Keeping your exercise and eating habits on track has never been easier thanks to meal tracking apps. Mobile apps that you download to your smartphone or tablet are a quick and convenient way to stay on top of your caloric intake and activity, and can help put you on the path to success.
Meal tracking – aka, calorie counting or food journaling – is not a new concept but it is a powerful one. In fact, according to the National Library of Medicine, “dietary self-monitoring, home-prepared meals, and consuming meals at regular intervals may improve 12-month weight loss,” particularly for postmenopausal women.
By keeping track of your meals, snacks and exercise, you become more aware of what you’re eating, when and how much, as well as how active you are. And it’s oh so satisfying, not to mention motivating, to see your daily calorie intake reduced by the amount of exercise you’ve done.
In fact, studies show that people who self-monitor, keeping track of calorie intake and exercise, have better results. Tracking helps you discover your eating habits and patterns, and make changes where you see you need them. For instance, are you eating because you’re hungry or bored? Are you regularly snacking at 3 p.m.?
But losing weight isn’t just about the number on the scale and how your clothes fit. It’s also about making positive, life-long changes to your lifestyle based on your personal objectives or needs. Are you looking to shed pounds, eat healthier or get into shape? Maybe you need to watch your sodium intake to lower your blood pressure or reduce the amount of saturated fats you consume to improve your cholesterol.
With so many apps to choose from, how are you to know which one is best for you? No single app is best for everyone. So, I did some digging, a lot of reading, tried a few, and pared them down for you.
Where to Start
Know Yourself and Your Personal Needs
No one knows you and your objectives as well as you do. When choosing a tracking app, consider your personal needs in order to pick the best meal tracking app to keep you on track.
If you have a specific way of eating – such as vegan, paleo or keto – choose an app that supports special diets. Should you need a little more support or encouragement, select an app that offers coaching and motivation. These apps can connect you to dieticians, doctors and trainers that will help steer you in the right direction.
Lastly, if you’re not getting what you need from a tracking app, try a different one. Most apps are free to download and only charge a fee if you choose to upgrade to a premium plan in order to access more features.
Nutrient Note
Depending on what you like to eat and your familiarity with food nutrients, you might want to consider an app that will give you more nutrition insight and not just numbers. I happen to have a sweet tooth (hello empty calories) and know I need to make a concerted effort to eat healthier.
According to Women’s Health, “it’s important to remember that calories alone won’t take into account whether your food is nutrient-dense, satiating or just out-and-out healthy. For example, you could hit your daily calorie target but in actuality have eaten twice your daily sugar allowance.” Something to consider when choosing a tracking app.
Portion Control
The best way to know how much you are eating is to measure your food and beverage portions. Being able to visualize how much is enough for you will help you control your portion size, your caloric intake and get the best results from your tracking app.
Take some time to learn what a portion or serving size looks like by weighing your food and then use common household items to get a visual. Start with a digital kitchen scale to get a feel for what foods weigh. Then find a comparable object that will give you a visual and help you to estimate a serving size when the scale isn’t handy, like in a restaurant. For instance, 3 ounces of meat or fish is about the size of a deck of cards and one cup of rice is about the size of a closed fist. Also, familiarize yourself with measurement equivalents for easy logging, for example, 250 ml = 1 cup, 5 ml = 1 teaspoon.
Another helpful tool is a portion control container kit, which comes with an assortment of various sized food containers that are colored by category (fruit, protein, carbs, etc.) and labeled with measurements from 2 tablespoons to 1 cup. These containers can help you plan ahead and take the guesswork out of portion control, which is especially useful when you’re on the go.
Lastly, if you’re still unsure about portions and serving sizes, you can learn more by reading this article “Just Enough for You: About Food Portions” from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. I also recommend taking a look at the Dietary Guidelines for Americans’ page of “Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025,” which includes some very helpful infographics as well as lists of “Food Sources of Select Nutrients” in standard and smaller portion sizes with calories and nutrient info., such as calcium, potassium, iron, and vitamin D.
The Most Recommended Meal Tracking Apps
All apps ask for your basic info and goals when you first set up your account and all are available on the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android.
Best All-Around Meal Tracking App: Lose It!
