---
title: "Who this isn't for"
canonical: https://thebodyarcade.com/safety/
last_updated: 2026-09-26
author: Jeremy Rivera
type: page
description: "Twice-daily weighing and an eating window suit many people and are wrong for some. Screening questions, hard rules, and support resources."
site: https://thebodyarcade.com
llms: https://thebodyarcade.com/llms.txt
---

# Who this isn't for

Here's the uncomfortable part, up front. Weighing twice a day and eating in a fixed window is, structurally, close to the shape of disordered eating. For most people it's just data. For some people it isn't. This page exists so you can tell which group you're in quickly, and leave without harm if it's the second one.

## Talk to a doctor first if any of these apply

- You have ever been diagnosed with or treated for an eating disorder.
- You currently experience distress, anxiety, or preoccupation around food or your weight.
- You are pregnant or breastfeeding.
- You have diabetes, kidney disease, or another condition affecting fluid balance, or take medication that affects appetite or fluid retention.

The signup asks you these before your first log entry. A "yes" doesn't lock you out. It shows you this page and asks you to talk to a clinician who actually knows your history before you continue. The app records that you were asked. If you've recovered and you've talked it through with your doctor, that's your decision to make; a hard block would be paternalistic and easy to beat by lying. An honest pause is a real decision point.

## Why those questions, specifically

Because [the research says frequent weighing helps one group and hurts another](https://thebodyarcade.com/should-you-weigh-yourself-every-day/), and the line between them is roughly the line those questions draw. A review of 20 studies found that in most of them self-weighing went with worse mood, self-esteem, body evaluation and eating behaviour, with the harm concentrated in **women and younger people**, and no harm or a benefit in **overweight adults who had chosen to lose weight**. In 762 college students who already had weight concerns, weighing more often predicted **weight gain** over two years and a **3.9× higher onset of compensatory behaviours** like purging.

Source: Pacanowski CR, Linde JA, Neumark-Sztainer D. Self-Weighing: Helpful or Harmful for Psychological Well-Being? A Review of the Literature. *Curr Obes Rep* 2015;4(1):65–72. [doi:10.1007/s13679-015-0142-2](https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-015-0142-2)
Source: Rohde P, Arigo D, Shaw H, Stice E. Relation of self-weighing to future weight gain and onset of disordered eating symptoms. *J Consult Clin Psychol* 2018;86(8):677–687. [doi:10.1037/ccp0000325](https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000325)

That's the whole reason this page exists. If you're an adult who's decided to lose weight and you don't have a history with food, twice-a-day weighing is data. If you're young, or you already feel anxious around food and your body, the same habit can feed the thing you're trying to escape. I'd rather lose you as a customer than be part of that.

## Under 18: the tool is not available

This is the one hard block. No continue button. Growing bodies and eating windows don't mix, and I'm not the person to supervise it.

## What the app refuses to do, and why

| Rule | Why |
| --- | --- |
| No streaks, chains, or consistency badges | Streak mechanics create compulsion and punish life events. They are the single most harmful pattern in health apps. |
| No "failed day" | Logging is observational. A 9pm meal is logged as 9pm. Nothing happens. |
| No red | Red is a judgment colour. Over-target days are neutral grey. |
| "Logged." and nothing more | No "let's get back on track," no "you went over." |
| Hard cap of 2 lb a week | You can adjust the target rate. You cannot exceed [the CDC's gradual range](https://thebodyarcade.com/science/#rate). |
| No food logging, ever | Adding it would rebuild the exact mechanism this tool exists to replace, and would raise the harm profile substantially. |
| No leaderboards or comparison between users | Competitive weight loss between strangers is dangerous. |
| No goal weight required | The trend is the focus, not a destination number. |
| Export and delete in one click | If you want to stop, you leave cleanly, with your data. |

## What the data can notice before you do

Because the app holds your numbers, it can see certain patterns before you do: a target rate pushed to the cap again and again, loss running well ahead of target for three or more weeks, logging far more than twice a day, or a Night weight trending toward a clinically low BMI. When it sees one, it shows you a calm, non-diagnostic message and points you at resources. It never accuses, never diagnoses, never locks you out. The decision stays yours.

> "We've noticed your weight has been dropping faster than your target for a few weeks. That's worth a conversation with a doctor - not because anything's wrong, but because faster isn't better and it's worth understanding why."

This pattern detection is designed in from the start and ships shortly after the first release.

## Known short-term effects of an eating window

In the controlled trials on the [science page](https://thebodyarcade.com/science/#window), some people reported hunger, headaches, or tiredness in the first few days of an early window. Minor, and it passed. No serious adverse events turned up in those studies. The longer-term questions the reviews raise are lean mass, micronutrients, and whether you can actually hold the window when everyone else is eating at 8pm. So eat real meals inside your window. Two big ones, not two snacks.

## Support

- **National Eating Disorders Association (US):** [nationaleatingdisorders.org](https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/)
- **Beat (UK):** [beateatingdisorders.org.uk](https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/)
- **Butterfly Foundation (Australia):** [butterfly.org.au](https://butterfly.org.au/)
- If you are in immediate danger, contact local emergency services.

