TempoLife › Features › Progress stories
Progress stories
Stories written by members about their own tracking, published only with their explicit, revocable consent. No before/after photos, no typical-results claims, nothing written by us.
Nothing is published here yet
This page is empty on purpose. It would take about four minutes to invent five convincing stories with round numbers and grateful adjectives, and every health app on the internet has done exactly that. A fabricated story about a body is a lie about a health outcome, so the list stays empty until real members send real ones and agree, in writing, to see them here.
If you have been tracking something for a while, yours can be the first. The rest of this page is the brief: what makes a story worth reading, what we will publish, what we will never publish, and how to take it back.
What a good story looks like
The stories worth publishing are boring in the right way. They describe what someone actually did on ordinary days, what got in the way, and what they still find difficult. They are specific about method and modest about results.
- A starting point that is honest. Not "I was at rock bottom" but "I had not weighed myself in two years and I logged food for three days before giving up twice."
- One thing you changed, described concretely. The habit, when you did it, and what it replaced. A story that says "I stayed consistent" teaches nobody anything.
- The parts that did not work. The month you stopped logging, the plan you abandoned, the measurement you stopped trusting. Stories without a setback read as advertising, because they usually are.
- Your own metric, chosen by you. Resting heart rate, hours of sleep, days logged in a row, blood pressure readings, kilometres walked. It does not have to be weight and it very often should not be.
- What you would tell someone starting on Monday. One sentence, no slogans.
- Length: a few hundred words. Long enough to be a story, short enough that you write it in one sitting.
What gets published and what never does
| We publish | We never publish |
|---|---|
| Your own words, edited only for typos and length | Anything written or ghost-written by TempoLife |
| The display name you choose — a first name or an initial is fine | Your email address, full name, town or employer |
| The number of months you tracked | Your account data pulled from the app behind your back |
| One metric you chose to talk about, in your own framing | A result presented as typical, expected or achievable for the reader |
| Setbacks, plateaus and the parts that did not work | Before/after photographs — not in this pass, in any form |
| That a clinician was involved, if you say so | Any claim that TempoLife treated, cured or prevented a condition |
Consent, and how to take it back
Consent here is a stored, checkable fact rather than a promise in a footer. Your submission is written with status = pending and a consent flag that is false unless you ticked the box on the form. The query that renders published stories requires both a published status and a true consent flag, so a story you never agreed to publish cannot appear even if someone changed one of the two by hand.
You can withdraw at any time, for any reason or none, from this page while signed in. Withdrawal deletes the row: the headline, the text and the metric stop existing rather than being flagged as hidden. If a story has already been shared elsewhere on the internet we cannot reach those copies, which is exactly why we do not syndicate stories to third parties or hand them to advertising platforms.
Consent is also narrow. Agreeing to publish a story is not agreement to be quoted in an advertisement, to appear in an app-store screenshot, or to be contacted by anyone who reads it. If we ever want to do any of those, we have to come back and ask you again.
Editorial standards
- No typical-results claims. Anything a member achieved is theirs. We will not print "members lose X" or arrange stories to imply an average, because a self-selected set of volunteers is not a sample of anything.
- No medical claims. TempoLife is a tracker. It does not diagnose, treat, prevent or cure. Stories mentioning a diagnosis or medication are published as personal experience only, and we will not publish a story that reads as advice to change treatment.
- No before/after photographs in this pass. They are the single most persuasive and least informative element in the genre, they are trivially staged, and they push readers toward appearance rather than habit.
- No incentives. Nobody is paid, given free months or entered into anything for a story. If that ever changes, the payment will be printed on the story itself.
- Edited lightly, labelled honestly. Typos, length and identifying details get edited. Meaning does not. If a story is trimmed, the person who wrote it sees the trim before it goes up.
- Removed on request, no questions. Including by a family member acting for someone who can no longer ask.
Stories are one person's experience. They are not evidence that anything will work for you, and nothing here is medical advice. Talk to a clinician before changing treatment, and about any symptom that worries you.
Write yours
Stories can only be submitted by a signed-in member writing about themselves. That is deliberate: it is the only way to know that a story belongs to the person telling it, and the only way you can later come back and delete it.
Sign in to write yoursCreate a free account
Frequently asked questions
Are these real people?
Every story here was written by a signed-in member about themselves and published only after they ticked a consent box and a person reviewed it. Nothing on this page is written, embellished or commissioned by TempoLife, and there are no placeholder or example stories in the list.
Can I take my story down?
Yes, at any time, in one click from this page while you are signed in. The row is deleted rather than hidden, so the text stops existing in the database. You never have to ask anyone or explain why.
Will you publish my weight?
Only if you write it yourself, and only as your own experience. We never present one person's change as a typical or expected result, and this pass publishes no before/after photographs at all.
Why is my story still pending?
Everything starts as pending and is read by a person before it appears. A story with no consent box ticked stays unpublished no matter what, because the query that lists stories requires both a published status and a stored consent flag.
Source: Member-submitted stories, published only with a stored consent flag and human review · checked 2026-09-02
Your own numbers first, a story later
TempoLife tracks food, steps, sleep and weight in one place. Most people find the useful story is the one they tell themselves after three months of data.