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We know that eating nutritious foods can help us lose weight, along with being more physically active — but did you know the simple act of tracking what you're eating is linked to greater weight-loss success, too?
Research backs this up: Tracking daily food consumption with an app led to greater weight-loss success, per a February 2019 study in JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. But of course, to stick with the habit, you'll need an easy method.
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That's where calorie-counting apps come in. Many of them allow you to note down your physical activity, sleep and other habits as well as monitoring calories. Here, we've rounded up six RD-recommended calorie-counting apps.
Best Free Calorie-Counter Apps
We tapped two nutrition experts — sports dietitian Marie Spano, RD, CDCS, and dietitian Andrea Goergen, RDN, LDN, owner of Cultivate Healthy in the Washington, DC, area — to get their opinions on some of the most popular calorie counting apps available.
We also looked at ratings and numbers of reviews. All of the apps recommended have 4.7 stars or higher and more than 30 thousand reviews on the Apple App Store. Finally, we looked for apps that will help support best practices for using a food diary, such as recording when you eat.
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This app is not only easy to use, but comes with a large food database and a supportive online community.
MyFitnessPal is one of the most popular calorie tracking apps. Because of their early start and ongoing popularity, they have the "World's Largest Online Community," available to users 24/7. MyFitnessPal keeps their main offerings fairly streamlined: helpful articles, tracking and progress.
Spano loves MFP for its ease of use, but cautions that the calorie counts may be a little off: "The database includes a number of foods that are not accurate as they have been entered by other users." To avoid inaccurate calorie counts, look for entries with a check mark, Goergan says.
"With the free version," Goergan adds, "you can track food intake, create favorites, build recipes [and] import online recipes using URLs, which is rarely a free feature in other apps!" She also likes that this app will alert you if you're eating too few calories.
Other features we love:
Download the app: iOS | Android | Desktop
Free option or paid plans ranging from $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year.
If your goals are more fitness-focused, this app is right for you.
If fitness is one of your top goals with tracking calories, Argus may be a good choice for you. The Argus Calorie Counter & Step does all the basics — from tracking calorie intake to giving analysis based on inputs — but it also exceeds the norm. Case in point: How about monitoring your heart rate with the tip of your finger and your phone's camera, or using the 24/7 pedometer to measure your steps and caloric output?
The app also has a unique display made up of honeycomb-shaped tiles that bring your most pertinent data (coffee and water intake, calories consumed and burned, steps taken, etc.) to the forefront.
"Argus lets you track weight, water and sleep but not nutrition," Spano says. If you're solid in the nutrition department, then this might work for you.
Other features we love:
Download the app: iOS | Android | Desktop
Free app, premium upgrade for $4.99 per month or $29.99 per year.
Try nutritious recipes and diet tips from this specialized app.
Lifesum's one-of-a-kind design and intuitive, streamlined layout makes it effortless to use. Lifesum came out on top for ease of use in a May 2019 study in Journal of Medical Internet Research, that looked at usability among multiple calorie-counting apps. One of Lifesum's unique features is the recommended calorie ranges for each meal and snack. They act as a guide to help you navigate through the day from breakfast to dinner.
With a premium subscription to Lifesum, you'll be able to dig further into the nutrient composition of each individual food, including the types of fat, the breakdown between fiber and sugar, etc. Other features we love:
Download the app: iOS | Android | Desktop
Free option or $29.99 for a 12-month subscription with premium. There are also different plans to choose from, ranging from $21.99 to $99.99, for a lifetime subscription.
The barcode scanner feature on this app makes it easy to grocery shop.
Lose It offers a unique dashboard with a view of the entire week, which helps you see the bigger picture and the importance of consistency. The free option is pretty straightforward with the ability to track meals, water, exercise and weight. It also breaks down meals by macros. Lose It also helps guide you on your way with suggested calorie intakes per meal. Other features we love:
Download the app: iOS | Android | Desktop
Free option, $4.99 for in-app purchases or plans anywhere from $9.99 or $99.99, for a lifetime subscription.
It's free to download the following two apps, and both offer a free trial period so you can explore if they're a good fit for you. Once the trial is complete, however, there is a fee to use the plans.
The diet's classic point system is used in its app, too — making food tracking easy and fun.
WW, which most people still refer to as Weight Watchers, is very well known in the weight-loss world. Like most tracking apps, your plan is personalized into one of three colors, which helps guide you in your points for each day.
Their large selection of Zeropoint foods (aka, "free" foods that you can eat anytime, without including them in your daily points' allotment) helps provide more freedom in the diet. Spano likes WW for promoting behavior change by assigning lower points to more nutritious foods and higher points to foods with less nutrient value.
Download the app: iOS | Android | Website
Free for 30 days, then $19.99 to $24.99 per month to continue on with the program, and depending on the features you want.
