I wrote a telegram bot to lose weight

Building Sehat Bot

I needed an automated solution to track my weight loss progress and keep track of my habits, so instead of searching and paying for an app, I wrote my own!

Why Telegram? #

Because it’s free, the bot API is well-documented and easy to build on. The incoming messages are first handled by the telegram bot infrastructure, so you can just have a small server to process incoming messages (might be slow, but works for me as there are no other users).

How It Works #

Daily Check-ins: The bot sends a 7 AM PST reminder with five yes/no questions about yesterday’s habits. These questions are based on whether previous day you did weight training, cardio, follow the deit plan, had enough sleep (8+ hrs), and took enough steps (5k+).

Weekly Tracking: Every Monday, you log weight and waist measurements. The bot shows your progress over time.

Why this style of Check-ins instead of a single, weekly checkin with all details? #

1. Consistency is important. Slowly, over the time, it makes a huge difference.
2. Automated reminders help. With daily reminders, you keep getting reminded of your goals and that you need to stay on track.
3. Seeing your numbers is motivating.

Try It #

Search for @sehatmand_bot on Telegram. Use /start to register, /daily for check-ins, and /weekly for measurements.

Self-hosting this bot for yourself #

If you want to keep your data to yourself, you can simply run this bot on your server by following these instructions:

1. Create a .env file with your Telegram bot token:

BOT_API_KEY=your_telegram_bot_token

2. Create an empty app.db file in the project root (it will be automatically initialized with required tables)
3. Create a docker-compose.yaml file with these contents:

version: "3.8"

services:
  sehat:
    image: ghcr.io/manparvesh/sehat:main
    container_name: sehat
    volumes:
      - ./app.db:/data/app.db
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always

4. Run using Docker Compose:

docker compose up

Future Plans #

• BMI tracking
• Achievement streaks
• Better visualization
• Custom reminder times

The best tracker is one you’ll actually use - so I’m aiming to keep using this one as much as I can, and keep improving it.

“Sehatmand” means “healthy” in Punjabi/Hindi