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What the best weight loss / calorie tracker app?

S

StangGT909

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 28, 2008
73
16
It's new year resolution time....

What's the best app to track calories by meal and your work outs?
Something similar to the fitday website?

Or specifically, what app has the largest database for foods, (brands, restaurants, etc.) ?

I'm looking for one that has a huge database and possibly would sync with an online website for reports and such.

I don't care if it's free or paid... I'm just looking for the hands down best app to help track this stuff!
 
I'm quite fond of 'Lose it!'

It's database is large but not the best. I do end up manually creating a lot of foods.

But you know, after about 3 weeks you'll have 90% of the foods you eat programed in there. And I've never seen one that's perfect so you'll probably be doing that no matter what you pick.

The reason I like Lose It is the graphical interface is really superb. It shows charts and graphs and is just a lot more clear than other ones I've seen. It's a good program even if you have to do some manually inputting.
 
As Small White Car said, none of them are perfect. Calorie Tracker by LIVESTRONG.com has the biggest database by far, but doesn't allow you to manually enter food or exercise. I use that in conjunction with LoseIt so that I can do just that - manually add food or exercise. Tap & Track is another very good one, and I find that to be interchangeable with LoseIt.
 
I have enjoyed using the DailyBurn and FoodScanner. The dailyburn and corresponding website offers a great way to track calories, workouts, food & nutrition status, water consumption with charts showing your progress. The tool also allows you to setup accountability partners, challenge others, etc. It has a very nice social aspect.

The foodscanner uses the red laser technology to scan the upc of any food items you may be eating and it automatically logs the nutritional/calorie information in your daily food journal. Very handy tool for keep track of things easily. Also has a pretty extensive database for looking up items that dont have a upc code.

check it out.
 
The one that is the best is the one you'll keep using ;)

That being said....I like Tap & Track, and went back to it 2 months ago. Main reason, I've tried 5 of the different apps available (several of the ones mentioned) and with Tap & Track it's easy to enter data.

My only complaint is that, other than syncing to iTunes, there is no backup/restore. So.....if you have to 'Set Up as New' your iPhone, for whatever reason :)mad:) you lose your data (which happened to me). Haven't asked if this is a feature that's on the way....but it's my only complaint.

Being a huge Lance A fan, I wanted to like LIVESTRONG.com's Calorie Tracker, but there's more to just the app if you dig a bit. It says you have access to the website section of 'The Daily Plate'.....which, unless you upgrade to the 'Gold' version at $45 per year (or $30/6 months), you only get to save 45 days worth of data.
 
Small White Car said:
I'm quite fond of 'Lose it!'

It's database is large but not the best. I do end up manually creating a lot of foods.

But you know, after about 3 weeks you'll have 90% of the foods you eat programed in there. And I've never seen one that's perfect so you'll probably be doing that no matter what you pick.

The reason I like Lose It is the graphical interface is really superb. It shows charts and graphs and is just a lot more clear than other ones I've seen. It's a good program even if you have to do some manually inputting.
Click to expand...

+1

Lose It has everything I needed.
 
Thanks a lot,

I'll check them out... Lose it looks promising but I'm intrigued by the coolness of the red laser ability of foodscanner.
 
I use ShapeUp and so far it's pretty good although I'm always on the lookout for something better.

It has a fairly comprehensive online database and allows you to add custom foods & meals which I consider essential.

One thing that bugs me about it is the search function is very picky. It doesn't normalize for punctuation so "trader joe's" and "trader joes" are considered two separate search terms and will return completely different results. Also it doesn't treat search terms independently - "trader joes" and "joes trader" (without quote marks) will return different results or possibly no results.

Another thing that recently irked me about the app was that there seems to be no way to check the information retrieved from the online database. You can define a custom food and add the calorie, nutrients, sodium, fat, etc information and then add your food to the online database. But if you select a food someone else has defined it will only show the calorie and serving information - not the sodium, vitamins, etc. This is particularly frustrating when those stats don't show up in your daily total.

But those issues aside ShapeUp seems to be the most flexible. I tried "Tap & Track" but I found the custom food interface a bit too clunky and restrictive.
 
Lose It.

Since June when I found my blood sugar was high, it's helped me as I've dropped close to 60 pounds. I do often use the Daily Plate Web site as a complement when looking up restaurant foods.
 
m3coolpix said:
My only complaint is that, other than syncing to iTunes, there is no backup/restore. So.....if you have to 'Set Up as New' your iPhone, for whatever reason :)mad:) you lose your data (which happened to me). Haven't asked if this is a feature that's on the way....but it's my only complaint.
Click to expand...

