How Lark’s Digital Coach Works

In this article:

• Lark’s digital coach is available from your smartphone to help you reach your goals in weight management, wellness, and health.
• Small changes in areas like nutrition and physical activity can add up to big changes in health and weight. It can also be more sustainable when you make small changes compared to dramatic overhauls.
• Lark uses science-backed strategies like microlearning and tiny steps, as well as compassionate and encouraging coaching, to support you. 
• The journey starts when your Lark coach gets to you know you, your goals, and information like your current levels of physical activity, diet preferences, and medications.
• You get to start immediately as you log and track meals, learn important information and useful tips in daily check-ins, and track progress in measurements like weigh-ins or blood pressure or blood sugar measurements. 
• Lark can support you 24/7 as you make healthy choices to lose weight and manage blood sugar, blood pressure, or other conditions with or without GLP-1s.

When you need help, who’s there for you? What if you could have a coach on your phone, and the coach knew your goals as well as how to help you reach them? That’s exactly what you get with Lark’s digital coach, whether your goal is to lose or maintain weight, prevent or manage diabetes, lower blood pressure, or improve wellness. 

What exactly is Lark’s digital coach? Lark includes programs for lifestyle changes to help you reach goals. Nutrition, physical activity, and taking medications properly if you’re on them are some key areas of emphasis. Sleep, and stress management are also important areas in Lark.

Here are some of Lark’s areas of emphasis - along with wellness and others.

• Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP)
• Medicare Diabetes Prevention Program (MDPP)
• Weight Management Suite for weight loss, weight management, or GLP-1 Companion (weight management while you’re using GLP-1 medications) 
• Diabetes Management to manage blood sugar if you have diabetes
• Hypertension to manage blood pressure if you have high blood pressure

With personalized insights, tips for your lifestyle, and a compassionate tone, Lark is designed to help you make small changes that fit into your lifestyle. Instead of a major overhaul, Lark knows that small changes, sustained for the long haul, have a significant impact on your health and weight. 

Lark’s digital coach is simple; you don’t need to be tech-savvy to thrive with Lark. And the program is for your lifestyle. You can succeed in the program with changes that work for you and your lifestyle - Lark can help you decide which changes to make and how to make them work for you.

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Keep reading to learn how Lark’s digital coach works from the time you get started to when your victories are building momentum.

Meeting Your Lark Coach

Are you ready to meet your digital coach? Lark’s ready to meet you! It’s how Lark can customize your program! Lark starts to get to know you as soon as you start your program. And don’t worry at all - it’s not scary. Lark’s compassionate, helpful, and understanding. Lark’s your partner in health!

Here’s what you can expect when you get started with Lark. 

• You and Lark can set your overall goals. These can depend on which program you’re in - such as weight loss of 5% if you’re in Lark DPP or MDPP, lowering blood sugar or blood pressure if you’re in Diabetes or Hypertension Management. Other goals may be improving medication adherence or managing stress, for example. 
• Ordering a device (at no cost to you) if you’re eligible - like a smart scale, glucose (blood sugar) monitor, or blood pressure monitor
• Completing one or more short surveys that can connect you with resources if you need them
• Telling Lark which medications to coach you on and setting your notifications
• You can also let Lark know things like your current level of activity, when you want reminders for things like measuring blood pressure or weighing in on your Lark scale. 

You’ll get the opportunity to complete your first educational check-in and log your first meal.

Improving Personalization and Accountability: Logging in Lark

Lark encourages you to log and track. Here’s what to keep in your Lark app.

• Meals and snacks - Include meals, snacks, condiments, beverages, and “extras” like bites, tastes, and Be sure to log amounts, too!
• Physical activity - Walks, swims, gym sessions, weight training, dancing, gardening, and cycling - they all count! Sync your device with Lark so it counts steps and adds workouts automatically, or add them as 
• Sleep - Check your sleep data to make sure it’s accurate, and get ready to learn how sleep affects your hormones, how you feel, and how your body operates. There’s a lot you can do to support health through sleep!
• Medications - Track when you take your medications and note any side effects. Taking medications exactly as prescribed is critical for best results and safety.
• Weight and other measurements - Weigh on your Lark scale and measure blood sugar and blood pressure as much as your healthcare provider says. 

There are good reasons for logging and tracking. These are forms of self-monitoring - which is linked to improved success with weight management and health. They keep you accountable and aware, so you’re more motivated and better able to make decisions for yourself about what to do. 

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Logging and tracking also give Lark more information so you can get more personalized coaching and see insights and patterns. 

Moving Through the Curriculum: Becoming an Expert in Healthy Choices for YOU

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Lark uses microlearning techniques to help you succeed. It’s not about how much information Lark can throw at you. It’s about giving you key bits of information in amounts that you can digest - which means you’re more likely to remember and use them for your benefit. 

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For example, if you’re trying to lower blood sugar, there’s a lot to learn about things like what to eat, how much to eat, the significance of carbohydrates, which types of exercise are best, and how hydration affects your blood sugar. 

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But let’s say you’ve been sitting for a while, and Lark detects that. The single thing you can do right now to lower blood sugar - and improve it for the next hour or so - is to stand up and move lightly for 1-2 minutes. And that message - that short, simple message - is something you can absorb, act on, and remember going forwards. When you’re ready, you can learn more about managing blood sugar, and take more steps to lower it. But for now, that single message to get moving can be effective and memorable.

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That’s the beauty of microlearning. Lark presents information in digestible chunks for your benefit - whether your digital coach is answering a question about what healthy swap you can make for lunch, or whether you’re coming into the Lark app for your daily check-in of carefully selected information. 

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When you’re looking for more in-depth information, Lark has resource libraries available in the app. You can browse through the topics and take a deeper dive into what’s on your mind - because sometimes you need more information!

A Daily Habit with Lark and Healthy Behaviors

The main secret of Lark is habit-building. When you can do something consistently, and it’s an easy habit to maintain, you can keep it up. The benefits can add up to big results, even if the habits are just little changes. 

These are examples of habits that can support progress towards goals.

• Logging into Lark daily for a check-in
• Logging meals, workouts, and sleep in Lark each day
• Breaking up sedentary time with 1-2 minutes of light activity per 30-60 minutes of sitting
• Making 1-2 healthier swaps per day, like a whole grain instead of a refined grain, fish for fatty red meat, or water instead of soda
• Choosing a consistent bedtime every day

Lark’s digital coach can help you make small, doable changes like these - and they work.

As you progress through the program, some Lark members even have the chance to earn a Fitbit (select programs only).

Beyond the App - Help How and Where You Need It

Lark’s digital coach is meant to be simple and user-friendly even if you’re a beginner with technology and phones. But there’s way more to Lark than the app! 

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Depending on your Lark program, these are some options that may be available to you. 

• Facebook groups for Lark members - private groups for you to connect with other Lark members and live Lark lifestyle coaches
• Customer Support - the most knowledgeable and responsive source of information and help for anything app, device, or insurance-related
• Live coaching - sometimes our members like to talk to a human coach to get more detailed information or a different type of support over a video chat
• Webinars - Lark webinars dive deep into topics you care about most - and you can ask your questions and get answers live!

Lark Can Help

Digital health is the future of health care - and it’s here now. Lark’s digital coaching includes personalized insights, education, and tips right when you need them in a simple and friendly program. Your Lark coach is available 24/7 for encouragement, nutrition and physical activity coaching, and habit tracking. Lark can help you make healthy choices and establish habits that fit into your lifestyle so you can lose weight and keep it off with or without GLP-1 medications. 

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Click here to see if you may be eligible to join Lark today!

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