Counting calories and macros Apps

[Franci]

I've never counted calories in my life, the whole process is new to me. But now I'd like to track my macros and calories. I tried to look on line on recommendation on different apps out there. For the first time ever, just to see how it works, I  made a search using myfitnesspal. I took an easy item like chicken breast...I was amazed on the amount of results I got. In my mind chicken breast if just raw chicken. I would have thought that with skin and/or bones would have made a difference in the results but I didn't expect such a long list to show up.

 

1. Is it there a simpler program where you don't get such a  long list and just simple chicken?

 

Using my fitnesspal, very quickly I found another thing that bothers me. I'm annoyed  by this fixed serving quantities.

 

2. Is there a program where you put the weight, let's say  X amount in grams of a food and tells you how many calories (and macro nutrients) it corresponds? Or if I want 40 g of carbs or 40 g of protein how many grams of that food in grams it corresponds?

 

Of course, other features important would be to be able to set your daily caloric target (or macros) and  subtract what you've been eating during the day to calculate your net as you go on the day.

 

And best one to store recipes for this purpose?

 

Thanks for sharing your preferences.

Edited August 14, 2016 by Franci (log)

[Lisa Shock]

Most of these apps are using data taken from the USDA calorie counter website. I prefer to just use the original website, I have no idea how mobile friendly it is.

 

That said, once you are in the site and searching, let's look at bananas, on the left side of the page is a box for Nutrition Facts. There is a drop down menu there for portion sizes/types. So, for our banana we get options like 100g, a cup mashed, a cup sliced, 1 small whole, 1 medium whole, 1 large, etc. The center of the page has tabs for general info, fats, carbs, proteins, vitamins, minerals, sterols, etc.

 

Most apps I have seen just show a sliver of this info.

[Okanagancook]

And the information the USDA website is going to be the most accurate.

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

@Franci, I use this site. Nutrition Data. When searching "chicken breast" 43 results are returned, but you can easily whittle it down to 14 by selecting Poultry Products from the categories. Those offerings are for just chix breast raw, and cooked in various ways. They cover a lot of fast food offerings and popular processed products, but you can weed them out easily. I also like the Nutrient Search tool if you are looking for foods high in B12, Vitamin D, protein, whatever. Serving sizes can be selected from a set drop down menu. Almost always there's a 100 gram selection.

 

I haven't explored any of the other tools and options on ND, but you might look around and see if it can serve some of your other needs. There's a tab called MY ND that has options of My Foods, My Recipes, My Tracking, My Preferences and My Profile. I can't tell you more about them though. Oh, there's a Daily Needs Calculator option on the Tools menu too.

 

I also keep a link the USDA Nutition site as well, but I usually do not find it as helpful as ND for my personal needs.

 

Sorry you have a need in the first place for this. I know it is no fun for food lovers such as ourselves. 

 

 

[Franci]

1 hour ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

Sorry you have a need in the first place for this. I know it is no fun for food lovers such as ourselves. 

 

 

 

Sooooo true! Thanks everybody, if I find more interesting tools I'll add them here.

[blue_dolphin]

A few years ago I decided I needed to get a handle on things.  I used FitDay.  After I got a Fitbit activity tracker, I switched to their system.  Both of them allow you to choose from a range of serving measurements, depending on the particular food.  Most of these trackers pull from multiple databases for both basic foods (from USDA and other sources) and data on commercially packaged foods from various manufacturers and restaurant meals from every chain under the sun so search results can get pretty overwhelming.

I tended to be cooking my own meals and entering the individual ingredients that I used but sometimes I found it helpful to be able to choose a particular brand of cracker or the like.

In my experience, it's a pain to enter things in the beginning but once you get comfortable with the interface and how search results are sorted it gets easier to find what you want. 

Most of these trackers keep your "recently entered" foods in a list that can be accessed quickly.  Once you've gotten over the hurdle of entering a few weeks of meals,  it's easy to choose items you eat often from that list.

I also found it helpful to create "custom foods" for some things that I ate often, like a breakfast smoothie with a bunch of different ingredients.

 

Good luck finding something that works for you.  I used FitDay regularly for about a year and found it to be a useful tool but I'm a scientist and tend to be data-driven.  I know that not everyone gets as jazzed about numbers and graphs as I do !

 

[chromedome]

I don't know how this stacks up against the others you have looked at/will look at, but the Livestrong website (disclosure:I've written articles for them) has its "MyPlate" fitness/calorie tracker and corresponding apps for Android and iPhone. It integrates your fitness activity with your food intake, so you get more of a "big picture" sort of thing.

 

http://www.livestrong.com/myplate/

[Soupcon]

Myfitness pal is the most comprehensive weight loss data base I have ever found or used. It does allow the user to determine the daily caloric intake and the program does show after each addition of food eaten the number of calories left in the daily allowance left to be consumed. You can also determine the daily intake in percentages of protein, carbohydrate and fat as well as the total daily carbohydrate limit. The program will do all the math for you on a running total basis daily within your predefined limits/percentages. Inputting your own recipes is a feature as well as recipes in digital format found on the internet.

[Franci]

Thanks to @Soupcon and @chromedome for your inputs. I started with the best intentions (very easy when you are still on vacation) but I cannot bring myself to counting calories right now. To me it would equal to=stay at home with all the time in my hands or transform my diet into something very different than now: a very boring, limited variety diet. 

[chromedome]

I usually advise against making abrupt, radical changes anyway, so don't feel like you need to go all-in right from day one. Instead, I'd recommend trying out one of more of these sites/apps and simply use it to monitor what you *currently* eat. That exercise has a number of benefits in and of itself. To begin with, it establishes a useful baseline to compare/contrast with your future eating habits. It also gives you time and opportunity to get accustomed to the site and its features, and to enter recipes for a number of dishes you make regularly. As you settle into the groove of tracking/monitoring your food, you'll become more mindful of what you eat and that in turn will inform your meal choices. 

 

Over time, you'll find that you begin to gravitate to healthier options by default, simply because you are monitoring your eating (just as scrutinizing your finances leads to fewer impulse purchases and better spending habits). When you splurge on high-calorie meals or foods -- and there's no reason not to -- you'll do so deliberately, and on foods that give you maximum pleasure (around my house, it's often Hollandaise or creme brulee). You'd get the same calories from munching absently on potato chips during a Netflix binge, but with much less joy.

 

I'm not one for penitential eating, as my sig will attest, but even modest tweaks yield good long-term results if you're conscious of your choices.

 

 

[Franci]

Long time passed after this. I am an expert calorie tracker now. Or better macro tracker...because I simply do flexible dieting.  But I just want to share what is the best of the best Apps, because it feels like you have a nutritionist available. It’s not cheap but OMG, so worthy. Just how easy is to use weights, easy to store recipes and convert them in grams. You can use it to increase muscle, maintain, lose weight or reverse diet. Brilliant! You can set your food preferences balanced, low fat, keto, whichever, you can follow their suggestion or manually change them. I really suggest watching some of their videos on YouTube or FB to get an idea. I am totally sold, forget MFP. 

 

Carbon Coach

Edited June 15, 2020 by Franci (log)