Calorie Counting Aps: Livestrong VS MyFitnessPal

If you read my first post then you know I recommended downloading a calorie counting app. I still do. The one I have been faithfully using is free and is MyFitnessPal, but I read some reviews about the $2.99 livestrong app, had an Itunes gift card and decided, what the hell? I'll try it. The reviews are all positive, but here are my first impressions:


Both Apps give you calorie goals based on your weight goals (gaining, losing, maintaining). However, Livestrong gives you options for 2 lb, 1.5, and 1 lb loss per week, where as Myfitnesspal gives you an option to lose only .5 lb per week. Losing a pound a week for me is hard and almost unrealistic at this point in my weight loss, so Myfitnesspal wins the weight loss goal portion. However, Myfitnesspal DOES NOT take into account your height. Now, if you are an average 5'6", then you probably don't care because calorie goals, exercises, etc are all calibrated to your height. BUT if you are a 6' tall woman or a 5'1" midget (like me) you find this infuriating. Livestrong does take into account height and gives you a calorie goal based on height, age, gender, weight loss goal, and current weight. That being said, I'm saying livestrong wins the calorie goal portion of the review.

Both apps seem to have a large and decent database of foods and exercises and both are easy to log and track. Both account for your current weight related to how many calories you burn doing any particular exercise, but again livestrong takes into account your height. Livestrong also seems to have a larger database of exercises, allowing you to be more specific in what type of exercise you did. So I'm going to give the tracking to Livestrong

Current score: Live strong-2 Myfitnesspal-0

Now, on to the nutrition aspect. My calorie goal is about 1,100 calories per day before exercise according to livestrong and is 1250 per day according to myfitnesspal. Livestrong will show you what percentage of your diet for the day is composed of fats, carbs and proteins, but it doesn't give you any suggestions as to what your percentage should be! Myfitness pal on the other hand tells you 55% should come from carbs, 15% from protein, and 30% from fat. I slightly disagree with myfitness pal, however, since most athlete diets are more protein than fat, or are at least equal. I also have more energy and feel healthier eating about 60% carbs, 20% protein and 20% fat. But then I work out A LOT. Since I know what my percentages should be about, I don't really mind that Livestrong doesn't give me a particular goal and would give the win to them again because it allows for more personalization, BUT they are lacking one significant factor... There's no where that tells you if you have met all your nutrition needs for a day! Myfitnesspal wins this one because it breaks down ALL of your nutrition and vitamin goals. This is especially important for people who need to increase fiber, monitor sugar intake, and salt intake. Fiber is vital to weight loss and it's something most people are lacking in their diet, but you'd never know how much you consume if you just used Livestrong.

Now one thing that Livestrong wins hands down is water consumption. Myfitnesspal does have an obscure tracker that you can use to monitor water intake, but it isn't easily accessible. Livestrong does a great job of prioritizing water as part of weight loss by putting it right next to your meal and exercise tracking. Drink a minimum of 64 oz of water a day people!

Livestrong also shows you your BMI, neat and helpful if you are wondering what a healthy range for you to be in is! So it wins there.

Myfitnesspal gives you the option to record measurements along with or instead of weight. Livestrong doesn't. A serious pitfall for those of us who are building muscle (because muscle weighs more than fat) and don't have that much fat to actually lose (or are building muscle so fast their scale says they are getting bigger, when really they are getting smaller!). Myfitnesspal gets a definite point for this.

Now, as for community support (which is VERY important!) Myfitnesspal has an area online for you to connect with ANYONE who uses their app. Livestrong has this actually ON their app. BUT, myfitnesspal allows you to friend people you know and actually follow and view their food diaries and profile. This is really nice, unless you don't have any friends (and it is hard to find people you know that are using the app through the app). Myfitnesspal wins the community support as well.

Final Score: Livestrong- 4 Myfitnesspal-3
Livestrong wins (for now) at least for me. I hope this review helps you in your app quest! An extra cool feature of Livestrong is that it will remind you to log at a certain time every day if you haven't logged in yet. Kind of nice! If you are budget oriented, there is nothing wrong with Myfitnesspal. If you are totally in the dark about nutrition, I'd stick with myfitnesspal. Otherwise spend the $2.99 for livestrong- height is such an important factor to weight loss! I'm going to continue to use both for the next month. At the end of the month, I'll decide which I like best and let all of you know!