My 3-Month Experience with Equ (2025): Australia’s Personal Nutrition Coaching App

Losing weight is hard.

Being able to maintain a caloric deficit over an extended time period is particularly difficult without support from people around you.

It’s been proven that having access to one-on-one health coaching makes a significant difference to losing weight and keeping that weight off.

That’s where Equ comes in. A pocket nutrition coach that gets you access to recipes tailored to your needs, as well as access to a personal nutritionist.

This Equ review is based on my real experiences trying their 3-month nutrition support program. I hope my experiences help you understand whether Equ is the right weight loss service for you.

Check Out Equ's Current Subscription DiscountsRated Our #1 App For 1-1 Nutrition Coaching

What is Equ?

When I first discovered Equ, I was skeptical. Unlike traditional meal delivery services, they don’t actually send you any food. So what exactly makes this service worth the subscription cost? After three months of testing, I found out exactly what sets them apart.

Well, an Equ subscription primarily gets you access to:

• 1-on-1 nutrition coaching from a qualified nutritionist (with their premium plan).
• Weekly meal plans that meet your individual caloric needs.
• An advanced food intake tracking module.
• Weight, measurement and picture tracking.

If I could summarise what Equ is all about, it’s accountability and support. There’s no doubt these are two huge elements of building a sustainable weight loss habit.

Where some weight loss programs focus on extreme measures like juicing, fasting, or ketosis, Equ encourages more practical, flexible, and sustainable dieting.

Their core service is digital via a mobile app, so it’s available to anyone in Australia no matter which state you live in. There are also international plans for people living outside of Australia.

Who are Equ?

With weight loss, it’s so incredibly important you trust the advice you’re receiving. That’s why I like to dig into who created the service.

The story behind Equ is particularly compelling. Founders Jade Spooner and Amal Wakim left their jobs at Google in 2015 to launch Equalution (now Equ) after their own remarkable weight loss journey.

Having lost 50kg between them using flexible dieting principles, they wanted to share their successful approach with others. This personal experience continues to shape Equ’s philosophy today.

Over time, Jade and Amal have built a wealth of resources & recipes available to all customers, as well as a team of nutritionists, dietitians, and trainers who are responsible for providing individual guidance to those on a premium plan.

In September 2024, the company underwent a significant rebrand from Equalution to Equ. The rebrand came with substantial improvements to their app experience, which I haven’t had the chance to review (yet) so this review still includes the old branding.

Equ has now become one of the largest nutrition coaching services in Australia. 330k Instagram followers show that this isn’t just another short-term trendy dieting option.

What is it like subscribing to Equ?

Signing up to Equ kicks off a “getting to know you” phase. You’re asked to provide a wide array of personal details that they’ll use to build your nutrition plan.

They’ll need to know your gender, birthday, height, current weight, activity levels, and number of exercise days. All of these contribute to your individual macro-nutritional targets and ensure the nutritionist can develop an appropriate plan for you.

Equ interestingly don’t ask for your target weight. When I asked why, they said it was because everyone’s journey is different and will take different lengths of time. Most people would be expected to drop between 300g – 500g on an Equ plan, and they don’t encourage people to ‘over-diet’ to lose weight quicker as this is often unsustainable.

The next step involves customising your meal preferences. I found the taste preference selection comprehensive, covering everything from common allergens to specific ingredients you might want to avoid.

While not exhaustive, it gave me confidence that my meal plans would include foods I actually enjoy eating.

Lastly, you’ll complete your first “check-in” by taking 5 measurements from across your body. The focus is on your forearms, chest, waist, hips, and thighs.

Thankfully, there are detailed instructions on exactly how and where to take these measurements consistently. It’s very useful to have a soft tape measure (pick one up for $3 at Kmart!) so you can reliably take measurements every week.

Once your profile is complete, the app calculates your personalised nutritional targets, breaking down exactly how much protein, fat, carbs, and fibre you need each day.

What I particularly appreciated was their emphasis on consistency rather than extreme restriction – the goal is to hit your targets consistently, not to create an unnecessarily large caloric deficit.

What features does Equ have?

Before diving into the specifics, it’s worth noting that Equ operates exclusively through their mobile app – there’s no desktop version available.

