The Best Calorie Counter App for Losing Weight

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Today we are discussing popular Calorie Counter Apps on the market to see which one is the best one out there. After having shared my Review of the Noom Diet Plan, Noom reached out to me to partner for this post. However I have used so many calorie tracking apps in my life that it's pretty easy for me to compare the top food logging apps. All opinions are my own. I am including my affiliate links in this post as well.

Counting calories is not the end-all-be-all of weight loss…. exercise is obviously a huge factor too. But recording the foods you eat can have a huge impact on helping you reach your goals.

Think about it: If you are trying to lose weight (or gain weight for that matter) and your current eating practices are not getting you to your goal, then you will need to make changes. Right?

What better way to get started than to log foods each day to give you a bigger picture of your daily habits?

For example, when I first started logging my food on the Noom App (using their red, yellow, green foods categories) I *thought* I was eating pretty healthy already. But my first week of logging my foods, every food was red. I would never have known I needed to change my eating without first taking a good look at my current habits.

When you are selecting a calorie counting app, it's good to get a rundown of what to expect.

Let's take a look at some of the most common features you'll find in some of the top apps used for calorie counting.

Common Features of Most Calorie COUNTING Apps

Most of the apps on the market have a pretty common overlapping set of features. You will almost always find things like:

• Easy-to-use navigation
• Daily overview of the food you logged
• Breakdown by macros (carbs fat and protein) or other food classification (red, yellow, green on Noom)
• Entering foods by name via the app's food database
• The option to add or create your own foods or recipes
• The option to use your camera as a barcode scanner to log food
• Serving Sizes Selection
• Exercise logging, since exercise is vital to help you lose weight, tone and strengthen

There are some features that are often included only with the paid version of the apps. This can include:

• One-on-one coaching to help you stay motivated (available on Noom)
• Group support chat (MyFitnessPal's and Fitbit's are like a facebook feed, while Noom's is private.)
• Short daily lessons to help you change your habits (Available on Noom)
• Plan-approved Recipes (Paid versions of MyFitnessPal and Noom)
• Ad-free experience (MyFitnessPal's free version is supported by ads but you can upgrade to get rid of them. Fitbit and Noom do not have ads.)

Whatever app you choose to use to support your weight loss goals, be sure you are not alone.

Having support and accountability can be a big deciding factor on whether you follow through with any eating plan.

I having tried so many programs to track my food in the past:

• Fitbit (I still wear mine every day. I just don't use the app to log my food.)
• Fooducate
• WW
• MyPlate
• MyFitnessPal
• loseit
• Spark People (I used this one while I was seeing a Nutritionist)
• Probably a few others that I'm forgetting

Honestly, I can tell you that they are really all very similar, other than the paid version of Noom.

Here is why:

• Food logging alone will not help you tackle things like stress eating in the long term.
• Tracking calories alone will not help you to have a plan for those birthday parties and holiday parties every year.
• Food logging might make you more mindful of a craving today, but without an accountability partner (like the one-on-one coach on Noom) and tactics to help your stop cravings, then your next craving might get the best of you.

You can take weight loss pills, make weight loss smoothies, track zero point foods or cut out complete groups of foods, but if you can't maintain those things for the rest of your life, then you will go back to your old habits after you stop.

Not to mention you can still stress eat, boredom eat or binge doing those things. So if you have bad eating habits, you need to fix those or else the diet you follow will not matter. 

I don't know about you but I was TIRED of trying every single weight loss program, maybe losing a little weight for a bit, only to go back to my old habits.

The only program I've used that is focused on giving you strategies to overcome those lifelong bad habits is the paid version of the noom weight loss app. (Read my Noom Review and Before and After Results if you'd like to learn more, or skip to the Noom quiz to see your customized plan.)

 

Have you had success with calorie counting in the past? Let's hear about it in the comments.

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