. That's that's when I met Ryan. And then I met Louise, obviously, but, you know, didn't speak of a business or anything for years. And then when I came back from America, where I tried to grow rugby warfare out there, I held, like, a touch rugby tournament between Google, Apple, Facebook, and Tesla employees, which is quite fun. Connected, like, my love for sports and rugby with, like, tech.

Speaker 1: 02:50

And the guy that actually helped build Apple Health was there playing, so that was quite cool. But yeah. So then I was helping a fitness couple out there with a fitness website, and I realized that they were really kind of ripping people off, in a sense. They were offering a decent service, but it was, like, overpriced. There was no help weekly.

Speaker 1: 03:10

There was no coaching. There was no experts. It was like, just do this and better off. And when I came back to The UK and spoke to Ryan and Louise about this problem the industry is going through because at the at the time, remember, the influencers were selling, like, skinny tea and all that stuff. Right?

Speaker 1: 03:24

Like, all that nonsense stuff. And wanna spoke to Ryan and Louise about the state of that and how nobody is teaching people about, like, you know, you can eat the food you like, calories, macros, you know, more, like, realistic ways of, like losing weight. Because you've got to remember now, I was speaking to these coaches who had kind of broke through with their scientific research back when I was 16 to 20. So I was already in luckily speaking to the experts were true experts. But since then, obviously, social media has turned everyone into an expert, and it's gone even worse now.

Speaker 1: 03:59

So we all agreed on this problem. We're like, well, we've got we've got the firepower here. We've got our builder. Louise and Ryan were like in the industry as well because Ryan's PT and Louise was like getting they know she was a lean. She's undercover of women's health and it was like the perfect kind of, coming together of three brains and we launched Turtle.

Speaker 1: 04:19

At the time, it was called Live Like Louise. Now, Turtle is a very different business to Power So we'll get to Power Pal in a minute. The Turtle's philosophy really was that for us to help people lose weight and change over time, it's not just about the weight loss. It has to be slow and gradual, but it's about the education. It's about bringing the right experts in.

Speaker 1: 04:42

So it's really about the philosophy of it, the turtle way, the slow and steady approach, learning from experts, having fun with it, community, in person events, challenges, all this type of stuff to really, like, stretch the mind. And that's really turtle's more like a school, if anything. It's like a school of life with fat loss as the first stage of the school. You know? So that's where Turtle was.

Speaker 1: 05:08

And over the years, Turtle has kind of become that. It's become a school. It's become, some people are losing weight. Some people are maintaining. Some people are gaining muscle.

Speaker 1: 05:16

Some people are just in there for the the training, the workouts, the live workout. Some people are in there for the events. And there's a lot of different people with different aims and goals in Turfland. It's amazing. We've done loads of events.

Speaker 1: 05:28

I think we've done over 10 events now. And that's, you know, that's with COVID as well. So, you know, if we didn't have COVID, we would fly in more beds. So that's Turtle. And then Parrot came along because I noticed that that we built an app with Turtle.

Speaker 1: 05:41

Right? First time I got into the app business, and it was a eye opener, you know, like working with his team, building an app from scratch. You know, we I thought it was never possible to do this because I thought there's no way we can build an app. But people were saying, we don't wanna use MyFitnessPal anymore. We don't wanna use Google Sheets anymore.

Speaker 1: 05:58

We don't wanna do this emails. We want everything in one place. And I was like, yeah, that sounds great, but it's gonna cost a lot of money. But eventually, we did invest into this, and we built the Turtle app. Now, the Turtle app is very comprehensive.

Speaker 1: 06:11

It is it tracks nutrition, yes, but it's also a mental health diary. It also attracts your stress, your menstrual cycle, water intake, your emotions, your physical, how you feel physically. It's it's it's It's just kind of far more comprehensive, and it's wellness app. It's not a it's not necessarily just a weight loss app. Because if it's just a weight loss app, there's a lot of things in the app that, like, would get in the way, would slow it down, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 06:41

But, of course, the people lose weight using the app. Now the reason PowerPal was built, and if you look back at through my past, I'm essentially, like, you know, entrepreneurial in our sense. I'm always what's finding ways to help people with new as long as it's useful. Right? I'm not gonna jump into something that is not useful.

