Managing your diet and lifestyle can be difficult and extremely time-consuming. But if you have a health condition like PCOS, diabetes, or you want to maintain your weight for another reason (like preparing for children or reducing the risk of cancer), then tracking what you eat is one way of managing and monitoring your weight goals.
Nowadays, though, managing your diet is far easier due to the prevalence of easy to use nutrition tracking apps. With technology on your side, tracking daily calorie consumption and nutrition levels can become part of a daily routine. If you are of the mind to improve your health by tracking what you eat, then consider trying out a free (if not cheap) nutrition tracker app.
There is a range of nutrition tracker apps to choose from, so we thought it best to review the 9 best nutrition tracker apps for your convenience. This list is not in any particular order, but the apps on this list have been voted to be the top nutrition tracker apps by industry professionals.
1. MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal is a fitness and diet tracker app that allows free calorie counting and diet plan recommendations. Powered by Under Armour, MyFitnessPal can be synced with its companion app MapMyFitness to track fitness as well as fitness watches like FitBit, so that you can identify if you are in a caloric deficit.
Weight loss goals are required to start a profile (even if your goal is to maintain weight), and you can adjust your weight weekly to track true progress.
Food is entered in manually or through a search mechanism. Search over 2,000,000 foods!
The app provides both visual and written breakdowns of meals, such as the macronutrient breakdown by serving, ingredients, and more. MyFitnessPal has their own meal plans (customized by goal) that you can follow, making healthy eating easier. Food is tracked by meals and calories are counted against your goal and activity levels!
One of the biggest perks of MyFitnessPal is that every feature is free always!
2. MyPlate Calories Tracker
Similar to MyFitness Plan, MyPlate Calories Tracker allows users to comprehensively log each food item to create a daily food diary. Food can be tracked in terms of goals (such as easy, moderate, or challenge), with easy-to-read reports and graphs that show users their progress.
Food items are entered manually or through the search method and food is organized based on meals or snacks. A graph pops up to show the overall macronutrient intake from that day as well.
Other perks to MyPlate include a visual and numerical water tracker and a nutrition-related forum! MyPlate is powered by Livestrong and is compatible with iOS devices, including iPad and Apple Watch, and Android.
3. Calorie Counter and Food Diary
Developed by MyNetDiary, Calorie Counter and Food Diary is a very popular nutrition tracker app that lets you input food manually or record a food item’s calories with a barcode scanner. The tool can be used to plan meals, hit nutrition goals, hit weight loss goals, and track macronutrients.
The app organizes food based on meals, so you can clearly see how many calories and nutrients are ingested per food item, per meal, per day, and per week. It also will weigh this caloric input against the fitness calories expended to identify if there is a deficit (which is what you are looking for when seeking weight loss).
While this tool is available in a free version, the full availability is unlocked with a subscription (approximately USD 40 per year). Many users prefer this app because of its user interface and ease of use. In addition to tracking food, you can also use this app to track fitness, and sync with fitness trackers like FitBit.
4. Food Intolerances
As is obvious by the app name, the Food Intolerances app is meant to be a tool for tracking allergies and food sensitivities, both for the individual who has known food allergies but also for the individual who is looking to diagnose food allergies.
In particular, this app is targeted for individuals with histamine intolerance, mastocytosis, fructose malabsorption, sorbitol intolerance, gluten sensitivity, and lactose intolerance.
The app comes with hundreds of data filled food categories, so you can search the food and identify whether or not it is compatible with your allergies or food sensitivities. Overall, the interface is comprehensive, showing a picture of the food, description, and the size in grams. Foods can be organized by recipe and colour for clear visuals.
5. Waterlogged
For some people, tracking water intake is important and necessary as it can easily be neglected. So, just for kicks, we’ve also thrown on the Waterlogged app, which will do just that. Water can be tracked in other apps, but if you are finding that the functionality of a nutrition app is too cumbersome, you can also add on the Waterlogged app to keep water tracking separate.
The interface for this app is fairly clean. You can set reminders to drink water as well, so you’ll have personalized notifications pop up to remind you. Tracking water intake is easy, as the app allows you to choose the bottle size, and then you can adjust how much water you’ve consumed by adjusting the water visually. Increments can be adjusted based on volume, percentage, and other measurements.
