Food Tracker Apps

Grace04 · Jul 21, 2023

Hi, I’m relatively new to low carb, high fat and wondering if an app that breaks down the food clearly into protein, carb and fat will give me a clearer idea of what I’m eating. Helping me make sure I’m getting the balance right.

Do you use an app and do you find it useful? If so which app do you use (there are so many of them) and do you pay for the full version or do you find the free part covers enough of the basics?

Many thanks

SimonP78 · Jul 21, 2023

I don't use one, but am curious whether anyone knows of any apps that are open source as I'd like to integrate it with some modelling (without needing to re-invent the wheel and write something from scratch).

Sorry to slightly divert discussion, but hopefully it'll generate useful results for you too and bump the post!

MissMuffett · Jul 21, 2023

I use the free version of Carb Manager. Ive been using it for quite a while and find it very useful. You can choose Which ‘diet’ from a drop down; keto, low carb, carnivore etc. or you can customise it and it’ll give your daily allowance. Add your food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you can also put in snacks by typing it in or you can scan the barcode of the packet.

Grace04 · Jul 21, 2023

MissMuffett said:
I use the free version of Carb Manager. Ive been using it for quite a while and find it very useful. You can choose Which ‘diet’ from a drop down; keto, low carb, carnivore etc. or you can customise it and it’ll give your daily allowance. Add your food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you can also put in snacks by typing it in or you can scan the barcode of the packet.

That sound like the sort of thing I’m after. Thank you

Modean987 · Jul 21, 2023

Carb Manager and MyFitnessPal are two popular apps. I use Cronometer, which is way overkill and has a high learning curve, so I wouldn't really recommend it for beginners… But hey, you asked.

Grace04 · Jul 21, 2023

Modean987 said:
Carb Manager and MyFitnessPal are two popular apps. I use Cronometer, which is way overkill and has a high learning curve, so I wouldn't really recommend it for beginners… But hey, you asked.

Thank you. Do you pay or go with the free part of each could I ask.

Modean987 · Jul 21, 2023

Grace04 said:
Thank you. Do you pay or go with the free part of each could I ask.

Both of them have free versions, but I seem to remember someone on the forum saying that myFitnessPal had changed terms of service and there were now fewer features in the free version. I recommend using the Search feature here in the forum to find information already posted on these two apps, for I'm citing all this from memory and do not use either of these two apps.

For Cronometer, the free version is quite extensive. I did pay for the gold version because it was a reasonable amount and it provided me with some additional functionality that I wanted.

I may check out Carb Manager sometime down the road. I do want to find something easier to use than Cronometer, but for now it does what I needed to do.

Note: sorry for all the edits… even after proofing what I've entered, the darn iPad keeps changing it when I go to post it.

Grace04 · Jul 21, 2023

Modean987 said:
Both of them have free versions, but I seem to remember someone on the forum saying that myFitnessPal had changed terms of service and there were now fewer features in the free version. I recommend using the Search feature here in the forum to find information already posted on these two apps, for I'm citing all this from memory and do not use either of these two apps.

For Cronometer, the free version is quite extensive. I did pay for the gold version because it was a reasonable amount and it provided me with some additional functionality that I wanted.

I may check out Carb Manager sometime down the road. I do want to find something easier to use than Cronometer, but for now it does what I needed to do.

Note: sorry for all the edits… even after proofing what I've entered, the darn iPad keeps changing it when I go to post it.

It sounds as Cronometer is worth a try. Thank you.

MrsA2 · Jul 21, 2023

And the trick with any of them, when entering a food is preface it with tesco ( or any other uk supermarket but tesco is shortest to type!) to get uk measures, as they all have us databases as the default

JenniferM55 · Jul 22, 2023

Grace04 said:
It sounds as Cronometer is worth a try. Thank you.

I definitely recommend Cronometer and I've used quite a few different ones. I haven't subscribed to the paid version though as I get the stats that I need, but this might change.

Grace04 · Jul 22, 2023

MrsA2 said:
And the trick with any of them, when entering a food is preface it with tesco ( or any other uk supermarket but tesco is shortest to type!) to get uk measures, as they all have us databases as the default

Thank you, I wouldn’t have known to do that.

