Frequently asked questions

Your protein floor

How is my protein floor calculated?

Your floor comes from three things you tell Alongside at setup: your height, your goal, and how many days a week you train. Height gives a reference bodyweight — the middle of the healthy weight range for your height — and your floor is 1.28 to 1.44 grams of protein per kilogram of that reference weight. A recomposition goal and more training days move you toward the top of that range.

Alongside uses reference weight rather than your scale weight on purpose: a floor built on scale weight would overshoot for many people during fat loss, and would shift every time the scale moved. The 2025 joint advisory on GLP-1 nutrition makes the same point about actual body weight (see the next question). Your floor doesn’t change day to day. It’s one number, and it stays put.

Is it backed by the medical community?

The most relevant guidance is the 2025 joint advisory on nutrition for GLP-1 therapy from four societies: the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the American Society for Nutrition, the Obesity Medicine Association and The Obesity Society. It recommends 1.2 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of adjusted body weight during major weight loss, notes that using actual body weight can overestimate needs, and says there’s no consensus yet on the best weight to base protein on. Alongside’s floor uses the low end of that per-kilogram range, applied to a reference weight for your height — deliberately conservative, because it’s a minimum to reach every day, including days when appetite is low. Alongside isn’t endorsed by any medical organization. If your clinician has given you a protein target, follow theirs.

Mozaffarian D, et al. Nutritional priorities to support GLP-1 therapy for obesity. Am J Clin Nutr. 2025;122:344–367.

Does GLP-1 use change my floor?

No. Your floor is the same whether or not you’re on a GLP-1. Lower appetite makes protein harder to reach, not less important. What changes is how your day is laid out: if you’re currently using a GLP-1, Alongside spreads your protein across more, smaller eating occasions, so the total stays reachable when appetite is low.

How coaching works

How does GLP-1 use affect daily coaching?

If you’re currently on a GLP-1, your daily check-in asks whether your appetite is lower than usual today. If you say yes, that day’s plan leans toward proteins that are easier to get down — softer, moister or drinkable options, milder flavors — in smaller, more frequent servings. Your floor isn’t lowered, and a small sitting isn’t treated as a failure. If you say no, you get your usual plan. In conversation, the coach also shrinks the next step to something you can actually do, rather than repeating the full target.

How does coaching differ for losing weight vs. recomposition?

Alongside offers two goals. Losing weight means bringing your weight down while holding on to muscle. Recomposition means building muscle while getting leaner — the scale often moves more slowly than your body does.

Your goal helps set your floor (see above). From there, the difference is what happens around it. If you’re losing weight, the floor is the day’s job: once you reach it, Alongside stops suggesting more protein. For recomposition, the floor is a minimum, and harder exercise days build in more — up to about a quarter above your floor on your hardest days. Portion sizes differ too: smaller for weight loss, larger for recomp. Either way, the app shows you one number: your floor.

How does coaching change with that day’s training?

Each daily check-in asks what your exercise plan is today. Your floor never changes with it. For recomposition, a harder session means the plan builds in more protein above your floor that day — about 10% more on a moderate day, up to about a quarter more on a hard one. Light days and rest days stay at your floor. If you’re losing weight, the plan stays at your floor however hard you exercise.

How do meal recommendations adapt to my behavior?

When you log a meal, the rest of your day re-plans around what’s left: remaining meals move to fit the time you have, and portions adjust to the gap, within sensible serving sizes. No meal is ever scheduled after 8 PM. Alongside keeps a two-week record of the days you reached your floor, your current streak, and any recent gaps, and coaches from it. It also remembers what it suggested recently, so you aren’t served the same meals day after day. On any meal’s prep details you can tap Swap, pick the ingredients you don’t want, and the meal adjusts around them straight away — the protein food and its target stay the same.

How do my Preferences affect recommendations?

Allergens and dietary restrictions are hard rules: any protein they exclude is removed from your options before a plan is built, and the plan is also instructed to keep your allergens out of every part of a dish, including ingredients a cuisine usually relies on. Proteins you’ve turned off in Preferences are left out, and your on-hand list tells the plan what you actually have today. None of this lowers your floor — it changes which proteins you’re offered, never how much. When your options get narrow, the app tells you why, for example “3 not on hand today.” If you have a food allergy, always check ingredients and labels before you cook or eat.

Your data and privacy

Does Alongside collect or share my data?

When you sign in with Google, Alongside stores your email address, your name and a link to your Google profile picture. Beyond that, it stores what you give it: your setup answers, daily check-ins, meal logs (including photos), and your conversations with the coach. A small set of providers runs the service:

• OpenAI builds your daily plan and estimates protein from your meal photos and descriptions.
• Anthropic runs the coaching conversation and meal-prep guidance.
• Supabase holds the database and sign-in.
• Vercel hosts the app.
• Google handles sign-in and our support email.

We don’t sell your data or use it for cross-context advertising. Neither AI provider trains on your data; each may generally keep inputs for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring. Choosing a healthcare partner in the app shares nothing personal with them, and any reporting to a partner is limited to de-identified totals across groups of at least 20 members — never your individual data. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.

How is my personal information kept private?

Beyond the policy, privacy is built into how Alongside keeps its records. The log that tracks how safety-related messages are handled contains neither who you are nor what you wrote. Our server logs record sizes and outcomes, not your meals or your words — those logs sit outside the reach of a deletion request, so we keep your content out of them in the first place. Your conversations, meal logs and photo estimates are stored with your account and are covered by your deletion rights.

What control do I have over my information?

In the app, you can reset to start fresh. A reset clears your setup answers (you’ll go through setup again), your plan, your on-hand list and your daily history, including Trends. Your Preferences are kept. It doesn’t delete your account or your conversation history. To get a copy of your data, or to delete your account and everything with it, email support@alongsidecoach.fit. We’ll verify it’s you and handle it within the timeframes in our Privacy Policy.

Safety and scope

Does Alongside give medical advice?

No. Alongside coaches food — specifically protein. The coach is built not to advise on your medication: not the dose, the timing, or whether to skip, start, stop or switch it, and not whether a dose is working. It’s built not to diagnose a symptom or tell you something is nothing to worry about. These rules rank above every other instruction the coach follows. When it points you toward help, the contact details come from a verified list Alongside maintains — never from the AI itself. Ordinary food questions get normal, direct answers. See the next question for what happens when you bring up medication or symptoms.

What happens if I mention symptoms or medication?

If Alongside recognizes a question about your medication, the AI doesn’t write the reply. You get a fixed message pointing you to your prescriber, and to emergency services if it’s urgent. If you mention a symptom, the coach responds with care and judgment rather than a canned line, and it won’t build you a meal plan in that moment. If what you share suggests eating has become difficult in a deeper way, Alongside responds the same careful way. In each case the numbers step back: your record and your floor stay hidden for the rest of the day.

Will it ever tell me to eat less?

No. Your floor is a minimum to reach, never a ceiling to stay under. Some of this is built into the app itself: when you pass your floor, you’ll see your real total and “Floor cleared” — never an amount you’re “over” or anything to cut back. The messages that close your daily plan are fixed text, tested so that words like “cut,” “burn,” “earn,” “guilt” and “on track” never appear in them. And the coach is instructed never to suggest eating less — not as “balance,” not to make up for a big day — and never to treat eating under your floor as discipline or success.

Feedback

What if I have a suggestion for improving the app?

Type /feedback followed by your note in the chat box — for example, “/feedback more vegetarian breakfast ideas, please.” A suggestion goes straight to the team, and you’ll get a confirmation that it landed. You can also email support@alongsidecoach.fit.