10 iPhone Apps For Counting Calories

One of the greatest things about the iPhone is that developers have turned it into something that can really change people’s lives in ways that no one saw coming. One specific niche that fits this description is the plethora of utilities that you can use to watch what you eat, stay active and lose weight. Who would’ve thought twenty years ago that a cell phone could ever help you lose weight!?

Today we’re going to take a brief look at ten awesome applications geared specifically towards calorie counting. Many of these tools will not only track what you eat, but the way you live with the ultimate goal of being healthier overall. Whether you’re looking to lose weight, get more exercise or even just drink more water, there’s something here for you.

Lose It!

“Succeed at weight loss with Lose It! Set goals and establish a daily calorie budget that enables you to meet them. Stay on track each day by recording your food and exercise and staying within your budget. The average active Lose It! user has lost more than 12lbs and more than 85% of our active users have lost weight.”

There’s a reason that Lose It! is at the top of this list. It’s simply a fantastic app that you’ll have a hard time beating in this category. The benefits go on and on: It’s free, tracks daily consumption of all kinds of nutritional values, has a huge library of generic food items like apples and pizza as well as name brand items like Cheerios and McDonald’s french fries, works offline and will subtract calories when you exercise. I’ve personally used this app quite a bit and definitely recommend that you download it and try it out.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link

Restaurant Nutrition

“The Restaurant Nutrition user can turn on diets to track calorie, carb, protein, and fat to help track and quantify their dieting progress. Each time a restaurant name appears in the program the map button near it can be touched to open the Maps application showing all of that restaurant’s nearby locations.”

Whether you have food allergies, are watching your weight or just want to be aware of what you’re taking in, eating out at restaurants always provides an interesting challenge. With this app you can see and track the nutritional content of the menu items that you consume from popular chains.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link

Calorie Counter by MyNetDiary

“MyNetDiary is the fastest, easiest, and smartest iPhone calorie counter. The list of features is large – over 30 screens. Most importantly – MyNetDiary is very easy to use. MyNetDiary for iPad is the #1 Healthcare and Fitness app. This app is powered by the same great 225,000 foods database, with the same magically fast food entry, searching as you type. Includes free web site access. You’ve got nothing to lose, but that extra weight.

Like Lose It, this app is free and has tons of awesome features for helping you stay active and healthy. Users rave about the extensive food library and the barcode scanner really makes it quick to enter whatever it is you happen to be enjoying at the moment.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link

Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal

“Lose weight with MyFitnessPal, the fastest and easiest to use calorie counter for iPhone or iPod Touch. With the largest food database of any iPhone calorie counter (over 750,000 foods), and amazingly fast food and exercise entry, we’ll help you take those extra pounds off!”

Plenty of experts agree that one of the best ways to stick to a healthy lifestyle is to find people that will hold you accountable. With this app you can connect to friends and check in on each other’s progress. There’s nothing like a little peer pressure to help you put down that fork after the first serving!

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link

DailyBurn – Calorie, Workout, and Fitness Companion

“This is the one app you need to manage your diet, fitness, and exercise. Finally a free app that combines world-class training plans with best-in-class food and calorie tracking. Fully backed by DailyBurn: the top fitness community on the web. Manage your fitness and health goals on your iPhone and your data is automatically synced to our top-ranked website for more analysis, tracking at your computer, and more.”

Daily Burn is a thriving online community that helps you balance a healthy diet with an active lifestyle. This app is just one feature of a greater system aimed at teaching you how to achieve your health goals. If you’re looking for a total solution, check out the Daily Burn website for more information.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link

Calorie Counter by FatSecret

“Calorie Counter is the essential app to simply find nutritional info for the food you eat and easily keep track of your meals, exercise and weight. Calorie Counter is simple to use and has all the cool tools to help you succeed.”

This app has a lot of the features we’ve already seen, nutrition and exercise tracking, barcode scanning, a weight tracker, etc. The long-term reporting seems to be the strength here though as you have several helpful diaries and journals for managing your progress.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link

Meal Snap – Calorie Counting Magic

“Meal Snap lets you take pictures of the meals you eat, and then magically tells you what food was in your meal. Oh yeah, we tell you how many calories you ate too. Food tracking has never been easier.”

The good people at Daily Burn have decided to insert a little technological voodoo into calorie tracking with this interesting app. Supposedly, by merely snapping a photo of your meal, the app will inform you of your food’s nutritional contents. Obviously, what you get is a “best guess” estimate so this one might be more for novelty than serious calorie counters.

Price: $2.99
Download: iTunes Link

Calories PRO

“Quickka CaloriesPRO is the foodscanner version of our brilliant Calories app. Same app – just more features. For the version without the barcode reader, please check out QuickkaCalories!”

Same story here: weight tracking, calorie counting, barcode scanning and exercise monitoring. The interface is a bit nicer than some of the other apps in this genre and there’s a strong emphasis on weight loss features that will appeal to anyone with that specific goal.

Price: $0.99
Download: iTunes Link

Tracknburn Calorie, Diet, and Exercise Tracker

“If you are trying to lose weight, it doesn’t matter if you are counting calories, carbs, fat, or protein… just that you count or track something! Experts agree that setting a goal and keeping a journal of food and exercise helps to make weight loss changes permanent.”

This one looks a little cartoony for my taste but it has some really cool features that you don’t find in the others such as a water bottle tracker and some technical considerations such as Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and Resting Energy Expenditure (REE).

Price: $2.99
Download: iTunes Link

My Diet Diary – Calorie Counter

“My Diet Diary calorie counter is the ideal weight loss app to help you shed those unwanted pounds for good! Track your food, exercise, weight, water consumption and more to see at any given time whether you are on track to lose weight, gain weight or stay the same, so that you can make the right choices to reach your goal.”

As with Daily Burn above, this app connects and syncs to an online health community called HealthMed. The app is super attractive and the service as a whole has a lot of impressive and helpful features that go far beyond daily nutrition.

Price: Free
Download: iTunes Link

How Does Your iPhone Keep You Healthy?

Then ten apps above should be more than enough to eliminate any excuses you have for not leading a healthier lifestyle. The convenience, educational value and usefulness of these apps above make them powerful tools in your battle against obesity, old age, high cholesterol, diabetes and anything else you’re struggling with.

Leave a comment below and let us know how you use your iPhone to stay healthy. Which apps have you found to be the most useful?