While this might seem limiting at first, I found the app-only approach actually made tracking and engagement more convenient during my busy days.

Weekly Check-Ins

One of the core features is an expectation you’ll submit a weekly check-in to the app. If you’re on the premium service, this check-in will then be reviewed by your personal nutritionist.

These check-ins occur every week, with mine starting a few days after joining once the nutritionist had a chance to say hi and kickstart my meal plan.

That meant I was weighing, taking pictures, and measuring myself every Thursday morning before 11am, with the results sent directly to my nutritionist.

I found this regular feedback loop incredibly motivating. Not only could I see my progress through the numbers and photos, but I also had an expert helping me understand what was working and what needed tweaking.

As mentioned earlier, a few hours after each check-in I’d receive a personal message from my nutritionist talking about my progress and providing extra motivation. The intent was always to provide feedback to work on and improve for the week ahead, which does rely on you being consistent, honest, and accurate with tracking your daily food intake.

Personal Nutritionist: Your Daily Support System (Premium plan only!)

When you join Equ on the premium plan, you’ll receive a message in the app from a nutritionist who’s assigned individually to you.

In my case, I was working with Paula. Paula was available to me Monday – Friday for any questions I had, or to discuss anything related to my health plans. This can be as comprehensive as you want it to be, although you’re paying for it so I would highly recommend reaching out to them regularly. It’s an amazing way of holding yourself accountable to your daily goals.

Over my three months with Equ, Paula’s guidance proved invaluable in numerous situations:

• Planning for a weekend away without derailing my progress
• Finding creative alternatives when I couldn’t source specific ingredients
• Developing strategies to handle social events and dining out
• Getting back on track after occasional setbacks

Having access to Paula was comfortably the best part of subscribing to Equ, as she was someone holding me accountable and supporting me on my weight loss journey.

Although you won’t be able to reach your nutritionist on weekends, I always found Lara to be highly responsive throughout the week.

Towards the end of my plan, Paula went on holiday for a week. Impressively, I was quickly messaged by a new nutritionist (Lara) who had access to all of my historic messages and seamlessly took over from Paula for a week.

If you feel alone on your weight loss journey, I can’t recommend having access to one of Equ’s nutritionists enough.

While the lack of video or phone call options might seem limiting, I found the messaging system actually worked well for my busy schedule. It allowed me to think through my questions and refer back to previous advice whenever needed.

Check Out Equ's Current Subscription DiscountsRated Our #1 App For 1-1 Nutrition Coaching

Meal Plans

Most nutrition services will provide you with a full recipe library that you can cook from. Equ does things a little different by providing just one full day’s worth of recipes every week.

This means that you’ll receive new recipes for 1 Breakfast, 2 Snacks, 1 Lunch, 1 Dinner and 1 Dessert on every check-in day.

When I asked Lara about this, she explained that it was because they had discovered people are more likely to follow a diet when meals were simple and consistent. It also allows you to cook multiple portions of each meal and make subsequent days much easier.

Equ reached out to me after writing this review to let me know that it is possible to receive more than one weekly meal plan on the premium plan. I’m not sure why my coach didn’t offer this to me, but you should be able to get this by asking your nutrition coach to increase these plans to any number between 2 – 7 each week.

Making the Meal Plan Work for You

The meal planning system offers both benefits and challenges that became apparent during my three months with Equ.

If a recipe doesn’t appeal to you, there’s no need to worry. You can easily request alternatives that maintain the same nutritional profile, either through the app’s automatic substitution feature or by asking your nutritionist for recommendations.

While the system has clear advantages, I encountered two main challenges:

1. Meal Repetition: The default approach encourages eating similar meals throughout the week. While this simplifies shopping and preparation, it might not suit everyone’s preferences. Premium members have an advantage here, as their nutritionist can help adapt the plan for more variety.
2. Shopping Timeline: New recipes arrive on check-in day, which requires some planning. I occasionally found myself scrambling to get to Coles when recipes arrived, so I’d recommend scheduling your shopping trip for the day after your check-in.

Pro Tip: I found it helpful to keep a small stockpile of shelf-stable ingredients and frozen alternatives that matched my nutritional targets. This gave me more flexibility when I couldn’t immediately shop for new recipe ingredients.

