Cronometer is criminally underrated for being the most accurate food tracker.
Cronometer is def the best app for tracking kcal/macro/micro Iâve ever used.
One more recommendation for those who are not from the US - try to see if thereâs a locally developed calorie counting app. This often eliminates the problem that half the products you eat arenât on the app at all and you have to manually enter them.
can i say a potentially unpopular thing?
thereâs no way to gauge how many calories youâre getting with *that* much accuracy. even if every single food you eat is logged within a 10 cal interval of its actual caloric value, we have no way of knowing how many calories your body is actually gleaning from the food. itâs entirely dependent on each personâs bodily hormonal makeup and many, many other factors.
with that said, i think that calculating your calories within a sizable range is good enough to achieve any goal youâre after, whether it be weight loss or gain or maintenance. i donât think using this app vs lose it or mfp is going to make any amount of measurable difference in the long run.
Have you tried MacroFactor? All the points youâve mentioned, it seems to me that theyâre also doing very well, maybe even better than Cronometer.
Someone made a comparison here.
I think Cronometer is a decent app. The best? Depends on what it is you are looking for, data-wise. I found Cronometer lacking in (some foodsâ) accuracy when I do the macros math on many of the items in the database. It will take sugar alcohols and fiber (net carbs) into account even if you tell it you want total carbs. When I add something new to my personal favorites, I do the macros math first and check it against what Cronometer lists because they generally are just using whatâs on the label and the OP pointed out, can be wrong. If itâs within 5-10 calories, I will not create a custom item. If not, I create a custom food and add the correct calories based on the macro math. I do thoroughly enjoy have the nutrition reports. I moved well past MFP years ago because they wouldnât control their database and it was complete garbage. I recommend that if you are considering moving to Cronometer, to read the ENTIRE FAQ section because there nuances about the information and the best way to choose foods based on your location in the world.
Thanks for the tip about Cronometer!
Does it allow me to add new food items if itâs not in the DB and I just want to stick the item in there based on the label?
Does it have integrations with things like Google Fit?
These are what are keeping me in MFP for now
I love that Cronometer has the barcode feature and will sync up with outside apps like Garmin on the free version.
My only complaint would be that the free version doesnât categorise your meals (e.g. breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks), you have to pay for the ability to do that. So you end up with a long list of diary items with no subtotals.
Still, wayyyyyy better than what MFP has become.
I have Chronometer but Iâm using Fitbit because it also tracks consumption and this way I can better approximate the deficit I need for weight loss. I donât want âprecisionâ with my calories, I just need orientation.
After a few weeks logging (and autotracking - weight, calories burned) I know how much food and what kind of food my body needs for losing weight and not being hungry at the same time. I also know what exercise makes my body think weâre athletes, me and it (lol, weâre obese, not athletes, but my body seems to think weâre competing at the Olympics one day after whenever I go to swim and it makes me ravenous for about 3000 kcal that day, awful), so at least I can plan ahead for it.
I use Chronometer when I want to check the nutrition balance of what I eat in a day, so that I donât lack anything. But for daily use Fitbit it is.
I really loved SparkPeople, but Iâm from Europe and their response to GDPR privacy laws was to shut down the service for Europeans completely. That was so annoying at the time.
Calorie and nutrient counting seems a forest for the trees thing. If itâs interesting or entertaining, I get it.
But for me C&NC was time consuming and overly precise. When I needed to lose weight, I kept a food journal for a month with general descriptions of what I ate. It worked.
Has anyone used Lifesum? Iâm curious how it compares to MacroFactor and Crono. My company offers the premium version of LifeSum for free, and if that premium version is better than MF or Crono free versions I might just use that
Fatsecret has far more Canadian brand information. It also has better reports. The only advantage I see to Cronometer is the complete nutrient breakdown⊠while cool, its not critical for weight management.
I donât use any apps at all for calorie counting and have maintained a low weight for years. Itâs not the accuracy of the count that makes the difference to me, itâs my ability to adjust my intake up or down in response to what my body is actually doing weight and fitness-wise. So even if Iâm eating, say 20% more than I think I am, if I monitor my weight and adjust my intake downward, it doesnât matter. I just end up thinking I eat fewer calories than I actually do, but the result is the same. You really donât need fancy apps.
