My Fitness Pal App Review

I've dieted on and off over the years and like most people I've found it difficult. One of the main struggles with being on a diet is needing to count calories. Most people (myself included) can not look at a box, plate, or utensil full of food and accurately know how many calories it contains. One of the rare health benefits of prepackaged food is that calorie and nutrition information is contained on the side but, even then it can be difficult to tell what half a box is. Maybe after awhile you have the hang of what most of your frequent foods are going to give you calorie wise but at that point you would still need to log them. One way to avoid all of this headache and get your diet on track is with a diet app like My Fitness Pal.

The main benefit of this app is that it is a quick easy to use tool which can track calories and nutritional information. Just input your current weight and how much weight you want to lose or gain and it will tell you how many daily calories to eat. From there one just needs to start actually tracking their food intake. At first this seems like it will be very time consuming but, the app already has "over 1 million foods" in their database. The barcode scanner or search function often quickly bring results to your finger tips. If the food you're eating isn't included it can quickly be added. The app also has the ability to store recipes and meals if you have frequently eaten items you want to track without having to reenter all the individual items. I've found this as well as the ability to copy meals to other days useful (this can only be done for meals at the same time such as breakfast to breakfast). One problem that you may encounter with food items already in the database is that they may have incomplete or incorrect nutritional or caloric information. If this happens you just need to create a new food with a slightly different name. The more you use the app the easier it becomes because most of us eat similar foods day to day and week to week. Calorie and nutrition tracking is the strong point and focus of this app and it shows.

There are many other useful categories of diet and fitness information that can be tracked such as weight and body measurements. I really enjoy being able to input my weight over time and see it displayed on a graph. The one drawback is that it will only show up to the last three months. For most people dieting is a long process with many ups and downs and three months of information will not do it justice (unless you want to forget your holiday binge!). Sometimes more important then knowing your weight is knowing your measurements and My Fitness Pal allows you to track your neck, waist, and hip measurements for three months as well. I'm surprised and disappointed that chest isn't included in the measurements as well. It would also help to include other areas of the body such as upper arm and leg measurements to give a full picture of progress. I'm definitely glad that the app includes the ability to track some of your measurements but there is room for improvement.

I think one possible pitfall of the app is the tracking of calories burned from cardiovascular activity directly through the app. It can be interesting and some quick positive reinforcement to see that I burned 580 calories from water jogging  for 60 minutes but, there is a strong tendency to overestimate energy expenditure. I've found a much better plan for dieting is to set your daily calorie limit and don't subtract calories for exercise. People tend not only to overestimate energy expenditure but also to eat more after exercising from thinking that they just blasted through two jelly filled donuts (calories taken from first search result from the app!). There is a common feeling that calories out are safe to reward as calories in and therefore 580 burned at water jogging allows two 290 calorie jelly filled donuts ... it is all supply and demand right? The app allows you to set your activity level from sedentary to very active and I feel like this is a good basis, even if you are rigorously and consistently exercising, to base your daily caloric needs on instead of subtracting calories burned from exercise.

One aspect of the app that I haven't explored that people may like is the social networking feature found under the friends tab. It allows you to connect with other My Fitness Pal users and keep each other motivated and offer support. I've often read that it is easier and more effective to diet with a friend and since you can keep in touch with people all over the world using the app this will be even easier. I don't think I will use this feature of the app but, I do see its appeal.

Overall My Fitness Pal is a great tool to help guide your diet. Tracking information is quick and simple which takes away one of the more previously daunting and important aspects of anyone's diet. The app could use a few more features and I hope that they will improve their product with future releases. Ultimately the app is only as good as the information you put in and take away from it but at this point I would consider My Fitness Pal an essential tool for the modern dieter.

Rating: 8/10