Speaker 1: 06:59

But when the AI working on Turtle, got into machine learning like, think back in 2017, I got into AI, actually. I went to the I went to The Netherlands. I went to Amsterdam on an AI course, and I opened my mind to what was possible with data. I was like, wow. This is amazing, but I don't know how to do it because of the tools and all that.

Speaker 1: 07:18

Right? But fast forward, you know, end of last year where ChatGBT went live and the API and then also other AI companies started bursting onto the scene. It's kind of like open Pandora's box. And I was in early. Like, I was tinkering about I had no clue how to use it to start with, but I learned, I spoke to people and I started developing tools.

Speaker 1: 07:40

Now I realized before actually this Charjibity boom came, I realized that one day you'd be able to tell the app what to do for you. Okay? So you wouldn't have to go and search the food yourself, track it yourself, you know, look at your data. You could just say track this meal I just had, and it would do it. Right?

Speaker 1: 08:02

And I thought once that happens, like your personal AI assistant is a game changer. And when ChartGPT launched, was like, this could be it. Right? But, obviously, to start with, the technology isn't great for nutrition. There was huge amounts of roadblocks we have to overcome to make the app it is today because Parapal is is a weight loss only app.

Speaker 1: 08:21

You know, that's one of the main differences between Parapal and Turtle Method is that Parrot is focusing on weight loss, sustainable weight loss. And the reason for that is most people that do use these tracking apps are trying to lose weight. Right? So it still has the essence of, like, mindset philosophy, taking it slow. But the reason why it had to be built separately is because the new technology in Parapal meant that the entire way we think about tracking was flipped on its head.

Speaker 1: 08:51

No longer are we looking at massive databases ourselves or mice. We don't have to do that anymore. We can literally text it or voice note it, and it will do the work for us. And that's a massive game changer because the research is clear on this. Right?

Speaker 1: 09:04

If you track 66% of your days over the years, so say 66 out of a 100 days, the people in that study lost weight, and people who track thirty three percent of their days at a 100 lost some weight, but 66% of the days lost a considerable amount of weight, and they weren't even trying to lose weight. It was this awareness of tracking, and they were actually using compute online computer, software. They were taking fifteen minutes a day to just track their food. So when I realized the technology and I started tinkering and working with it, I realized there was a breakthrough. I had to do this because this is the way, fat loss is gonna be made easier for people.

Speaker 1: 09:42

And I think it's not just about having a technology. There'll be loads of copycats gonna try and copy what PowerPal does, but they will just be developers. Right? They don't have the experience I do in building these apps and and the and the weight loss and stuff. They don't know what they're actually building for, They're just going to make you track every piece of data, they're going to make you track carbs and fats and salt and fibre, all this stuff, and workouts and everything into it.

Speaker 1: 10:05

When actually if we look at what weight loss is, no diet is superior for weight loss when calories and protein are equated in the research. So what I mean by that is to say now that you've got someone on a Mediterranean diet versus someone on a keto diet versus someone on a paleo diet versus someone on Hakkins, right. If you put all of those diets and you say right, if all of you eat the same calories and the same amount of protein per day and then follow your own plans, so Mediterranean you go off and eat this, paleo you're going off and do your thing, the fat loss results are pretty much identical. Right? So if that's the truth, which it is, because it's backed by a lot of research now, why are we even bothering trying to fit diets into weight loss?

Speaker 1: 10:54

Just eat the food you actually like and hit your calories and protein. It's really that simple. And then you add steps on top. And the reason steps is important is because it gives us a baseline of your activity most days. Doing two or three workouts a week is like 2% of your waking hours.