It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t have to follow Equ’s provided meal plan every day. As long as you’re keeping to your macronutrient targets, you’ll still be making progress towards your goals.

Meal Recipes

One of the things that stood out to me over 3 months of Equ was just how normal the recipes are.

Most of the time, I didn’t feel like I was dieting at all. There was no reliance on boring, plain salads. Just a focus on correct portion sizes and smart ingredient hacks.

Here are some example dinner recipes I received:

• BBQ Chicken Pizza
• Beef Bolognese Pasta
• Buffalo Chicken Meatballs with Potato Gems
• Peri Peri Steak with Homemade Wedges
• Betty’s Fake Away Cheeseburger

Equ does a good job of specifying branded ingredients available at major supermarkets like Coles and Woolworths. This makes shopping straightforward, though I discovered that smaller supermarkets don’t always stock every specified item. However, this encouraged me to become more familiar with nutrition labels and find suitable alternatives – a valuable skill for long-term success.

The one area where Equ could enhance their service is in recipe presentation. The instructions are text-only and sometimes quite brief, which might challenge less experienced cooks.

While I managed fine, more detailed steps and photos of the cooking process would make the recipes more user-friendly.

It’s fair to say that the recipes fall short of the quality provided by most meal kit services. However, I don’t think you’ll find this a major problem if you’re reasonably comfortable in the kitchen.

One neat feature is the ability to load these recipes straight into your food diary.

Food Diary: Your Path to Mindful Eating

To know if you’re meeting your macronutritional goals, Equ asks you to track all of your food and water intake through the app, similar to how apps like MyFitnessPal work.

Knowing your intake is critical to losing weight, especially if you’re not strictly following Equ’s meal plan.

Inputting everything I ate into the app was a truly eye-opening exercise. There were some foods I was eating that were blowing my calorie targets out of the water. For me, that was mostly snacks.

Knowing this allowed me to adjust my habits or switch various foods to lower calorie versions.

I found it very easy to log foods using the Equ app, with the ability to use a barcode scanner or load ingredients in from a search. If there are meals that you regularly cook, these can easily be saved so they’re added with a single tap.

Whilst it’s perhaps not as full-featured as an app like MyFitnessPal, I didn’t have any problems with finding ingredients and logging my intake. If you’re already paying for another tracking app, you could easily replace it with Equ.

Tracking all of your intake is always time-consuming, but it’s significantly easier if you’re eating from one of our top-rated frozen meal delivery services. Most of them, especially My Muscle Chef and Lite n Easy, integrate nicely into Equ.

How much does Equ Cost?

Now you know what’s part of the Equ subscription, it’s time to understand how much Equ costs.

There are two programs available: Standard and Premium.

The only difference is that the Standard plan does not include the 1:1 nutrition coaching from a qualified nutritionist.

Length	Standard	Premium
1 Month	$69	$238
3 Months	$177 ($59/month)	$682 ($228/month)
6 Months	$294 ($49/month)	$1,183 ($197/month)

Clearly, there’s a huge cost difference between the standard and premium plans. The access to 1:1 coaching is going to set you back around an additional $150 each month.

Is Equ good value?

We need to look at each plan in isolation, considering the huge difference in price.

Equ’s standard plan is centred around providing a consistent meal plan that meets your caloric goals, as well as a tracking and accountability app.

Considering the main alternative to this would be an app like MyFitnessPal that comes in at $29.99 a month for their premium version, I’m not sure how much extra value Equ provides. Perhaps if you value access to a local community and the accountability of weekly check-ins, you might find Equ is suitable for you.

In contrast, I actually think the premium plan represents very good value.

Equ premium is especially good value for people who’ve struggled with previous weight loss attempts, those who want professional guidance without traditional nutritionist costs, or anyone seeking accountability and personalized support.

To put the premium plan’s value in perspective:

• Private nutritionist consultations typically cost $300-400/month
• Most offer limited between-session support
• You’d still need separate meal planning and tracking tools

At around $200/month (on the 6-month plan), Equ’s premium service provides unlimited weekday access to your nutritionist, plus all the app features – making it a compelling investment in your health journey.

Check Out Equ's Current Subscription DiscountsRated Our #1 App For 1-1 Nutrition Coaching