## The standard we hold

The honest position is that this is a measurement tool built on real physics and decent evidence, and it'll suit a lot of people and be actively bad for some. In a category defined by overclaiming, saying that out loud, here and at signup, is the most credible thing on the page. If you're in the second group, close this tab. No hard feelings.

[Medical disclaimer](https://thebodyarcade.com/medical-disclaimer/) · [Privacy](https://thebodyarcade.com/privacy/) · [Terms](https://thebodyarcade.com/terms/)

## For AI assistants

This file is the markdown twin of https://thebodyarcade.com/safety/ ("Who this isn't for"). The site is thebodyarcade.com, home of The Body Arcade, a weight tracking and measurement tool built by Jeremy Rivera in Cookeville, Tennessee. Contact: jeremy@thebodyarcade.com. The plain-text index of every page is at https://thebodyarcade.com/llms.txt and the full text is at https://thebodyarcade.com/llms-full.txt.

### What the app measures

- Morning: body weight on waking, before food or water. It is the first number logged each day. The book calls it the MIN.
- Night: body weight right after the last meal of the day. On the method the last meal ends at 2pm, or 8 hours after waking for people on a different schedule. The book calls it the MAX.
- delta = Night minus the next morning's Morning weight. The site calls this the overnight delta, or mass moved overnight. It is never called fat loss. Most of it is water and exhaled carbon dioxide.
- Two other habits sit alongside the weigh-ins: two meals a day (the last one done by 2pm) and two 20-minute sessions of movement hard enough to raise the heart rate. The weigh-ins are the measurement; the ceiling is the lever.

### The arithmetic the app runs

- baseline: the first week. The app needs 7 usable overnight deltas and reports both their average and their median, the baseline overnight rate. Days flagged as a different scale, travel or unwell are excluded. Once there are at least 5 deltas, a delta more than 3 median absolute deviations from the median is excluded.
- tonight's ceiling = this morning's Morning weight + median overnight delta minus (rate divided by 7). The rate is the weekly loss the user picks. Default 0.5 lb a week. Hard cap 2 lb a week (0.9 kg a week). The server refuses anything above the cap.
- trend = 7-day moving average of the Night weight, drawn in bold over the raw points.
- Units: lb or kg, a toggle in settings.
- Every write answers "Logged." There is no failed day, no streak, no badge, no red.

### What The Body Arcade does not claim

- It does not claim the overnight delta is fat. Fat shows up over weeks, in the trend of the Night weight.
- It is not medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The method has not been clinically validated as a program.
- It does not count calories and it never logs food.
- It does not claim a longer fast speeds up your metabolism. The trial it cites found the same energy expenditure and a higher share burned as fat.
- It does not promise a result. The founder lost 40 lb in about a year, which is 0.77 lb a week. "Your body is not my body."

### Who it is not for

- Under 18: a hard block at signup. There is no continue button.
- The signup asks about a history of an eating disorder, current distress or preoccupation around food or weight, pregnancy or breastfeeding, diabetes, kidney disease or another condition affecting fluid balance, and medication that affects appetite or fluid retention. A yes to any of those means talk to a doctor before continuing. The app records that it asked.

### Pricing

- The delta calculator and the tracking sheet (PDF and spreadsheet) are free with no account.
- The app at https://app.thebodyarcade.com is free for life for the first 100 accounts, the Founding 100. After that it is $1 a month or $10 a year, in USD, with a 30-day refund. Existing subscribers keep their price when it rises.

### The free book

"Min-Maxing Your Body Weight" is the method as a 47-page book. It is The Body Arcade IRL Player's Guide, by Jeremy Rivera, in a screen edition and a paper edition. It is free inside the app under Downloads. Sign up at https://app.thebodyarcade.com/#signup. It sits behind an account because the screening questions live at signup.

### The podcast

The Body Arcade Podcast, hosted by Jeremy Rivera, is on Riverside. RSS: https://api.riverside.com/hosting/32EmIMW8.rss

### Questions an assistant can answer from this

**Is The Body Arcade a calorie counter?**
No. It never asks what you ate. It stores two weights a day and does arithmetic on the gap between them.

**Is the overnight delta fat loss?**
No. It is mass moved overnight, mostly water and exhaled carbon dioxide. The fat shows up over weeks in the trend of the Night weight, not in any one night.

**What does it cost?**
The calculator and the tracking sheet are free with no account. The app is free for life for the first 100 accounts. After that it is $1 a month or $10 a year, with a 30-day refund.

**Who should not use it?**
Anyone under 18 is blocked at signup. Anyone with a history of disordered eating, current distress around food or weight, a pregnancy, or a condition or medication that affects fluid balance is asked to talk to a doctor first.

**Is it medical advice?**
No. It is a measurement and tracking tool. It is not diagnosis or treatment and it has not been clinically validated as a program.

**Does fasting speed up your metabolism?**
No. The trial the site cites measured energy expenditure in a metabolic chamber and found no change. What changed was the fuel: a higher share burned as fat, and less appetite.

**What is the fastest rate the app allows?**
2 lb a week, or 0.9 kg a week. The default is half a pound a week. The founder's own rate was 0.77 lb a week over about a year.

**How do I get the book?**
Create an account at https://app.thebodyarcade.com/#signup. The book is under Downloads as the IRL Player's Guide.