Losing weight and eating well can be a challenge. Many studies have shown that keeping a daily record of what you eat can help you achieve your weight loss and healthy eating goals. Counting calories and monitoring how much fat, sugar and carbs you’re consuming needn’t be a chore. There are lots of diet apps you can use on your phone that make it super easy for you to keep track of what you eat and drink.
Here are seven nutrition and diet apps that can help you achieve your weight loss and healthy eating goals.
MyFitnessPal
Download for iPhone from the App Store and for Android from Google Play
MyFitness Pal is one of the most popular calorie, exercise and macro tracking diet apps with more than 150 million users worldwide.
Begin by adding details such as height, age and target weight, and the diet app will calculate the number of calories you should be eating each day to safely lose or maintain weight. Along with calories, it also tracks the sugar, salt, fats, fibre, cholesterol, vitamin and mineral content of your food and drinks too.
Log your food by searching the diet app’s extensive database of more than five million foods or use your phone’s camera to scan the barcodes of packaged items. It also lists nutrition information for dishes at popular chain restaurants such as Pizza Express and Prezzo, and you can save own recipes for quick entry later on.
Weight loss is shown in a handy graph and you can share your progress with others. Unlike some other diet apps, MyFitnessPal can sync with your fitness tracker, showing the data in your exercise log. While the app is free to download and use, some features can only be accessed in the premium version, which costs £49.99 per year.
Find out more on the MyFitnessPal website.
Lose It!
Download for iPhone from the App Store and for Android from Google Play
This easy-to-use calorie and exercise tracker will calculate your recommended daily calorie intake based on your weight, height, age and fitness goals.
It has a large food database as well as a barcode scanner for packaged foods. You can even log food by taking a photo of it with your phone’s camera. It can sync with your Fitbit or other fitness trackers.
Lose It! shows daily and weekly totals, and displays weight change as a graph. You can hone your diet by setting custom goals for macronutrients, water, health, and body measurements.
Share your weight loss journey with other users in the active chat community and keep motivated by setting weight loss, exercise or healthy eating challenges with friends or by joining in with a public challenge.
The base app is free, although many features are available only with a premium membership.
Find out more from the Lose It! website.
Looking to lose weight and keep it off? Joining a gym can help. Read our article Gyms near me – how to find the best gym.
My Diet Coach
Download for iPhone from the App Store and for Android from Google Play
Dieters in search of fun and motivation may want to take a look at My Diet Coach app. Rather than simply tracking food and exercise, this app focuses on the mental challenge of losing weight by boosting your willpower to help keep you on track. It features goal setting, calorie counting and progress monitoring, along with motivational photos and quotes. There are lots of tips for dealing with food cravings, eating out, exercise laziness and diet slip-ups, and you can set reminders to help you resist that extra slice of cake or missing an exercise class. A fun reward system lets you create an avatar and change how it looks by logging food and completing targets.
The app is free but to access additional features you’ll need to buy the Pro version or opt for a monthly or yearly subscription.
Find out more from the My Diet Coach website.
Drinkaware Track and Calculate
Download for iPhone from the App Store and for Android from Google Play
This free app from charity Drinkaware is a helpful way to monitor your alcohol consumption. Simple to set up and use, its large database of alcohol brands makes it easier to log your drinks, which are then calculated by units and calories.
By regularly logging your alcoholic drinks, you can create an accurate picture of your drinking habits over time. The app shows this information with handy calorie comparisons such as equivalent ‘running time’ and ‘number of burgers’.
You can set goals to help you drink less and the app even uses your phone’s GPS settings to offer extra support when you visit your favourite pub or restaurant.
Find out more from the Drinkaware website.
FoodSwitch UK
Download for iPhone from the App Store and for Android from Google Play
Bad food choices can see you pile on the pounds but this free app makes it easier to opt for healthier food when shopping and meal planning. It allows you to use your phone’s camera to scan the barcode of any supermarket food and drink item to view its total fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar content. This is displayed using a simple ‘traffic-light’ colour-coded scale with red for high, amber for moderate, and green for low. The app then suggests healthier alternatives by searching its database of around 90,000 supermarket food items. A useful app for anyone following a low-salt or low-fat diet or those with specific dietary requirements.
Find out more from the FoodSwitch website.
Boost your brain health with our guide to brain food to boost brain health that may help improve memory, concentration and focus according to science.
WW (Weight Watchers)
Download for iPhone from the App Store and for Android from Google Play
Weight Watchers has been helping people safely lose weight and keep from piling it back on for over 50 years. Attending weekly meetings, however, isn’t possible for everyone but this app gives access to an easy-to-use food and fitness tracker, thousands of recipes and the support needed to lose weight and live a healthier life.
Track what you eat using the barcode scanner or by searching a database of over 250,000 foods and monitor your exercise with the activity tracker. You can even sync your own fitness tracker to the app, so your daily steps are converted into Weight Watchers FitPoints.
There’s also the ability to connect to the Weight Watchers community ensuring a vast amount of support and encouragement from other members. The app is free to download but you’ll need to pay a monthly or yearly subscription to use it.
Find out more from the Weight Watchers website.
5:2 Diet Complete Meal Planner
Download for iPhone from the App Store and for Android from Google Play
Devotees of the popular 5:2 diet may want to give this £1.99 app a go. It features more than 140 recipes to try, along with a choice of six meal plans for your 500 calorie days, exercise plans, and tips to keep you on track.
The 5:2 Diet app also has a calorie counter, BMI, BMR and target calorie calculators that will help you make a success of this diet.