- Price: Free, some features only available with premium subscription of $39.99/year
- Best for: Weight loss, its comprehensive food database and easily tracks meals, weight and workouts
- Community: You can connect with an online community for motivation, support and tips. There’s a blog with nutritional tips, fitness coaching, free workouts, and recipes.
- Compatible with: Several devices and apps, such as Apple Watch, Apple Health, Google Fit, Fitbit, MisFit, Garmin, Nike+, and a few others
Free
- Lose It! is one of the most popular meal tracking apps available. It helps you set weight loss goals by coming up with a personalized calorie budget based on your height, weight, age, and gender.
- It’s intuitive, easy to use and saves your favorite foods and exercises or activities for convenient logging.
- The app includes a barcode scanner and a huge food database of calorie and nutrient content. It even has calorie counts for dishes at popular restaurants.
- One feature that makes Lose It! different from many other weight loss apps is its Snap It feature, which allows you to track your food intake and portion sizes simply by taking pictures of your meals. It doesn’t get easier than that.
- Lose It! displays your daily calories and macronutrients (fats, carbs and proteins) in a color-coded chart, making it easy to see where your calories and nutrients are going. I clearly need to reduce my carb intake!
- You can connect with various communities and networks. If you need a push, Lose It! has a Challenge tab that enables you to create and participate in public challenges with other members.
- You can print or email a daily, weekly or program summary report to yourself or to others either manually or on a pre-set schedule.
- Lose It! has a website as well as an app, which can make entering and viewing your info easier.
Premium
- Reasonably priced compared to other premium subscriptions
- No ads
- Create more specific goals, such as making sure you’re getting enough vitamin D or drinking enough water
- Access to health coaches that can help you in a more personal way.
Best Meal Tracking App for Self Motivators: MyFitnessPal
- Price: Free, some features only available with premium subscription of $9.99/month or $49.99/year
- Best for: Self-motivators who want to easily monitor calories, weight and workouts
- Community: You can connect with an online community for motivation, support and tips. There’s a blog with nutritional tips, fitness coaching, free workouts and recipes.
- Compatible with: 50 other fitness apps and devices, including Apple Watch, Fitbit, Jawbone, Runkeeper, MapMyFitness, Strava, and others.
Free
- This top-rated app has an extensive database of more than 11 million foods, a barcode scanner, food log, recipe importer, restaurant logger, food insights, and more than 350 exercises.
- It saves your favorite meals and workouts for convenient logging. You can download recipes from the internet and calculate the calorie content of each serving. You can also create custom foods and dishes as well as “quick add” calories when you don’t have time to input all the details of a meal.
- When you’re done logging your food each day, MyFitnessPal will tell you what you would weigh if “every day were like today.” For instance, it will say, “If every day were like today, you’d weigh 135 by December 31st.” A very cool feature that gives you insight into how easy or difficult it was to get through the day and if you have the wherewithal to make every day like today. Or, maybe you don’t need to based on your goals. On the flip side, you’ll get a warning message instead of feedback if you skimp too much on calories on any given day.
- The app presents the nutritional breakdowns of what you’re consuming – calories, carbs, fats, proteins, sodium, and sugar – in an easy to read table and color-coded pie chart (did I mention I’m eating too many carbs?).
- You can write a note for each day, recording how things went or how you were feeling.
- There’s an online community where you can connect with others in various message boards.
- MyFitnessPal has a website that’s very user friendly and may make entering and viewing your calories and nutrients easier.
- There’s lots of great info on their blog with articles on nutrition, weight loss, fitness, and inspiration, as well as recipes and videos.
Premium
- Better for serious dieters
- No ads
- Can export CSV files of your data
- Provides more customization
- Get more macronutrient and other nutritional info
Best Meal Tracking App for Support: Noom
- Price: $59/month but the price goes down the longer you commit. The least expensive plan is just over $16/month when you commit to paying $199 annually.
- Best for: Those who need more support and want to create new, healthy eating habits
- Community: You receive in-app one-one-one health coaching (available during business hours)
- Compatible with: Several fitness apps, such as Fitbit, MisFit, iHealth, Runkeeper, and others, but Noom will only work on your smartphone and cannot be synced with other devices, such as a tablet.
Premium
- Noom does not have a free version but offers a 14-day free trial (as of this writing), which turns into a paid subscription if you don’t cancel. The pricing changes based on the auto-recurring plan you choose.
