Staying in shape can be difficult when you are always on the go. And I don’t mean physically. It is super easy to go calorie overboard if you are not careful, especially with so many delicious high-calorie food options available everywhere you go! I love food but staying on top of my fitness goals is also a top priority. When I started my fitness journey, I went the route of keeping track of calories by hand and using spreadsheets. But in the end, that method is not practical at all. It takes a lot of work and memory to keep track of calories, and it also takes a lot of time! So yes, you guessed it – I gave up.
With so many great apps available for practically anything, I decided to do some digging to find the best apps for keeping track of calories. After some extensive research, I found a great site that summarizes the best apps for calorie counting. Here is the link if you want to check it out yourself:
Best 10 Calorie Counting Apps by AppGrooves
I went through the list and selected my top 3 favorites in hopes it might make it easier for you to decide.
MyFitnessPal for counting calories on-the-go
I am always doing something, so one of my main concerns was to find an app that would simplify the calorie counting process. My main goal was to find a handy app that would easily count calories for any food I eat, whether it be home cooked or store-bought. This is where MyFitnessPal stands out to me. You can easily input recipes and the calories are automatically calculated. You can also use a handy barcode scanner tool to instantly log any food you pick up at the grocery store! The database supposedly has over 6+ million foods. I tried out scanning a couple of items on my 7-Eleven stop and the app instantly recognized the food. With just a tap, my juice and protein bar was added to my food log and I was on my way to the gym.
Unlike my other two picks, MyFitnessPal doesn’t make meal suggestions based on calorie goals. However, the sole fact that the food database is so large, makes it my top food tracker pick!
YAZIO for a personalized diet plan
Another problem with counting calories is figuring out what your daily calorie intake should be. Once you’ve got that down, then you must come up with a variety of meals that fit your calorie goal. I enjoy cooking but coming up with a new menu every day to keep things interesting can be a challenge. It turns out YAZIO does all of this and more. Whether you want to build muscle or lose weight, you get a personalized diet plan to help you reach your goals. This includes meal ideas and recipes that fit your dietary preferences!
Before I set my fitness goals, I was a little overwhelmed with the vast recipe library. They all looked great, but I needed help finding the right one. Luckily the customizable search feature allows you to refine the results to fit your dietary needs and goals. I found that you do get a wide variety of recipes for your fitness goal. In my case, I was looking for recipes that were high in protein and low in calories. I have yet to cook my first one, but the pictures of the food look great, and now I can look forward to my next meal without having to worry about planning it!
MyPlate Calorie Tracker for tracking your diet
Finally, you can’t go wrong with MyPlate Calorie Tracker. I found this to be a great app for keeping track of your diet all-around. Not only does it keep track of your calories, but it also counts your macronutrients too. LIVESTRONG did a great job at bringing together a diet tracker, calorie counter, food recipes, and a supportive community into one place. I particularly like the fact that you can also input workouts and see how many calories you burned. It is like having a recipe calorie calculator and calories burned calculator in one place. I also like the daily calorie dial for an easy way to check how you are keeping up with your goal with just a quick glance.
I would have liked to see an option for easily switching between different accounts. If you want to handle multiple profiles on your phone, you will have to log in to each account every time. Not a deal breaker though. Just a suggestion that would make a great addition to the app.
These are my top 3 apps for counting calories. Regardless if you want to gain muscle or lose weight, you definitely want to keep track of calories to make sure you reach your goals fast. I hope you find these apps as useful as I have found them to be. If you have any favorites of your own, let me know!
