It’s time for the annual “look how much weight I gained over the holidays 😞”, and New Year’s resolution to lose weight. Does anyone use a food and exercise tracker app on their Android device? How is your experience with it?
I really like the Weight Watchers app. I think there’s a free version, but I paid a couple bucks for the premium version.
Avoid MyFitnessPal. It was once great but has succumbed to horrible business practices.
Edit: I also like SHYE (See How You Eat) as it’s encouraging to look back over the past week and see a rainbow of healthy foods.
I was using MyFitnessPal, but now enshittified, which is why I’m asking.
MyFitnessPal had a problem with anorexic using the app to compare their disordered eating in competition. From there it went downhill fast.
OOTL: what happened to MFP?
IIRC, they paywalled a bunch of previously-free features
Additionally, there’s been many reports of MFP charging users for the paid version despite never signing up for it.
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Second vote for chronometer.
Third vote for cronometer
Just the Garmin Connect app for fitness.
After MyFitnessPal shit the bed, I moved to LoseIt! It was on sale trying to pick up people leaving MFP. It’s very good, I actually prefer it over MFP.
I also like LoseIt!, but somehow I also ended up paying for it, too. $20/yr. I don’t like the free version as much
Cronometer is really nice for food tracking. It knows most things by its barcode or you can search by name. You can get a nice breakdown of nutrition for free and there are some subscription features like food suggestions based on your missing nutrients.
As for exercises, I go with FitNote. It knows most exercises or you can simply add your own. It’s easy to create workouts and you can display your data in some usefull charts like volume by week e.g. There’s a supporter app to buy, but I believe there are no gated features.
Came here to mention Cronometer. 👍
For nutritional tracking, I used to use LoseIt. Really big barcode library, the UI looks good, and it’s pretty simple to use. The issue is that now, without paying for a subscription, it’s worthless. You cannot see anything outside of the total calorie count for free. This did not used to be the case, and it really sucks.
If anyone knows a better replacement, I’d love to check it out.
I currently use LoseIt as well and have for the past few years. Honestly I would say it’s worth buying the lifetime purchase when it goes on sale around the New Year. It’s usually marked down to around $30ish and in my opinion is worth it if it’s going to be a daily use thing. I like the UI and it’s pretty intuitive and the large barcode library is a big plus.
But I also get some people just want a free tracker that’s simple to use. Unfortunately it feels like those are becoming harder and harder to find anymore. So I’d much rather just pay once and have the app unlocked and ads removed rather then a subscription bleeding me over time.
I should consider that at some point, but it’ll have to wait for now. A while ago, I’ve paid for a yearly sub, just once, and honestly felt like I didn’t get enough value out of my money, especially considering i’m struggling financially sometimes
Cronometer for food
Waistline is pretty good.
+1 to waistline. Also the dev team is pretty friendly for contributors
Macrofactor is an excellent nutrition tracking app. You track your weight and your intake, set a weight goal (gain, lose, or maintain) and a goal rate of weight change, and it sets your calorie targets from there. The app isn’t free, but there is a free trial period as well as a few different payment options.
I quit using it over the holidays due to too many outings and events, but I’ll be getting back to it next week. I highly recommend checking it out.
I really wish there is an open source alternative for this kind of app.
I’m very nervous around big companies tracking things like my health.
Samsung Health is the only decent-good one that’s free, but I use LoseIt! instead for reasons I can’t really recall
It doesn’t do food but I highly recommend StrongLifts 5x5. I’d never lifted weights in my life and it got my going in my 30s and it’s been life changing.
One thing I’d add if you take it up is to start extremely light on the weights if you’ve never lifted, and most importantly, just try to be consistent. Turn each workout into a mental link on a chain you’re building internally and make sure you stick with the three times a week schedule. Don’t break the chain!
It only takes about 15-20 mins to complete the workout and you’ll be so much healthier and happier for doing it just three times a week.
Good luck!
*I use the iOS version with my Apple watch for easier tracking, but this is the android version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stronglifts.app&hl=en_US&gl=US
"Lose it"for counting calories. “Yuka” for checking ingredients. Both free and pretty good.
I’m a big fan of Hevy for tracking weight lifting sessions.
