Hey, I just got an iPhone for Christmas and I was wondering: In your opinion, what's the best app for calorie counting? It'd be so much nicer to keep track on my phone instead of the excel sheet on my computer, because I can enter it right when I eat it instead of when I get home. :P
Okay, I've tried two: Calorie Counter (put out by fatsecret) and MyFitnessPal. Here are some of my observations about the two:
1) Database of foods: MFP has a huge database, and when I used it, there was only one time I could not find a food I wanted to record (I buy organic, so often I have some weird name brands). Calorie count also has a big database of foods, but not as many as MFP. Oftentimes, with CC, I have to figure out the calories for something and just choose another product with similar specs.
2) Precision: I often figure out the calories per gram in foods and do some math to figure out how many calories my serving size is (e.g., weighing a piece of artisan bread). CC allows me to be more precise than MFP. For example, with CC, I can record 1.37 serving size if I want (or any other weird decimal point). I notice that when I tried this with MFP, it would automatically round up or down, depending on whether the decimal figure was above .5 or below. So, CC wins on precision.
3) Exercise - I like that CC subtracts the amount of "resting" time when I enter an exercise. So, let's say it has me resting for 16 hours of the day and I enter 1 hour of walking, it records the calories for the 1 hour of walking and reduces the resting time to 15. That's more accurate because I'm actually getting the net calories burned. I notice that MFP just adds on the calories of the exercise to the daily total, and that's not as accurate because it doesn't take into account how many calories I would have burned during that time at rest. So, CC wins on exercise calories entered.
4) Entering frequently/recently eaten foods - Both will allow you to quickly choose foods that you've frequently or recently eaten, but MFP seems to keep this huge list that I have to scroll through to find my foods. With CC, I just choose the meal in which I ate the food I want to enter (e.g., if I had peanut butter for lunch, I would choose "Lunch" then "recently eaten"), and then when I choose it, I have the option to change the meal category (e.g., instead of recording it for lunch, I might want to record it as a snack). So, to me, this makes CC more versatile.
5) Aesthetics - I think CC has a cleaner look than MFP. To me, MFP is just to busy looking and confusing. Calorie count is simple. The main page has your food calories and exercise calories. To get more detailed than that, you must click on one of the categories. MFP seems to have a lot more showing, and this may be better for some people, but for me, it was confusing.
So, having tried the two, I prefer Calorie Count, with the only disadvantage being that it has a smaller database of foods. One caveat: There's a chance that there are ways around some of the problems I mentioned with MFP but perhaps I just didn't figure out what they are.
I used to use LiveStrong's The Daily Plate...but now use My Fitness Pal.
My favorite MFP feature is once you are done inputting food for the day and you hit complete, it will tell you "If every day was like today, in 5 weeks, you would weigh___" and that is SOOOO motivating to me. Especially when I have great eating days when I eat well and don't feel deprived, I think, if I do this every day for 5 weeks, I will weigh ___. For instance, right now I'm 182, and its telling me in 5 weeks I will weigh 172. Score. I'll stick to it!
I have both MFP and the Daily Plate. I have entered the same stats but have different calorie limits. MFP allows for 1200 calories daily and Daily Plate allowd for 900 daily. Which to follow??
Does anyone know of any apps that allow for calorie cycling? I use MyFitnessPal and like it a lot, except I want to cycle calories and I'm pretty sure I can only have the one daily limit using MFP.
This is great information -- I appreciate the reviews. I use a FitBit, so it's to my advantage to log my calories there. But the mobile app is clumsy (it's just a link to the website, basically) and sometimes I think I'd like to use MyFitnessPal or something else sometimes, when I'm out and about. I have an Android phone.
Do any of these apps let you enter food with a barcode scanner? That would be so convenient.
Favorite CC app?
