Calorie Counter

Buford T Justice

I'm looking to keep an eye on the amount of calories that I'm eating on a daily basis. There's a lot of websites that will give info on diets and all sorts but I'm just looking for something simple. Like I had a chicken salad = x number of calories.

Anyone any ideas of a suitable app?

Penn

My Fitness Pal is probably the most widely-used, and I use it myself daily. It can be a bit hit and miss, as you can search for something and the results can vary quite a bit in terms of calories. It also gives a lot of US products and measurements (eg. 1 cup of X).

But, I think so long as you're specific enough and have a general idea on the weight and expected calories, it's really good, and it doesn't take long to build up a bit of a library of favourite meals and recipes you can then add with one click.

Some things you might have to break down into ingredients. For example you say Chicken Salad, but that's hard to quantify. So maybe add it as 150g chicken breast, 20g whatever sauce/dressing is on it, 80g salad. But it means the next time you go to add it, you can either save it as a meal/recipe if it's something you'll be having quite often, or it gives a list of recent things you've added for that time of day (Lunch/Dinner etc) and you can select it from there without having to properly search for it again.

The app also has a barcode scanner which is pretty decent, so you can scan the barcode on packages and select how much of it you've had.

So yeah, it's pretty decent. As I said can take a few weeks to get used to, and ultimately it'll only be as accurate as you are yourself. But after a few weeks it takes very little effort to input your daily foods.

Macy0161

Penn wrote: »

ultimately it'll only be as accurate as you are yourself.

Myfitnesspal and this, basically. Also check the scan results, as they're not always accurate.

Sabre0001

Will echo the MyFitnessPal recommendations. Allows you to scan products with barcodes and finds the nutritional info for you, you can create a recipe if you use a mix of ingredients frequently. The main thing is to be accurate yourself in terms of measuring everything out. Also quite useful for some restaurants. Otherwise I'd recommend using a generic dish, but picking one of the higher calorie options - better to overestimate than underestimate.

Buford T Justice

Thanks. I've downloaded it, and it looks really good. Better than I thought.

I just didn't want to spend endless time on a plethora of apps giving away my details again and again....

Alf Veedersane

The more you sue it, the less time you have to spend on it because when you enter foods, the next time you go to add something, you can just select it from the History, which makes it a lot quicker after the initial few days.

I often just use it to get a handle what's in what I'm eating, e.g. fibre, protein, etc, rather than to just monitor my calories.

Macy0161

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

The more you sue it, the less time you have to spend on it because when you enter foods, the next time you go to add something, you can just select it from the History, which makes it a lot quicker after the initial few days.

And the "Save Meal" option if you have a frequent combinations.

The "Recipe" option is great too, especially if you batch cook.

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

I often just use it to get a handle what's in what I'm eating, e.g. fibre, protein, etc, rather than to just monitor my calories.

I do this also, and the toggle to weekly view to see how I'm doing on calories and macros/ nutrients for the week.