Coach Alba, a self-improvement company that specializes in using technology to influence behavior, today announced the public launch of an adaptive and personalized weight loss text message engine.

Through this smart text service, Coach Alba users receive custom messages to help identify and overcome individual “crucial moments” when they are likely to give in to temptation. Powered by a team of behavior modification experts, Coach Alba’s platform uses adaptive texting to learn more about users with every text message, offer increasingly personalized strategy and support, and celebrate users’ progress to help them stick to any weight loss plan they choose to follow.

By focusing on the moments when dieters falter, Coach Alba addresses the reality that four in five diets don’t succeed over the long term, a problem that is largely overlooked by the $20 billion diet industry.

“There are more than 100 million dieters in the U.S., but the lion’s share ultimately fail because they don’t recognize the simple, subtle things that derail them,” said Vincent Han, CEO of Coach Alba. “With Coach Alba, we help users stick with their goals by texting them ideas and words of encouragement before and during crucial moments of temptation or weakness. As we help our users recognize and overcome these moments, they develop greater confidence and get the momentum they absolutely need to achieve longer-lasting results.”

As a text-based service, Coach Alba is available to any cell phone user with SMS capabilities — making it accessible to many more dieters than a mobile app that requires a smartphone and data plan — and the smart text platform is more effective at reaching users during quiet moments of vulnerability. Coach Alba also offers users a more private alternative to virtual weight-loss services that push information to online social networks.

"The decision to use a smart text platform is rooted in our research on effecting lasting change in behavior, and one of our findings is that purely open group dynamics can actually be counterproductive,” added Han. “It's important to balance getting group support with strictly private interactions that will carry people through the crucial moments that often occur when nobody is around.”

Coach Alba has already had a positive impact on thousands of beta users looking for a way to make sustainable changes in their lives.

“Coach Alba is so simple yet extremely effective,” said platform user Kim René Chinery. “It has taught me to recognize my weak times and is always there to provide a reminder when I need it most. My success has been encouraging and has made me feel so good about myself. How can I fail with such a great team behind me?”

Coach Alba has a free 14-day trial, after which the service costs $5 a month. For more information about Coach Alba and to sign up, visit www.coachalba.com.

Coach Alba is also available to employers with wellness programs.

About Coach Alba

Founded in 2010, Coach Alba is a behavioral change company that builds innovative Web and mobile technologies to help people achieve life-changing goals. Headquartered in Provo, Utah, Coach Alba leverages powerful proprietary research and an adaptive, personalized SMS messaging platform to help users recognize and overcome the day-to-day challenges that keep them from attaining sustainable, positive change in their lives. For more information, visit www.coachalba.com.