An AI health coach built for family

Live120 wasn't built to chase downloads. I built it for my 61-year-old dad, and for myself.

When Dad was 60 his blood sugar spiked and the doctor told him to control his diet. He tried MyFitnessPal and downloaded a pile of other apps, and gave up on all of them within three days — too complicated, no Chinese foods, and nobody telling him whether what he was eating was good for his blood sugar.

So I wrote Live120. Take a photo, large text, and an AI that explains things in words he understands. Three months later his blood sugar was steadier and he was 4 kg lighter.

Why I started

Why "Live to 120"

Taiwan is the dialysis capital of the world — the highest prevalence anywhere.Diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol nearly always start with weight and diet.

The dangerous part isn't eating badly — it's believing you eat well. Fat intake is the most commonly missed one: the vegetables are blanched, the rice portion is small, but the invisible oil goes over the limit every single day.

At 29 I thought I was healthy too. The blood test I took just before my 30th birthday woke me up: insulin resistance 3.22, metabolically abnormal.

Your feelings will lie to you. A blood test won't.

Then something clicked: health works exactly like saving money. Record it and you can look back; look back and you can see what's wrong; see what's wrong and you can fix it. Health management without records is like managing money without a budget — all instinct, and nothing to show for it.

Live120 is more than an app. I want every family to keep an honest record of what they eat and build habits that hold. One less person on dialysis, one less person with metabolic disease, in every family — that's why I'm doing this.

Eat well. Live to 120.

The founder's own results

I was Live120's first user

Honestly, a year ago I didn't know what BMR or TDEE meant. Basal metabolism, activity burn, calorie deficit — it was all alien vocabulary. All I knew was the number on the scale, and every month I stared at it anxiously: why is this so slow? Is my metabolism broken?

I tried eating whatever, then starving, then training fasted — and either collapsed halfway through a session or watched the scale refuse to move while my confidence drained away. The apps out there coldly told me "you went over today" and never why, or what to do about it.

So I started learning. BMR is only what you burn lying still; TDEE is the real total. Muscle and water make weight lie to you. Eating too little drags your metabolism down and parks you on a plateau. Most importantly: every app on the market estimates TDEE from a formula, and formulas disagree with real bodies. So I built a real TDEE engine into Live120 — instead of guessing, it uses what you actually ate and how your weight actually moved, and lets your body calculate its own burn.

For six months I logged every meal and every workout in Live120. The result: 6 kg of pure fat gone with muscle slightly up; visceral fat from 11 down to 8; and most importantly insulin resistance from 3.22 to 1.3, from metabolically abnormal back to completely normal. Cholesterol returned to range, and blood sugar and kidney function are all healthy.

None of this came from willpower. It came from reading the data and using the right method. I built this app for my dad, and became its best proof myself. That's Live120 — not a calorie counter, but a way to finally understand your own body.

Six months of blood work — Jan → Jul 2026

Metabolic core
MarkerReferenceJanJulStatus
Insulin resistance (HOMA-IR)<1.43.221.3Back to normal
Fasting insulin3–2514.25.8Normal · halved
Fasting glucose70–1009491Normal
HbA1c4–65.55.2Excellent
Lipids
MarkerReferenceJanJulStatus
Total cholesterol<200210175Back in range
Triglycerides<1509481Normal
HDL>403435Low
LDL<130156131Slightly high · improving
Kidney, liver and other
MarkerReferenceJanJulStatus
Creatinine0.7–1.30.80.86Normal
eGFR>90121111Healthy
ALT<523446Normal · slightly up
Uric acid4.4–7.66.85.9Normal
Insulin resistance 3.22 → 1.3 — metabolism back to normal
Kidney function stayed healthy — high protein did no harm

* One person's experience, not medical advice; results vary. This app cannot diagnose, treat or prevent any disease. If you have a medical condition or take medication, consult your doctor first.

Dad's story

My 61-year-old dad can actually use it

At 60 his blood sugar spiked and the doctor told him to fix his diet. He wasn't unwilling — the apps were simply out of reach: tiny buttons, English everywhere, missing foods, five nested dropdowns per meal. He quit on day three.

So I added three things for him: a senior mode with large text and large buttons, a daily medication check-in reminder, and photo logging that finishes a meal in one shot. Now he weighs himself each morning, photographs breakfast and taps the medication check-in, then one photo at lunch and one at dinner. The whole thing takes under 30 seconds.

Three months later his fasting glucose went from 128 mg/dL to 105 and he was 4 kg lighter. His medication was adjusted under his doctor's supervision — that was the doctor's decision, not the app's doing. As he puts it: "I used to take pills because the doctor made me. Now I can read the numbers myself, so I know one bowl of rice less actually matters."

Two generations logging their own numbers in Live120 — one aged 30, one aged 61. That's what I want to bring to more families.

One person's experience, not medical advice; results vary. This app cannot diagnose, treat or prevent any disease. If you have a medical condition or take medication, consult your doctor first.

"Technology shouldn't frustrate older people. It should let them look after themselves with dignity."