Speaker 1: 11:09

It is nothing in terms of your energy expenditure. But if you were to be a 10,000 steps a day person, you're more likely to be standing up more, you're more likely to be active. Right? So steps, protein, calories, the golden trio, if those can be tracked easily, right, and I mean as simple as sending a text like you can do in Parapal, that's gonna change a lot of lives. It's bound to because one of the big limitations, and I've you know, this is from surveys I've done is that people are bored of track in.

Speaker 1: 11:38

Weekends are big problem. They, like, go out and eat in restaurants, and they just don't know what to put in, so they give up. Like, sometimes you go throughout the entire day and you haven't tracked anything, and the packaging is gone, so you can't barcode scan, and you forgot the exact quantities and weight, so how what you do. And this is where AI really is gonna be our friend, because AI can do this job for you. Right?

Speaker 1: 11:59

AI can go and find that food from verified databases, take an average or take a higher average just to make sure and track it for you. It's like being able to text a coach and the coach is that you are saying, no. I'm a you're texting me as a human being saying, Scott, I've had this today, and you send me a voice note of everything you've had, and you don't have all the weights and stuff, but you give me a vague idea. I would then go on and find, right, verify food search. Right.

Speaker 1: 12:22

She had this, this, this, and this. Okay. So maybe she had a bigger portion size of this large bowl of rice. Okay. There's probably that.

Speaker 1: 12:30

And I'm working it all on myself. It would take me ages, and I send it back to you and go, alright. I think from the best of my knowledge, you've had about this many calories and protein today, and this is from your target. You've got this left or you've gone over, and you've got us amazing. Thank you so much for doing all our work for me.

Speaker 1: 12:45

That's a lot of work. Right? Imagine someone doing that work every day, but now you can do it in a second, and I think that is crazy. Like, that is crazy stuff. Everything is gonna go this way.

Speaker 1: 12:55

The AI is gonna do these tasks for you. Right? So that's why I built this. I saw that it was gonna make life a lot easier for people, but I knew I had to build a separate app. I knew I had to start from the ground up.

Speaker 1: 13:10

I knew I'd like, a lot of apps out there are based off the the industry norm. That's how the world works. So, like, you know, everything's based off MyFitnessPal, essentially, and how they built the things. So a good database, search and scroll, go down, and there's no doubt they'll add some AI tools and stuff, but they're still based off the old way of doing things. Everything's like this.

Speaker 1: 13:34

So the reason train tracks are as wide as they are is because that's the width of a horse and carriage. And the the width of the horse and carriage is based off the, chariots and the roads of the Romans. So you look you go back five in time. You basically the reason why trains are so narrow, the train tracks are so narrow today, is because that's the width the Romans had for the roads for their chariots and the horse and carriages. Right?

Speaker 1: 14:00

So you think, wow. It's mental. That's how everything works. It's just an improvement on the past. But power power isn't an improvement on the past.

Speaker 1: 14:07

It is a quantum leap into something different. And I think that's why it's very, very effective for weight loss. Now you might be thinking, okay, great. I wanna lose weight. So papa seems good for me, but more if there's some in better results in the future, they'll be compared to it.

Speaker 1: 14:23

There's gonna be competitors. Yeah. And the thing is, I will always be keeping my eye open for how we can make life easier for weight loss over time. Because the thing is the more people that can be freed from diet culture, the better. We've all been part of it.

Speaker 1: 14:35

We've all been sucked into it. And I know how damaging it can be for people who are trapped by, like, oh, I don't know if I can eat that. They stress about eating about a chocolate bar, about this and that. I just wanna lose weight, and I wanna do it, and I'm overwhelmed because you got people on TikTok saying never do this, never do that. Sometimes it's got five ingredients of mope in it, and it's all this, like, fear long run going on.

Speaker 1: 14:57

Right? And I wanna free as many people from as possible so you can actually focus on the things that matter in your life. So when you look back in time when you're old and gray, you're gonna kick yourself for for worrying that you had a chocolate bar or not. But over time, if you focused on your calorie intake and hit your protein, go your steps in and did this basics, not just for weight loss, but that's for your optimizing your health. You're gonna feel better.

