Calorie counting apps have been very popular over the past few years as a way to watch and measure what we are eating. But with these apps has come a lot of confusion. Many of these apps must have food databases to find the food you want to input but also many allow the public to add in their own foods and ingredients, which aren’t always accurate. This means other members of the public may find these measures rather than the ones they were after, this can result in many different calorie figures for the same food being included in the app. In addition, every product has their own calorie count for their label, for example something like chicken breast you would expect to be a universal measure but as food labels are legally allowed to be up to 10% out, these counts do end up varying quite significantly.
So what apps are out there? Firstly, the perhaps most well-known and common is “MyFitnessPal”. This is an American app and although it has improved over the years, by now allowing you to save your favourite meals to come back to and a barcode scanner to save time on inputting, it does mean that is most of their measures are saved as cups and not the metric system we use, making measuring almost impossible. Also, many of their saved brands are American and again not applicable for the UK market.
Another well-known health tracker is the “Lose It” application, this is very simple to use, with many of the foods represented by pictures making it user friendly. It has a very handy aspect called “challenges” which allows you to participate in dietary challenges and make your own. Good if you are quite goal orientated. It doesn’t unfortunately have any information on micronutrients and it is very time consuming to log home cooked recipes.
Finally, we have the calorie counter called “FatSecret”, this happens to be my favourite calorie counting app as it is a British app and has loads of supermarket brands and even restaurants saved into their database making it much easier to find the foods and drinks you are after. The restaurant aspect is super useful as you can even find your favourite coffee from Pret or Starbucks. For example, it means you can be aware of how much the food and drinks can impact your daily intake. My other love of this app is the “MyProfessional” option (this is still free), you can enter your dietician or nutritionist email address and invite them. Once they have accepted this, they are able to watch and comment on anything you input into your app, they can give you advice or query what you are eating, giving you that extra bit of support and accountability.
As a nutritionist, I do find calorie counters extremely useful when working with clients, but they always must be taken with a pinch of salt and expect a percentage of error. If you want a complete personalised and accurate programme then get in touch with me today and I can formulate one unique to you!