Think of a food-tracking app as your own personal nutrition assistant. Whether you’re trying to maintain your weight or lose a few pounds, an app makes it easier to keep tabs on your calorie intake, eat a more balanced diet and stay motivated to live a little healthier.
But with so many to choose from, it can be hard to know which is the best app for tracking calories. Here are five fantastic (and free) options:
MyFitnessPal
Unsure how much you should be eating to see results? Enter your current weight and weight-loss goals, and MyFitnessPal gives you a recommended calorie budget. Track your daily intake by entering food from its native nutrition database, add custom foods or enter nutrition facts for packaged items manually using the built-in scanner. You can also enter your daily exercise to keep tabs on how many calories you’ve burned. The app is available for iPhone and Android.
Lose It!
Visual food icons, a comprehensive supermarket and restaurant meal database and built-in pedometer make it easy to track your daily calorie intake and activity level on Lose It! You can even create calorie counts and serving sizes for your favorite custom recipes. To determine how many calories you should be consuming, the app offers personalized recommendations that match your weight-loss goals. It’s available for iPhone and Android.
Noom Coach
Noom Coach marks foods as green, yellow, or red to make healthy eating simple. You’ll stay motivated to make smart choices, too, with a daily dose of nutrition tips and tricks and a built-in pedometer. Upgrade to the pro version for $9.99/month for access to personalized support groups and recipe ideas. The app is available for iPhone and Android.
Calorie Count
If you’d rather not type every single detail of your diet into your phone, Calorie Count is the app for you. Using voice interpretation, you can literally say, “salmon with broccoli and brown rice” for dinner and move on. The program’s goal-setting feature also lets you create and check off health-related to-dos, like eating five servings of produce or jogging for 30 minutes after work. The coolest part? At the end of the day, you get a letter grade to let you know how you did. The app is available for iPhone and Android.
My Diet Diary
This comprehensive app helps you track your daily food choices together with exercise, weight-loss and hydration. You get a comprehensive rundown of your daily nutrient intake, making it easy to know if you’re getting enough of one vitamin or falling short on another. For motivation and support along the way, check out My Diet Diary‘s daily health tips or community forums. The app is Available for iPhone and Android.
Ready to eat healthier? Grab your phone, download a program and get tracking. The best app for tracking calories puts a more nutritious diet a tap away.
Reviews are not scientific and are the sole opinions of the reviewers, not an endorsement by BCBST of any specific mobile application.
Get more information about specific health terms, topics and conditions to better manage your health on bcbst.com. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee members can access wellness-related discounts on fitness products, gym memberships, healthy eating and more through Blue365®. BCBST members can also find tools and resources to help improve health and well-being by logging into BlueAccess and going to the Managing Your Health tab.
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