MyFitnessPal
Android / iOS / Windows Phone
MyFitnessPal is the most high-profile calorie counter, with more than 80 million users by the time it was bought for $475m by sports brand Under Armour in February 2015. The app makes it easy to log your meals and snacks, either by searching for them or scanning product barcodes. MyFitnessPal also doubles as an exercise tracker. The app also connects to a wide range of wearable fitness-bands and health apps too. You can set goals for weight, nutrition and fitness, with simple but clear graphs showing how you’re doing.
Lose It!
Android / iOS
Lose It is one of the apps that puts the emphasis firmly on losing weight, as the name suggests. Like its rivals, it starts by getting you to set a goal: using your current and target weights, height, gender and desired pace of weight loss to assign a daily “budget” for your food intake. Graphs on your intake, nutrients and steps are very clear, while the process for logging your meals, snacks and exercise is quick and easy too, whether you’re searching for ingredients or scanning barcodes.
Noom Coach
Android / iOS
Noom Coach features the same basic features as its rivals: you tell it how much weight you want to lose and the pace at which you want to lose it “ turtle, rabbit or cheetah speed “ and it uses that information to set your goal. Logging meals and snacks is quick and easy, but one of Noom Coach’s key differences is its traffic-lights system classifying food into green, yellow and red categories based on their calorie counts, with the app recommending that you try to make 30% of your intake green foods, 45% yellow and 25% red.
HAPIcoach
Android / iOS
HAPIcoach takes a different approach to most of its rivals: it’s less about numbers and self-tracking, and more about real nutritionists casting their expert eyes over what you’re eating and drinking. You start by logging 10 meals in five days: not by looking up ingredients and their calories, but by taking photos of them with your smartphone camera. You’ll then get an analysis back on how impressive your salad habits are (or how unimpressive your KFC and kabab habits are). HAPIcoach gets you to set goals in the same way as the other apps, but also asks you to rate your motivation and how long you’re willing to spend on the process every day.