- The app uses a psychology-based approach, reveals your weight loss obstacles and provides adjustments to make better progress.
- You can create tailored programs for medical conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes.
- The Noom app requires you to enter your weight and food intake daily.
- You can enter individual foods and recipes or scan a product barcode.
- In addition to food logging and weight tracking, you get a personal coach (a real person, not a bot) that you can message directly as well as chat in groups with like-minded people.
- There are daily lessons, quizzes and other reading designed to help you make the best choices for your eating habits and reframe how you think about food, weight and overall life changes.
- The program uses a color-coded system to incentivize you to make better choices by replacing high-calorie foods for lower one. For instance, green foods are the lowest-calorie foods (fruits, veggies, whole grains), yellow foods have more calories (avocados, certain meats, yogurt, legumes), and red foods have the most calories (chocolate, pizza, peanut butter, bacon).
- Noom provides personal attention and aims to reveal your weight loss obstacles and offer adjustments to guide you to success.
Best App for Making Healthier Food Choices: Fooducate
- Price: Free, premium subscriptions are available and prices vary by plan from $3.99 for a one-time purchase of their Diet Kickstart up to $74.99 for a lifetime subscription to their Pro plan. They even have a plan for your pet (love that!). See details and pricing under Premium, below.
- Best for: Making healthier food choices, those with food allergies and people on specialty or restrictive diets
- Community: You can connect with an online community and there’s a blog with recipes and diet tips.
- Compatible with: Apple Health
Free
- Fooducate is a meal tracking app but it may serve you best as a way to find healthier food alternatives and may help you better navigate all the different products at the grocery store.
- The app has a great “nutrition scanner” that allows you to scan a food’s barcode and receive detailed information on it, including nutrition facts and ingredients. You can also look up a food by name in the Browse section or add your own foods manually.
- After entering or selecting a food, scroll down and tap on Show Healthier Alternatives to see a list of similar food options with a photo, calories, serving, a letter grade (see below), and more. Tap on that food and the arrow below the macronutrient circles to expand the details and see why it’s a healthier alternative, such as it has less sugar or more fiber. It’s a very cool and informative feature.
- Fooducate uses an algorithm to grade foods. The more natural, healthy and less processed a food is, the higher grade it will receive, such as A+, A, A-, B+, etc.
- In addition to logging meals, the app will also track your workouts, moods and sleep should you choose to enter them.
- They also have a website, recipes, diet tips, and an online community where you can connect with other users.
Premium Plans
Pro:
- The Pro version will give you more nutritional info and additional insight on your intake of carbs, fiber, proteins, etc.
- You can set up filters so the app will flag products if you’re on a specific diet, such as Paleo, vegan or non-GMO. It will also show you net carbs for each product you scan if you’re on a low carb diet, reduce your sodium intake to improve your blood pressure, or flag food with unhealthy saturated fats to improve cholesterol.
- No ads
- Price: $4.99 per month for a month-to-month subscription that automatically renews each month, $2.50 per month for a 12-month subscription that renews automatically every 12 months and includes their 10-day diet kickstart program (see below), or a one-time payment of $74.99 for a lifetime subscription that never expires and also includes the 10-day diet kickstart program.
Gluten & Allergies:
- A great option for people with severe food allergies, this plan is for those who need to “avoid dangerous ingredients” hiding in their food.
- Price: It is $2.99 per month for a month-to-month subscription that automatically renews each month, $1.67 per month for a 12-month subscription that renews automatically every 12 months, or a one-time payment of $39.99 for a lifetime subscription that never expires.
Diet Kickstart:
- Fooducate’s 10-day coaching program that will provide you with “simple and powerful nutrition tricks to maximize your diet success.”
- Price: You can get it for free by sharing it with friends on Facebook via their convenient “share” button, or pay the one-time price of $3.99. Either way, you get 10 simple tips over 10 days, daily email and app notifications, and the promise to “reboot your health!”
Protect Your Pet:
- This program helps you choose the best food and treats for your dog.
- Price: One-time payment of $9.99 that doesn’t expire.
With so many apps and features available, try experimenting with a few to see which one works best for you.
Whether you want to track meals and calories to lose weight, change bad habits, build muscle, or just hold yourself accountable for what you’re eating, meal tracking apps make it easy to stay on track.
This article was commission by FLO/50.