The app can also provide you with graphs so you can assess how you manage hydration. The app must be upgraded to premium to unlock full features, which is a bit of a downside. However, the features included are not seen in any other nutrition or water tracking app! This app is only available for iOS, but Android users can use the free app WaterLog, which is similar.
6. Nutrients
Nutrients is an app that is strictly for monitoring the number of nutrients that you intake. This can be particularly useful if you are lacking certain nutrients or need to take certain daily supplements, like pre-pregnancy supplements. We obtain nutrients through the food we eat, and without being able to track them, we have no idea how much of each nutrient we actually get!
This app allows you to search through 200,000 foods and manually enter a common recipe to receive a nutritional breakdown, including calories, fats, cholesterol, everything that would be on a nutrition label, and all the vitamins and minerals that are in the meal.
Entering the recipe is easy as the app allows you to input the exact measurement that you used in making the meal. Unfortunately, this app is only available for iOS.
7. Shopwell
Shopwell is an app that combines your fitness and nutritional goals, food sensitivities with what is available at a grocery store.
Enter your fitness and nutrition goals and food sensitivities into the app, and then you can scan barcodes at the grocery store to identify if the nutritional content fits your goals or not, or if it will cause an allergic reaction or food sensitivity issue. You can also take a picture of the store loyalty card or receipt to assess the food that you purchased, which makes calorie tracking exceptionally easier.
The biggest drawback is that it is limited in where the app is available and the grocery stores that it is compatible with.
8. Fitocracy Macros
Fitocracy Macros is a free macro-tracking app, which pairs with companion apps Fitocracy – Fitness Collective and Fitocracy for Pebble – Workout Coach. Fitocracy Macros provides a clear user interface so that users can directly identify if they have hit their macros or gone over.
Since nutritional apps can be overwhelming, simple entry is included in Fitocracy to encourage users to continue to use the app. The app allows you to view your macro history and adjust your goals along the way.
9. Noom Weight Loss Coach
Finally, we come to Noom Weight Loss Coach, which is flipping the script on fitness and weight loss trackers. This app is not only a nutrition tracker app as it also provides a different perspective on healthy habits in order to lose weight effectively.
Noom can be customized based on two goals: getting fit and losing weight (for good). Their guidance is suggested based on tailored habit and behaviour change using cognitive behavioral therapy rather than restrictive dieting.
Resources
Calories Tracker and Food Diary. Retrieved from https://www.mynetdiary.com/
Fitocracy. (2020). Retrieved from https://www.fitocracy.com/
Fitocracy Macros. Retrieved from https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fitocracy-macros-how-much-should-i-eat-to-lose-weight/id786388273
Food Intolerances. Retrieved from https://www.baliza.de/en/apps/histamine.html
Healthline. (2020). “How to Count Macros: A Step-by-Step Guide” Retrieved Sept 30, 2020, from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-to-count-macros#:~:text=Counting%20macros%20may%20ensure%20that%20your%20macronutrient%20needs%20are%20being%20met.&text=Macronutrient%20counting%20is%20an%20excellent,eating%20and%20improved%20diet%20quality
Inositol Australia. (2020). “A Guide to Pre Pregnancy Vitamins and Supplements.” Retrieved Sept 30, 2020 from https://inositol.com.au/fertility/pre-pregnancy-vitamins-and-supplements/
Inositol Australia. (2020). “Managing PCOS Through Natural Treatment.” Retrieved Sept 30, 2020 from https://inositol.com.au/pcos/managing-pcos/
Inositol Australia. (2020). “Help to Decide Whether To Have Kids or Not.” Retrieved Sept 30, 2020 from https://inositol.com.au/fertility/decide-whether-to-have-kids/
MyFitnessPal. Retrieved from https://www.myfitnesspal.com/
MyPlate Calories Tracker. Retrieved from https://www.livestrong.com/myplate/
Noom Weight Loss Coach. Retrieved from https://www.noom.com/#/
Nutrients. Retrieved from https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/nutrients-nutrition-facts/id396836856
Shopwell. Retrieved from https://www.innit.com/shopwell/
Waterlogged. Retrieved from https://www.baliza.de/en/apps/histamine.html