Contacted the nanobitsoftware.com support about this.

There are currently NO plans to ever have a backup system outside of the iTunes syncing process.

Game over for me. I'll start looking at the others mentioned in this thread.

If you ever have to 'Set Up As New' your iPhone, your data with is gone with Tap & Track (by nanobitsoftware.com).

Wouldn't have even thought of this problem until it happened to me this past Tuesday. I purchased a new 3Gs after Christmas to replace the 3G I passed on to a family member. The new 3Gs developed a speaker issue (random noise) and Apple replaced it. Apple Genius bar personnel told me to 'Set up as New' and not restore my backup, as it could've been part of the problem....don't know how that would've been a problem, but that's what was mentioned to do.

I was able to get all my data back with other 'crucial' programs that offer backup/restore options outside of the iTunes process (1Password Pro, Listomni, TextNow, NewsStand, etc.).
 
Daily Burn seems pretty cool, have been trying it out recently. The ability to sync between iphone/macbook is nice. Haven't tried Spark People, wondering how it compares in terms of syncing, using while working out, etc.
 
I'm using Nanobitsoftware.com Tap & Track. The two food features I like is the ability to use previous and favorite entries and to do customized recipes. The previous entries works great because one tends to eat the same foods consistently. I entered the detailed recipe for low fat pancakes from Dr. Dean Ornish and the resultant was right on with what the recipe said it would be. Food entry gets easier with experience and using a scale and measuring cups at home helps with learning to estimate portions.

Tracking your weight adjusts to the number of allowable calories you can eat per day. You can adjust the number of calories based on how much weight you desire to lose weekly and also what you might estimate what your metabolism might be from norm be it high or low.

The exercise feature seems fairly comprehensive and by entering your exercise by type, duration and intensity, it adds to the calories you can eat.

The food database is growing with every update. Unlike some others that need to access the internet this one keeps the database on the iPhone. I was away a week from internet access so that was a benefit. What I am learning though is processed food nutrition labels in regard to content may be extremely optimistic to look good and estimating portion servings can be deceiving. I think one tends to underestimate. One of the biggest variables in daily weight loss is sodium intake. High sodium can have you retaining water and increase your weight on a daily basis even when your calorie intake says your weight should not. Trying to enter a restaurant serving can be the most challenging because you don't have a clue what's in it but you can be sure it will have a high sodium and fat content most of the time. So assume the worse.

All in all I am pleased with the app.
 
I have Tap and Track, and found it very helpful but the database was quite weak. I have switched to LoseIt and it is good, just as good actually, but the database is just a bit better... but not great.
 
CylonGlitch said:
I have Tap and Track, and found it very helpful but the database was quite weak. I have switched to LoseIt and it is good, just as good actually, but the database is just a bit better... but not great.
Click to expand...

Just do as I did (and posted above) - use either one of those in conjunction with CalorieTracker by LIVESTRONG.com. CalorieTracker's database is the biggest I've seen anywhere and contains just about anything you can find at a restaurant. The only thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't allow you to add custom exercises or food, which is a strength of LoseIt and Tap & Track.
 
Lose It! and CalorieTracker look good also but do I detect you have to have an online connection for food data? I see that in CalorieTracker but Lose It! is not clear. If so, they will not work for me. We travel a lot (10 weeks last year) and camp in areas that rarely have any kind of internet connection, wifi or 3G. Just last week I was on the Minnesota Gunflint Trail at a lodge where there is no cell phone or internet wifi service available for four days. That was not a problem with Tap & Track and since I was eating a lot of restaurant based meals I often had to analyze and break some of them down as a recipe to get an accurate estimate calories and nutrients.
 
Davydd said:
Lose It! and CalorieTracker look good also but do I detect you have to have an online connection for food data? I see that in CalorieTracker but Lose It! is not clear. If so, they will not work for me. We travel a lot (10 weeks last year) and camp in areas that rarely have any kind of internet connection, wifi or 3G. Just last week I was on the Minnesota Gunflint Trail at a lodge where there is no cell phone or internet wifi service available for four days. That was not a problem with Tap & Track and since I was eating a lot of restaurant based meals I often had to analyze and break some of them down as a recipe to get an accurate estimate calories and nutrients.
Click to expand...
You don't have to have an Internet connection for Lose It! In fact, that's only needed if you want to sync/backup your data online to their site.
 
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