Speaker 1: 15:20

You're gonna have better energy each day. You're gonna be in control of things. You're gonna feel a lot better by yourself. Walking has been proven one of the most effective things for improving your mental health. There was a study that came out and compared exercise or activity with antidepressants and it showed that walking was more effective than SSRIs for, depression over time.

Speaker 1: 15:45

And I'm not saying that that's the case for everyone. That's just the average thing. It's for you. We might I'm not saying don't take exercise or whatever. I'm just saying it's interesting that walking as an exercise, I think was second.

Speaker 1: 15:56

I think the number one exercise that came out was dance, which destroyed everyone, basically. Dance was the number most effective, and walking, I think, was second. I think you've got strength training down there somewhere, but something as simple as walking every day, getting your steps in, that could change your life. Because you're going out into the fresh air, thinking about things, listening to the podcast hopefully. So these little things over time will change your life, and eventually you won't have to worry about weight loss, but you'll be still hitting your habits of like, I don't need to over consume energy and definitely wanna keep my protein going to keep my muscle mass, keep my, performance going, metabolic health as I age, and my steps.

Speaker 1: 16:36

So, yeah, that's why I built it. I don't know if that answers the question fully or not. I'm trying to think if there's anything I missed from this question. Yeah. Just fed, just really to finish off, is really just fed up with how complicated people make things.

Speaker 1: 16:53

I think, you know, the more complicated you make something, the more likely you're probably just trying to dupe someone. Obviously, the human body is very complicated. Right? There's, like, trillions of things happening at once. We don't fully understand everything in the body, but we still we still know that, practically, the energy balance equation is very real.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Like, it happens. Some people say, well, it's not the same to eat a thousand calories of sugar and a thousand calories of protein or of meat or whatever. And you go, obviously not. But the energy your body takes is the same, but the nutrient quality is very different. And, obviously, you want nutrient dense foods and never say don't have nutrients dense foods.

Speaker 1: 17:35

But your body still abides by those laws of physics, laws of energy balance. And really, that's the truth. And it is that simple in the sense of weight loss over time. But what is difficult is like emotional eating, binge eating, our relationship with food. Can we eat this?

Speaker 1: 17:54

Can we eat that? Can I enjoy my weekends? Am I going slower so I can actually eat out too and I'm not stressing about this and that. I'm not fighting food all the time. Once you stop fighting food and all this stuff it makes a big breakthrough in your day.

Speaker 1: 18:07

Know you've got to remember as well, there's research on MyFitnessPal, seventy three percent of people who've got, eating disorders or disordered eating say that MyFitnessPal made it worse, I think, or started off of chain reaction, whatever, like a huge number, right? And you gotta think why that is. There's no human help. There's no daily podcast to help understand. There's no attempt to like do a weekly review to help you understand your data, there's no attempt to really help anyone beyond here's the tool, good luck.

Speaker 1: 18:40

So for people who are inexperienced with weight loss, they're in big trouble with MyFitnessPal. For people who are gym goers or bodybuilders, they love it because they understand those things, and there's no problem to them. For most people going into this world and they start off MyFitnessPal, it's potentially very damaging. So I'm trying to fix that with PowerPal, and, you know, Turtle and PowerPal are very different. Turtle is a wellness company.

Speaker 1: 19:02

We do events and all this stuff, and PowerPal is a weight loss focused app, building a community around, helping your mindset with that as well, freeing you. Finally, you know, the tagline's gonna be finally finally fly free. Time, restrictions, all are gone. And you'll have weight loss you deserve, and you get to the physique you want, and then you can crack on and focus another part of your life. Right?

Speaker 1: 19:27

That's the aim of the app, and it will stick to that mission. I won't deviate and add loads of features that are gonna make it worse or make it more complicated. I wanna keep you on the app only as long as necessary to track and review your stuff, and then that's it. So that's it, guys. If you have any questions about it, let me know.

Speaker 1: 19:43

But enjoy your day one day at a time. Get your one big thing done, and I'll speak to you all tomorrow.