Alternatives to my fitness pal?
October 12, 2019 3:07 PM Subscribe
I’ve been using MyFitness Pal for weight loss and have been happy with it. For reasons, I now need an alternative, ideally an app. Please give me your suggestions!
The app should
- let me log my food and allocate calorie counts for each item
- let me log weight daily
- let me put together recipes by adding ingredients and calculating the calories per serve
Abilify to import weight and food data from MFP would be a bonus
A notes feature would also be a bonus
I’m using an iPhone 6s so must be compatible with that
Could also be a website or two apps eg one for weight and the other for food
Don’t mind if it is free or paid for, but if the cost is more than about $5 I’d need a trial period before purchasing
Thank you!
The app should
- let me log my food and allocate calorie counts for each item
- let me log weight daily
- let me put together recipes by adding ingredients and calculating the calories per serve
Abilify to import weight and food data from MFP would be a bonus
A notes feature would also be a bonus
I’m using an iPhone 6s so must be compatible with that
Could also be a website or two apps eg one for weight and the other for food
Don’t mind if it is free or paid for, but if the cost is more than about $5 I’d need a trial period before purchasing
Thank you!
Lose It is the one that I use instead of MFP.
posted by Medieval Maven at 3:37 PM on October 12, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Medieval Maven at 3:37 PM on October 12, 2019 [6 favorites]
Response by poster: Actually what I don’t like about MFP is nothing to do with the app, it’s the people on the forums.
posted by EatMyHat at 4:26 PM on October 12, 2019
posted by EatMyHat at 4:26 PM on October 12, 2019
(Oh yeah, I totally get that. I took one look at the forums and never went back. With few exceptions, forums are bad.)
posted by uberchet at 4:40 PM on October 12, 2019
posted by uberchet at 4:40 PM on October 12, 2019
I have lost up to twenty-five pounds with Noom, which comes with a trial period. If you don’t want to pay for the coaching and community functionality, you can just use the app, I believe. It’s not as convenient to input food as MFP, but it gives you an overview of what you need in a way I found more helpful.
(To be honest I have been backsliding for a month now but I kept up well for six months.)
posted by Countess Elena at 5:17 PM on October 12, 2019
(To be honest I have been backsliding for a month now but I kept up well for six months.)
posted by Countess Elena at 5:17 PM on October 12, 2019
LoseIt?
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:57 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:57 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'll third Lose it.
posted by joycehealy at 7:01 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by joycehealy at 7:01 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
A fourth vote for Lose It! It ticks all your must-haves, and has a notes feature.
Lose It! doesn’t import from MFP that I know of, but it does work with Apple’s Health.app, and will optionally write your weight and dietary data to Health. If MFP currently does the same, you’ll at least have Health as a unified repository of past and future data.
posted by mumkin at 10:51 PM on October 12, 2019
Lose It! doesn’t import from MFP that I know of, but it does work with Apple’s Health.app, and will optionally write your weight and dietary data to Health. If MFP currently does the same, you’ll at least have Health as a unified repository of past and future data.
posted by mumkin at 10:51 PM on October 12, 2019
I'm also a big fan of Cronometer, having switched from MFP... over a year and a half ago? It has all the basics that MFP has (food, meal allocation, weight tracking and recipes) sans any of the social aspects.
There are two big reasons I switched. The first is that it lets you specify your diet and nutritional goals better. So you can set it to "low carb" and it'll know to keep informed on carbs, track them as "net carbs" and even let you calculate your new ratios based of that. Or you can say vegan, or paleo, or dairy free, or raw, or whatever.
The other big one is the food database. Compared to MFP it's tiny, which for me was a good thing. The food is all verified, and they even tell you who verified it. If something isn't in the DB you can photograph it and submit it (it even parses the nutritional info automatically like... 95% of the time) and only when they verify it manually will the entry be available for other users. You can also add your own custom stuff without waiting, of course, but it's just for your account. I found myself fighting MFP way too many times due to weird user input, like 0 calorie chicken wings or sugar-loaded ground beef.
The paid version removes ads, lets you create your own meal groups, choose and set important macronutrients you want to track and adds an "oracle" to suggest foods to hit your goals. I've use the oracle feature exactly zero times but, outside of the fact that it's currently suggesting that I eat 10 kilograms of baking powder to hit my potassium goal, I still think it's a cute idea.
posted by OMGTehAwsome at 3:52 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
There are two big reasons I switched. The first is that it lets you specify your diet and nutritional goals better. So you can set it to "low carb" and it'll know to keep informed on carbs, track them as "net carbs" and even let you calculate your new ratios based of that. Or you can say vegan, or paleo, or dairy free, or raw, or whatever.
The other big one is the food database. Compared to MFP it's tiny, which for me was a good thing. The food is all verified, and they even tell you who verified it. If something isn't in the DB you can photograph it and submit it (it even parses the nutritional info automatically like... 95% of the time) and only when they verify it manually will the entry be available for other users. You can also add your own custom stuff without waiting, of course, but it's just for your account. I found myself fighting MFP way too many times due to weird user input, like 0 calorie chicken wings or sugar-loaded ground beef.
The paid version removes ads, lets you create your own meal groups, choose and set important macronutrients you want to track and adds an "oracle" to suggest foods to hit your goals. I've use the oracle feature exactly zero times but, outside of the fact that it's currently suggesting that I eat 10 kilograms of baking powder to hit my potassium goal, I still think it's a cute idea.
posted by OMGTehAwsome at 3:52 PM on October 15, 2019 [1 favorite]
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What about MFP is turning you off here? That might be helpful to know. (Definitely not asking to make you defend your choice.)
posted by uberchet at 3:15 PM on October 12, 2019 [1 favorite]