Sisu Ascent (“Sisu,” “we,” “us”) is operated by Sisu Ascent LLC, a Texas limited liability company. This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. We built Sisu to respect your data: we do not run ads, we do not use third-party advertising or analytics trackers, and we never sell your information.
Information we collect
Account information. When you create an account, we collect your email address to sign you in and sync your data. Passwords are hashed by our hosting provider (Supabase) — we never see them in plain text. If you use Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google, we receive only the basic identifier needed to sign you in (including Apple’s private-relay email, if you choose to hide your address).
Fitness and nutrition data you enter. Sisu stores the information you provide: profile (name, date of birth/age, biological sex for calorie calculations, height, weight, units), goals, activity level, diet style, training experience and lifting unit; calorie, macro, and water targets; meals, foods, and recipes; workouts, cardio, sets, personal records, and templates; body progress (weight, body-fat %, measurements) and check-ins (recovery, training, nutrition, mindset); supplements and your supplement log; water and an optional alcohol log; grocery lists and meal plans; and app preferences. This data is stored on your device and, when you are signed in, backed up to your account so you can restore it and use multiple devices.
Apple Health (HealthKit). With your explicit permission and only for the data types you enable, Sisu reads steps, active energy, resting heart rate, heart-rate variability, VO₂ max, body weight, sleep, and workouts, and can write workouts, active energy, and weight back to Health. Consistent with Apple’s rules, HealthKit data is used only for features you enable and is never used for advertising, never sold, and never shared without your consent. The Health metrics we read for display — steps, active energy, resting heart rate, heart-rate variability, VO₂ max, sleep, and body weight — are cached on your device only and are not uploaded to our cloud. Workouts you choose to import from Apple Health are different: they become Sisu cardio sessions, and like any workout you log yourself they are backed up to your account while you are signed in. You can revoke access anytime in iOS Settings → Privacy & Security → Health.
Location (GPS). With your permission, outdoor activities use your device location (including in the background while you are recording) to map your route and calculate distance, pace, and splits. Maps are rendered by Mapbox (we disable Mapbox’s own telemetry). The route is stored with the activity you record, and because recorded activities are part of your cardio history, routes are backed up to your account while you are signed in. Routes are never used for advertising and are never sold.
Photos. The camera image from a barcode scan is processed on-device and is never stored or sent; only the barcode number is looked up (see Food data lookups). A progress photo you attach is stored locally on your device only and is not uploaded to our servers. When you use the AI “snap a meal” feature, that single meal photo is sent through our secure server to our AI provider to estimate its nutrition.
Food data lookups. When you search for a food, your search term is sent through our secure server to USDA FoodData Central. When you choose to search packaged foods, your search term is sent from your device to Open Food Facts. When you scan a barcode, the number is looked up in USDA FoodData Central through our secure server and, if it is not found there, sent from your device to Open Food Facts. Open Food Facts receives these requests directly from your device, so it sees your IP address.
AI feature inputs. When you use an AI feature — the AI workout builder, meal suggestions, AI meal plans and the grocery lists built from them, recipe generation, recipe import (from a link, pasted text, or photos), AI macro estimates, and snap-a-meal — the text or photos you submit, and the details that feature needs, are sent through our secure server (a Supabase Edge Function) to our AI provider, Anthropic (Claude), to generate a result. Depending on the feature, those details can include your calorie and macro targets, goal, activity level, and the meals you have logged that day (meal suggestions); your calorie and macro targets, goal, diet style, allergies, food notes, and saved recipe and favorite-meal names with their macros (meal plans); and your training goal, experience, available equipment, and custom exercises (workout builder). The app does not send your name or email with these requests. Sisu asks your permission before it first sends anything to Anthropic, and sends nothing until you agree. Anthropic does not use these requests to train its models. Our API keys are held server-side and are never included in the app. To prevent abuse, our server keeps an hourly tally of how much each account uses AI features and food search — an amount only, never what you asked — and routinely deletes tallies older than 48 hours.
Recipe import from a link. When you import a recipe by pasting a link, the app fetches that page directly from your device — so the site you paste sees your IP address, as it would if you opened the link in a browser — and then sends the page text to Anthropic to extract the recipe.
Grocery connections (optional). Kroger — you connect your own Kroger account via secure OAuth; your Kroger tokens are stored server-side only, never in the app; we send product IDs and quantities to build your cart, and you can disconnect anytime. This is a convenience connection and is not monetized. Walmart (when enabled) — product search plus a pre-filled cart link. Instacart (when enabled) — a pre-filled shopping list handed off to Instacart. Other retailers you choose — tapping “Send to store” for H-E-B, Target, Costco, Sam’s Club, Safeway, or Tom Thumb opens a product search on that retailer’s own website with your search term; nothing is sent until you tap.
Household (optional). If you create or join a household, Sisu shares one grocery list with the members you invite — not your meals, macros, logs, weight, or photos.
Notifications. If you enable reminders, the app schedules them locally on your device. No push token is created and no reminder is sent from our servers — nothing about your reminders leaves your phone.
