About two more weeks have passed since last time, and the data has accumulated. I’d like to analyze the accumulated data and consider improvements to the current functionality.
First, I’ll review the data.
Overview from the Data
- Weight: Remained mostly flat. It appeared to decrease slightly for a while but has since returned to its previous level.
- Body Fat Percentage: Decreased by 1%
- Steps: Maintained around 8,000 steps per day
- Sleep Duration: No significant change
Later, I’ll consider what to do next with this data to achieve our goals.
Challenges as a Health DX Tool
The biggest issue is the significant operational burden required to maintain daily records. Since the spreadsheet must be opened on a smartphone, the following advantages and disadvantages arise:
- Advantages
- Easy to add items and graphs (feels familiar since it works like Excel)
- Accessible from various devices like PCs and smartphones
- Disadvantages
- Reaching the input screen on smartphones requires a slightly cumbersome process
- All text input must be done manually
We will also work on improving the tools later.
Discussing current analysis and future weight loss plans with the trainer (ChatGPT)
First, we will conduct a “current situation analysis” with the trainer, followed by “consideration of improvements.”
1.Current Situation Analysis
Provide the trainer (ChatGPT) with the data as a table and give the following prompt to ensure it correctly recognizes the data.
I’ll attach the data recorded in the app I created for a while. Can you tell what each item represents?
I think I could have written it a bit more specifically, but for now, I tend to convey things in a natural way. It’s just that I can’t write long, structured prompts. The trainer provided the following interpretations for each item. It seems I understood correctly.
※The response contains more detailed information, but this is an excerpt.
2.Improvement Considerations
My diet doesn’t seem to be progressing much as it is now, so I’ll ask the trainer for their thoughts.
Regarding my weight trend, will I be able to maintain a pace that keeps me below 60kg by the end of September 2026?
After various explanations, the conclusion is as follows: Achieving the goal is still possible if you can lose 0.98 kg per month for the remaining period.
Various countermeasures were suggested, but the summary is to continue as is for a while longer.
The advice was to consider increasing sleep time by even 30 minutes. For now, I’ll continue maintaining the current status.
Currently, I’m focusing on the following points. To those who exercise regularly, this amount might seem negligible.
- Exercise: Walk 8,000 steps per day, morning and evening stretching, and light strength training (20 sit-ups and 10 push-ups without equipment).
- Diet: Veggie-first (salad first at every meal), reduce white rice only at dinner (no reduction in noodles, etc.), add protein to breakfast.
Since I believe muscle mass decreases first when weight drops without much exercise, I supplement my protein intake with protein powder. I also consulted my trainer about my diet and introduced this. For now, I plan to trust my trainer and stick with this approach.
Improving Health DX Tools
We will maintain the previously mentioned advantages—“ease of modification (adding items/graphs)” and “operability across multiple devices”—while considering improvements to the following disadvantages.
- Disadvantages
- The steps to reach the input screen on a smartphone are a bit cumbersome.
- All text input must be done manually.
I consulted ChatGPT about this too. I had assumed we’d end up creating a smartphone app, but it recommended using Google AppSheets for no-code development. It also mentioned that using this tool would allow us to reuse the spreadsheets we’d already been accumulating, which is incredibly convenient. Even if we end up not liking it, we can easily revert back to our current workflow. This seems like a safe approach to take.
Google AppSheet
https://about.appsheet.com/home
1.Getting Started with AppSheet
Sign in to the above site to enable AppSheet. After signing in, you will see a screen like the one below.
2.Create a data display using the currently used spreadsheet
Select Create > App > Start with existing data in the upper-left corner of the screen, specify the spreadsheet you’ve been using, and click Submit. The following three images illustrate this process.
Select Google Sheets.
Select the target file and submit.
Okay. Done. The tall vertical view on the right side of the screen shows how it will appear on a smartphone. You can also test operations on this screen. Clicking the blue + (plus) icon allows you to add data. Clicking a daily tile lets you update that day’s data in the items around the center of the screen, which correspond to the original spreadsheet columns.
3.Add a visualization screen
You can add visualizations like graphs from the UX menu on the left side of the screen. While I’ve combined weight, body fat percentage, step count, and sleep duration into a single line graph, various other representations are possible, as shown in the center of the screen. You can choose based on your purpose.
4.Create a dashboard
Similarly, you can also add dashboards from UX. This time, I added the four graphs created above to display them as a series. However, on smartphones, you’ll view them with vertical scrolling, as shown on the right in the figure.
Switching to tablet view allows you to see everything grouped together like this diagram. Thanks to its responsive design, it works seamlessly across various devices like PCs, tablets, and smartphones.
5.Make it available for use on iPhone and Android devices
For everyday use, we’ll make it available as an app. Both iPhone and Android have an app called “AppSheet,” and using this app allows you to access the app created above.
Finally
This resolves the issues previously listed as drawbacks, making daily data entry easier and more sustainable. Consequently, we believe it will be easier to achieve improvements in employee health.
We plan to continue using the system, resolving issues and pursuing further improvements. Moving forward, we will use the smartphone app for data entry and updates, while using PCs for regular analysis and data transfer.
We have started using AppSheet for meal logging, so next we want to focus on refining the input screen.