Index
Tracking your food and calorie intake can be crucial.
Research shows that people who log calories lose more weight and are more likely to maintain weight in the long term.
These days, counting calories is a breeze. Many helpful websites and apps help you record your meals and track your intake.
This article reviews the five best calorie counters available today.
All of them are accessible online, and registering takes less than a minute. They all have applications for iPhone, iPad, and Android.
Last but not least, most of them are free.
- MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal is one of the most popular calorie counters right now.
It tracks your weight and calculates a recommended daily calorie intake. It also contains a well-designed food diary and exercises log.
The home page provides a clear picture of how many calories you have consumed during the day.
Also, it shows your remaining recommended intake and how many calories you have burned while exercising.
If you are using a fitness tracker, MyFitnessPal may be able to sync with it to include your data in the exercise log.
The application tracks your progress towards your goals and offers chat forums with other users. The meetings include conversations, recipes, tips, and personal success stories.
MyFitnessPal’s nutrition database is pervasive and contains more than 5 million foods. You can also download recipes from the Internet or create custom meals and dishes.
The app even saves your favorite foods for convenient recording.
The MyFitnessPal barcode scanner allows you to enter nutritional information for some packaged foods instantly.
Each day is presented as a pie chart, showing your breakdown of carbohydrates, protein, and fat. You can also write a note for each day, recording how it went or how you felt.
MyFitnessPal offers a free version. However, some of its functions can only be accessed in the premium version, with annual cost and payment.
Pros
- MyFitnessPal has the most extensive database available on a diet tracker and includes many restaurant foods.
- You can download recipes from the Internet and calculate the calorie content of each serving.
- You can “quick add” calories if you don’t have time to add details about a particular food.
Cons
- Since other users load most foods, the calorie count may not be entirely accurate. There can be multiple entries for the same product.
- Portion sizes in the database can be challenging to edit, creating difficulties if your portion is smaller or larger than indicated.
- ¡Lose it! (Piérdelo)
Lose it! Another health tracker includes an easy-to-use food diary and exercises log.
You can also connect a pedometer or other fitness device.
Based on your weight, height, age, and goals, Lose It! provides a personalized recommendation for calorie intake. You then keep track of your calories on the home page.
It has a complete food database and an icon representing each food entry. The food diary is simple and easy to use. Adding new foods is not complicated.
Additionally, the Lose It app has a barcode scanner for packaged foods, and common foods are saved for quick entry later.
Lose it presents weight changes on a graph, provides access to an active chat community, and maintains a daily and weekly total.
Its tab called “challenges” allows you to participate in dietary challenges or do your own.
With a premium membership with annual cost and cancellation, you can set more goals, record additional information, and get extra features.
Pros
- The Lose has a complete food database with popular restaurants, grocery stores, and brand-name foods, verified by its team of experts.
- The application allows you to set reminders to record your meals and snacks.
Cons
- It is challenging to record home-cooked meals or calculate their nutritional value.
- The application can be challenging to navigate.
- Lose it! Does not track micronutrients.
- El Fat Secret
The FatSecret is a free calorie counter. Includes a food diary, nutrition database, healthy recipes, exercise log, weight chart, and journal.
A barcode scanner helps track packaged food.
The home page shows your total calorie intake, as well as a breakdown of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, displayed for the day and each meal.
The FatSecret offers a monthly summary view, which provides the total calories consumed each day and the total averages for each month. This feature can be convenient for tracking your overall progress.
This calorie counter is straightforward to use. It also includes a chat community where users can exchange success stories and get tips, recipes, etc.
The FatSecret offers a feature called “challenges,” Users can create or participate in dietary challenges in a closed group of people.
Their website is full of information, tips, and articles on various topics.
Pros
- The food database is comprehensive, including many foods from supermarkets and restaurants.
- Food submitted by other users is highlighted so that users can verify if the information is correct.
- FatSecret may contain net carbs, which may be helpful for low-carb dieters.
Cons
- The interface is quite cluttered and confusing.
- Cronometer
The Cronometer web allows you to easily keep track of your diet, exercises, and body weight.
It offers exact portion sizes and a robust exercise database. If pregnant or breastfeeding, you can select a custom profile based on your higher calorie needs.
You can also tell the Cronometer if you are following a specific diet, such as the paleo diet, the low carb diet, or a low-fat vegetarian diet. This changes the macronutrient recommendations.
The food diary is straightforward to use. Below that, you will find a bar chart showing the carbohydrate, fat, and protein breakdown for that day and the total calories consumed.
Cronometer is particularly useful for tracking micronutrients like vitamins and minerals.
It offers a Gold upgrade for a minimal cost per month that removes ads, offers advanced analytics, and offers additional features.
Pros
- Easy to use.
- You can sync data from health devices to the app and import weight, body fat percentage, data, and sleep activities.
- It tracks all micronutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, and trace elements.
Cons
- Cronometer does not divide the food diary into meals.
- You can only add a homemade recipe on the website, not in the app. However, the food will be available in the app after that.
- It does not have a social community of users.
- Although the website is free, the app costs $ 2.99.
- SparkPeople
The SparkPeople is another full-featured calorie counter that tracks nutrition, activities, goals, and progress.
The food diary is relatively straightforward. If you tend to eat the same thing often, you can paste that entry in several days.
At the bottom of each day’s entry, you can see your total calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein.
You can also view the data as a pie chart.
Recipes are straightforward to add, and the app is equipped with a barcode scanner so you can record packaged foods.
The SparkPeople site has a massive community.
Its resources include:
- Prescriptions.
- Health news.
- Exercise demonstrations.
- Articles from experts in health and wellness.
The free version has one of the largest food and nutrition databases online, but you have to update your account to access many other features.
Pros
The website is full of resources on a variety of topics.
Cons
- The site can be overwhelming for new users as it contains much information.
- The content is distributed in various applications based on different forums. For example, there is an app for pregnant women and another for recipes.
- Users sometimes have trouble logging into the app.
The bottom line
Calorie counters and nutrient trackers are handy if you are trying to lose, maintain, or even gain weight.
They can also help you make specific changes to your diets, such as eating more protein or fewer carbohydrates. However, you don’t need to track your intake constantly.
Give it a try occasionally for a few days or weeks to get a more nuanced view of your diet.