Crash reports. If Sisu crashes or hits an error, it sends a crash report to our crash-reporting provider, Sentry, so we can find and fix the problem. A report holds technical details, such as: the error and where in Sisu’s code it happened; your device model, iOS version and app version; device state at the time, such as free memory, battery level, screen orientation, language and region settings; the screens you visited just before it, by screen name only; recent warnings and errors the app logged, and which of our servers it was talking to, with personal details removed; and a random identifier for this installation that is not linked to your account. To measure how often Sisu crashes, the app also tells Sentry when a session starts and ends. Sisu does not attach your name, email, health, nutrition or body data, photos or location to a report, and before a report leaves your phone it cuts web addresses down to which server was involved and masks email addresses, account IDs and other identifiers. Sentry receives your IP address when a report arrives, as any server does; we have set it not to store your IP address or the approximate location it could work out from it. Crash reports are never used for advertising or sold.
Coaching (optional)
Coaching is not available in the current version of the Sisu app. It is offered separately through the Sisu coach dashboard on the web. Where it is available, it works as follows. Coaching is entirely opt-in and you stay in control. A coach can see your data only after you accept their invite, and only for the categories you choose to share (for example: nutrition, training, body/weight, or supplements). Coaches have read-only access — they can never edit, add, or delete your data — and revoking takes effect immediately. Progress photos are never shared with coaches. Coaches see your data only as of your most recent sync. The coach dashboard’s AI summary of check-ins is switched off; it will only return as something you choose to allow.
Community sharing (optional)
Sisu lets you optionally publish recipes to share with other users. If you choose to publish a recipe, the recipe content and the display name you enter at the time of publishing become visible to other users (publicly in the community library, or to anyone with the share code if published unlisted). Only what you deliberately publish is shared — your account email, logs, weight, photos, and other personal data are never shared. Do not include personal or sensitive information in content you publish. A recipe published as unlisted is reachable only by its exact share code — it is not listed in the community library and cannot be read without that code. You can unpublish a recipe at any time, though copies other users already saved to their own libraries may remain with them. You can report objectionable shared content or block an author from within the app; reporting hides the recipe from you immediately, and enough reports remove it for everyone pending review.
What we do NOT collect
- No advertising identifiers, ad networks, or behavioral ad tracking.
- No third-party analytics or marketing SDKs. The one diagnostic service Sisu uses is the crash reporting described under Crash reports.
- We do not sell or rent your personal information to anyone.
- We never use Apple Health data for advertising.
How we use your information
We use your data only to: provide and operate the app’s features; calculate your targets; back up and sync your data across your devices; generate the AI suggestions you request; run the coaching, household, and grocery features you enable; deliver reminders you turn on; diagnose and fix crashes and errors; and maintain the security of your account. We do not use your data for advertising or profiling.
Service providers (sub-processors)
We share the minimum data needed with providers that process it on our behalf. Each processes data under its own privacy policy:
- Supabase — authentication, database, backup, and secure server functions.
- Anthropic — processing AI feature requests you make.
- USDA FoodData Central and Open Food Facts — returning food data for your searches and barcode scans.
- Mapbox — rendering maps for outdoor activities.
- Kroger — building your cart, if you connect your account.
- Walmart — product search and cart links, when enabled.
- Instacart — handing off a shopping list, when enabled.
- Other retailers you tap through to (H-E-B, Target, Costco, Sam’s Club, Safeway, Tom Thumb) — a product search on their own site, only when you tap.
- Apple — app distribution, Sign in with Apple, and purchases.
- Google — Sign in with Google.
- Expo — over-the-air app updates (EAS Update); receives your device platform, app version, and IP address when the app checks for an update.
- RevenueCat — subscription management, if and when subscriptions are offered.
- Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.) — crash and error reports (see Crash reports).
Data storage and security
Data is transmitted over encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS), and our hosting provider encrypts it at rest. Cloud data is protected with per-user access controls (row-level security) so your data is isolated to your account, and is retained while your account is active. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable measures to protect your information.
International users
Your data may be processed and stored on servers located in the United States or other countries where our providers operate. By using the app, you consent to this transfer and processing.
Your choices and rights
- Access: your data is viewable and editable in the app at any time.
- Export your data: You → Account & Data → Export My Data creates a file containing everything Sisu holds about you (apart from the short-lived usage tallies described under AI feature inputs, which hold no content), which you can save or send anywhere (data portability).
- Sign out: clears the locally stored data on that device.
- Reset All App Data: erases your logs and profile in the cloud and on the device and signs you out. Your account remains.
- Delete account: You → Account & Data → Delete My Account permanently deletes your account and all associated data from our servers, immediately and irreversibly. It is also available from the subscription screen. Recipes you published to the community are removed; shared grocery lists you own are handed to another member. Deleting your account does not cancel an App Store subscription — manage that in your Apple ID settings.
- Permissions: you control camera, photos, location, Apple Health, and notification access in your iOS Settings at any time.
- Sisu AI: switch it off any time in You → Privacy. While it is off, nothing is sent; an AI feature asks again before sending.
- Connections: disconnect Kroger (Send to store → Kroger → Disconnect Kroger account) or leave a household anytime.
Depending on where you live (for example, the EEA/UK or California), you may have additional rights such as access, correction, deletion, and portability. Deletion and export are self-service in the app; for anything else, contact support@sisuascent.com. We do not sell personal information.
Children’s privacy
Sisu is intended for adults 18 and older (it provides fitness, nutrition, and supplement-related content) and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has provided us data, contact us at support@sisuascent.com and we will remove it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the app evolves. We will post the revised version with a new “Last updated” date.
Contact
Questions or requests: support@sisuascent.com — Sisu Ascent LLC.