Calorie counting used to be the stuff of food charts, mental math and guessing games.
But there’s no need to carry the little booklets, pencils and calculators to the restaurant anymore. Now “there’s an app for that”.
In fact, there are hundreds of ‘calorie counter’ apps that range from the straight forward food calorie counters, to those dedicated to McDonald’s, wine calories and calories burned.
You’ll have to check out a few of them to see how they work, but we’ve put together some details on a few of them to give an idea of what’s out there.
- With over 10,000,000 downloads of the Android version, MyFitnessPal is perhaps the most popular and highest rated calorie counter on the market.
- Calorie listings for over 3,000,000 foods
- Ability to enter exercise sessions and their calorie counts
- Barcode scanning to quickly get calorie counts in the grocery store
- Set personal nutrition goals
- Full web synching so your desktop version is up-to-date with your latest mobile entries
- Lose It! Markets itself as a weight loss app, but it’s really a calorie counter with a certain set of features.
- The app creates a custom weight loss plan, including goal-setting for sleep, exercise, measurements and nutrition
- Recipe builder so you don’t have to keep bits of paper
- Barcode scanner
- Peer support connection feature lets you connect to friends on the app
- Meal and exercise planner
- Endomondo is not a weight –loss or dieting-based calorie counter, but a GPS-based exercise tracker. What’s it doing in this list? While its counts of calories burned are based on estimates, the exercise planning and tracking offered by Endomondo is more advanced than the similar modules in the calorie counters.
- Custom calorie burn tracking for 60 different activities, from aerobics to yoga
- Track your location (while walking, running, cycling, etc..) in real time so friends can watch your progress
- Audio coach
- Use heart rate monitors with the app
- Easily share workouts and progress with friends and on social media
Don’t be intimidated by how many different calorie-counting apps are out there. They all have different feature combinations, some are better than others for certain features and the user interfaces are as varied as the apps.
But, generally, calorie-counting apps are great tools that make it simple to take your weight management program with you wherever you go.
Your local Herbal One nutrition specialist will be happy to help you with mobile apps and many other tips and techniques that make it easier to stick to your weight loss plan.