Grace04 · Jul 22, 2023

JenniferM55 said:
I definitely recommend Cronometer and I've used quite a few different ones. I haven't subscribed to the paid version though as I get the stats that I need, but this might change.

Thanks you. I’m going to get this set up today.

MissMuffett · Jul 22, 2023

Modean987 said:
Carb Manager and MyFitnessPal are two popular apps. I use Cronometer, which is way overkill and has a high learning curve, so I wouldn't really recommend it for beginners… But hey, you asked.

I’ve downloaded cronometer and like you say is so complicated to use, I even watched the YouTube tutorial and still find it difficult and I’m quiet good at tech things…..although finding it more of a challenge as my brain gets older

Modean987 · Jul 22, 2023

MissMuffett said:
I’ve downloaded cronometer and like you say is so complicated to use, I even watched the YouTube tutorial and still find it difficult and I’m quiet good at tech things…..although finding it more of a challenge as my brain gets older

If you go to the video tab on their channel and scroll way down to the bottom you'll see where they did a bunch of webinars for the app. Scroll back up until you find the last two webinars that they did. One will be for the gold version and one will be for the regular version . Watch the regular version one and that'll give you some detailed instructions on how to use the app. I found it to be more helpful than those small "how to use" videos that they started to do.

But yes, it has a high learning curve… I warned you!

Modean987 · Jul 22, 2023

MissMuffett said:
...Noting your new avatar...

I can't begin to tell you how much I love that!

JenniferM55 · Jul 22, 2023

MissMuffett said:
I’ve downloaded cronometer and like you say is so complicated to use, I even watched the YouTube tutorial and still find it difficult and I’m quiet good at tech things…..although finding it more of a challenge as my brain gets older

I don't know about the app as I access Cronometer through my laptop. What I like about it is that it dissects each food so you know where fats, proteins, carbs, minerals, vitamins and calories are coming from and advise what foods you'll need to eat to make up what you're lacking.

Modean987 · Jul 23, 2023

JenniferM55 said:
I don't know about the app as I access Cronometer through my laptop.

Agreed! The web interface is so much better than the app. I feel like a ping pong ball inside the app bouncing between the diary and the food entry screens! The Carb Manager app is much better designed in this regard.

One of the major issues in both these apps, IMO, is that when entering a meal/recipe into the log/diary, you cannot change the contents of those logged items without having the change affect the original item. Cronometer has an option where you can explode the recipe in your diary, thus allowing you to make local changes to the individual recipe ingredients without affecting the original. I have not yet found a similar option in Carb Manager.

Grace04 · Jul 23, 2023

Thank you all useful information. I’m exploring Cronometer on the web, it’s a bit confusing but I’ll probably get there with it.

Modean987 · Jul 24, 2023

Modean987 said:
Cronometer has an option where you can explode the recipe in your diary, thus allowing you to make local changes to the individual recipe ingredients without affecting the original. I have not yet found a similar option in Carb Manager.

You can explode a meal in Carb Manager. When it comes time to add your meal to your log, bring up the meal, tap on "Show Advanced", tap on "Meal Mode", and select "Add Individual Foods". Now, when you tap the Add button, the individual items in the meal will be added to your log.

I'm in the process of moving my data out of Cronometer and into Carb Manager. I find that things are just so much easier to do in the latter.

The only thing I found that is a PITA, is blood pressure. You have to make one entry for the systolic and then make another entry for the diastolic. As a retired software engineer, I cannot even fathom the reason for such an error prone method of inputting two numbers.

Grace04 · Jul 24, 2023

Modean987 said:
You can explode a meal in Carb Manager. When it comes time to add your meal to your log, bring up the meal, tap on "Show Advanced", tap on "Meal Mode", and select "Add Individual Foods". Now, when you tap the Add button, the individual items in the meal will be added to your log.

I'm in the process of moving my data out of Cronometer and into Carb Manager. I find that things are just so much easier to do in the latter.

The only thing I found that is a PITA, is blood pressure. You have to make one entry for the systolic and then make another entry for the diastolic. As a retired software engineer, I cannot even fathom the reason for such an error prone method of inputting two numbers.

Thank you that’s interesting. I haven’t looked much at Carb Manager but I will do in the coming day.

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