Top 5 Calorie Counting Apps

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An essential aid to any modern diet is a good calorie counting app.

They make keeping track of exactly what you have eaten easy and quick.

However, because the calorie counting apps are so easy to make, there are now a ton of them on the market.

It can be difficult for a consumer to make an informed choice and given that some of the apps require subscriptions, you don’t want to commit to buying an app only to find out later that there are better ones available.

That is where this article comes into play.

In this article, you will see a comparison of the five best calorie counting apps on the market, including a list of pros and cons.

1) MyFitnessPal

Perhaps one of the most well-known of them all, the MyFitnessPal app is straightforward and clean.

While you will have to subscribe to Premium for some of the features (which is true for most apps) like planning your days ahead of time, you’ll find that the interface is simple enough to work with for your daily logging requirements.

It is free to signup and they also have a desktop version that you can use.

They have a forum where you can connect with other users to chat and even some groups you can join to share your goals and favorite exercises.

You earn badges for losing weight, logging in regularly, and so on.

Pros

MyFitnessPal is probably among the most popular calorie counting apps available (in fact, it might be the most popular one by now).

It is easy to see why it is so popular.

First off, it is incredibly easy to set up and to use, which is ultimately the most important thing for a lot of people.

You can easily track how many calories you have consumed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

There are separate categories for tracking fat, protein, sugar content, etc.

Plus, it can actually by synced up with a variety of different exercise apps.

This is incredibly helpful because it means that you can keep both your food and exercise information in a single app.

One of the most advertised parts of this app is the ability to scan the barcode of any food and have the nutritional information entered directly onto your app.

This feature can’t be understated because it is so incredibly helpful and saves you from having to manually research the nutritional information of food.

Cons

Sadly, many of the good features of the MyFitnessPal are locked by a yearly subscription that will cost you $50. Not a hefty sum, but still quite a lot to pay for any app.

A more serious issue is the extent to which MyFitnessPal relies on user-created databases.

When you scan food, the MyFitnessPal pulls the nutritional information from its database, but because that information was originally entered into the database by another user, you can’t be 100% sure that it is accurate.

However, this is only really an issue for more obscure foods.

2) Lose It!

The biggest competitor, LoseIt is a direct opponent to the MyFitnessPal app.

Both have been around for a very long time and, like MyFitnessPal, you’ll want to get the premium version to unlock multiple goal-tracking and planning your days ahead of time.

It also awards you badges and there is a desktop version and forum if you’d like to chat with other people during your journey.

ike the above, you can track not only your weight but also your body measurements.

In addition, every time you complete your diary for the day, you’ll get a prediction of “if every day were like today…” where it will guess when you’ll reach your weight goal based on your current eating trends.

Pros

The Lose It fitness app is very similar to MyFitnessPal, in that Lose It is very easy to use.

You can easily enter your calorie intake and the tracker is very well organized.

Likewise, Lose It also has its own scanning feature, so you don’t always have to manually add in nutritional information.

Lose It has a few advantages over MyFitnessPal that may be of interest to quite a few of you out there.

Firstly, a Lose It premium subscription is roughly $10 cheaper (there is also a free version that you can use).

Secondly, it gives you the ability to enter your own information such as your height, current weight, desired weight, etc. and it will actually give you a personalized recommendation for how many calories that you should be consuming.

Cons

The major issue with Lose It is that it could afford to be a lot more readable. When compared to MyFitnessPal, it takes a lot longer to get used to the interface.

3) Noom

Pros

Noom is an interesting fitness app because it relies on one of the strongest motivators out there, peer pressure.

What Noom does is let you enter both your current weight and overall health situation and your desired outcome. It then links you with a “coach” who holds you accountable.

If you don’t log meals or log your exercise for the day, you get reminders to do so from your coach.

If this sounds a bit odd, consider that a university did a study on the weight loss effect of the app.

Over 80% of both men and women who used the app lost significant amounts of weight, so clearly, the system works.

The actual app itself is easy to use and makes keeping track of meals and exercise pretty easy.

Cons

The only major downside to this app is cost. This can run you up to $60 per month.

The only thing that really mitigates this high cost is that once you get into the habit of holding yourself accountable, you can stop paying for the app.

4) FatSecret

Looking for a completely free option?

FatSecret may have a slightly less pretty interface, but it is simple and effective when it comes to counting your calories.

Like the above options, it even features a barcode scanner so that you can track packaged foods with ease.

Plus, an extensive database helps you look up your favorite restaurant dishes.

Join a closed group of people and you can even participate in “challenges” where you’ll work with each other to stay on track and stay motivated towards a goal, like logging your food intake every day.

Pros

The main draw of FatSecret is the amount of information that it gives you.

Not only does it have a very comprehensive database with a ton of different restaurants and food items in it, but it also gives you access detailed monthly breakdowns about what you consumed that month.

Like many other apps, this one also comes with the ability to scan the barcode of food and have it instantly entered on the app.

That’s also where the expanded database comes in handy since you can basically anything and it will almost certainly be in the database already.

Cons

The major issue with FatSecret is that it can be difficult to get used to, especially when compared with the very easy to use interfaces found in apps like MyFitnessPal or Lose It.

5) Calorie Counter Pro

Pros

The interface on the Calorie Counter Pro app is very similar to the interface of apps like MyFitnessPal, so if you have used those apps before, you should be able to get the hang of this one easily.

Even if you haven’t used a calorie counting app before, the interface is very easy to pick up and start using.

What sets this app apart from the others is that it doesn’t just let you enter how many calories you have consumed, it also lets you keep track of other important health information, like how many hours you slept, how much water that you drank, etc.

Of course, it also has all the other standard fitness app features, such as a scanner for quickly entering in food items.

Cons

Because this app isn’t as popular as some others, the database is a bit lacking when compared to the database on MyFitnessPal or LoseIt.

Ultimately, all of these apps have much of the same features, it just depends on which one’s presentation you prefer.