When I was in private practice and working with clients who wanted to lose weight, one of the tools I found useful was keeping track of the foods you eat every day by using a Food Diary. Back in those days, I had my clients use a paper 7-day food diary that was the size of a checkbook. They tracked individual foods & beverages, calories, mood, exercise, hunger, and food groups using my Food Diary. I would look over the food diary each week & give suggestions to help them get to their goal weight. If they requested a nutritional analysis of their diet, I would analyze their 7-day food diary but it was time consuming for me so I charged them for the Nutritional Analysis printout.   

Some people think this strategy can cause a food obsession, however, how will one know what their eating and drinking problems are leading to weight gain if they can’t track their food & beverage intake? In fact, learning the calories of their foods and beverages helped them to make better choices.

Technology to the Rescue

In today’s world there are calorie counting apps you can add to your I-phone, I-pad or Android which makes keeping track of your foods and beverages easier. Some of the calorie counting apps are really good but many now are charging a monthly or yearly fee. Two of the calorie-counting apps that I currently like are completely FREE or have a free basic option  and a lot of pros are FatSecret and Cronometer.  

FatSecret: Free Calorie-Counting App

The free calorie-counting app, FatSecret (www.FatSecret.com) includes a food diary, a very large food database, an exercise log, healthy recipes and a Barcode scanner you can use to track packaged foods.  In addition, there is a monthly summary view which can be helpful to help track your overall progress. FatSecret is easy to use. If you want to get more involved with other users, you can sign up for different groups & challenges.

I especially like the fitness part of the FatSecret App. You can plug in your weight and it tells you how many calories you burn for many exercises, sports, household chores.

Estimated Energy Burned for Walking 3 mph. for a 145.0 lb (pound) person

Estimated Energy Burned for Yard Work (gardening) for a 145.0 lb person

Estimated Energy Burned for Weight Training for a 145.0 lb person

Cronometer: Basic Version for Free

Cronometer (www.Cronometer.com) allows tracking of your diet, your exercise and your weight. When you set your recommendations, you can also alert Cronometer if you are following a special diet like paleo diet, vegetarian diet or a low carbohydrate diet. It’s easy to use. The basic version is free but you can upgrade for $49.99 per year. The exercise tracking is excellent. You can put add home-cooked recipes to the online website but not on the app on your I-phone, I-pad or Android.  

Other Calorie Counter Apps

Over the years, I have recommended a number of calorie counter apps to clients and family members. Two of the calorie counter apps that I recommended were MyFitnessPal and LoseIt.

MyFitnessPal has a basic version available for free but to get the equivalent of today’s free version of FatSecret app you must pay $19.99 per month or $79.99 per year.  LoseIt has a basic version available as well but you must pay $39.99 per year.  

Additional Resources

https://www.hprc-online.org/nutritional-fitness/performance-nutrition/food-diary-apps-keep-you-track

https://www.verywellfit.com/best-calorie-counter-apps-4777302

https://www.active.com/nutrition/articles/best-calorie-counter-apps

The Bottom Line

Calorie counters and trackers can be useful if you are trying to lose weight, maintain weight or even gain weight. Using them gives an insight to haw many calories and nutrients are in the foods you eat.