A friend of mine is a nutritionist and I’ve been consulting with her a lot about my recent weight loss journey. Over the past three months, I’ve really made it a point to start eating right in the hopes that it will help me lose weight. So far, it definitely has, but after about a month, I realized I wasn’t getting results as quickly as I wanted them.
My friend told me to start keeping track of the food I eat using her secret technique: barcode scanner apps. She told me that, by keeping track of specific foods and brands, you will have a much easier time narrowing down your body’s “trouble foods.” Even better, she sent me a link with scanner apps to try out.
I trust her completely, so of course, I jumped right in and started trying out a handful of the apps. There were three that really stood out to me overall, so those are the ones I’m going to share with you today (along with a sort of mini-review) in the hopes that one of these will be able to work for you too!
MyNetDiary – Rating: 4, Downloads: 1M
MyNetDiary truly does have all the tools you need to make your healthy lifestyle easy and efficient. You can record the amount of water you’re drinking and use the barcode scanner feature to add all of your favorite (and most eaten) foods to a single list, designed so you can better keep track of the foods you’re consuming.
Eating fresh foods is awesome and something I do every day, but because they don’t often come with a barcode to scan, this can make adding foods to your daily intake a bit tricky; especially if you don’t know where to look. Logging by hand is kind of a pain once you get used to how nice and convenient it is to scan barcodes, but it’s not a total deal-breaker for me.
Pros: Record amount of water you’ve had, scan items to a single list for better tracking
Cons: Some fresh fruits/veggies will have to be tracked manually
Overall: As long as you don’t mind inputting the occasional food manually, you’ll love how easy it is to keep track of what you’ve eaten throughout the day
Calorie Counter – Rating: 4.5, Downloads: 100K
Calorie Counter has a massive expanse of food types and all you have to do to keep track of them is just take a picture of the logo. You can also locate the foods you have at home and include them into your meal plan for the week; all in the tap of a button. And, if you have questions about a particular food or brand, you can search for foods by the brand logo or just scan the available barcode to find all the most important nutritional information.
Just know that, if you’re looking for an app that’s 100% free, this isn’t quite it. You do have the ability to add up to five foods a day, all for free, but after that, you are prompted to purchase a monthly subscription. If you want something a little more budget-friendly, you may want to check out one of the other two apps I have listed.
Pros: Massive food library, search foods by the logo, add food items to your meal plan
Cons: You are limited to how many foods you can list a day
Overall: As long as you don’t mind paying a subscription fee for adding more than five foods a day, you’re going to absolutely love the flexibility this app offers along your journey to eat healthier
Lose It! – Rating: 4.2, Downloads: 10M
Calorie counting can make a massive difference in your life if you do it right. One of the best perks of this app is that there is an entire community to gain inspiration from so you can stay to eat healthier. Of course, there’s a barcode scanner that lets you snap pictures of the foods you eat and then automatically add them to your count for the day, so you don’t have to worry about adding the details in manually.
There is an additional feature that lets you search popular meal items from your favorite restaurants, but keep in mind that restaurant menus do change frequently, so you may not always be able to find the meal you’re looking for. That doesn’t happen to me often, but if it does, I just manually enter the information.
Pros: Scan popular restaurant food items, submit calorie info right to your daily count, a supportive community
Cons: You may not always be able to find information for the restaurant dish you want to eat
Overall: You’ll love how easy this app makes adding calories to your daily count, just know that it may not always have the exact restaurant meal you’re looking to input
Conclusion
I have been using these apps pretty much non-stop since I downloaded them and I’ve noticed a significant difference in my weight loss and overall health. Whether you’re counting calories or just want to keep a closer eye on what exactly you’re eating, all you have to do with this apps is snap a picture of the barcode and bing, bam, boom – you’re done! It seriously is that easy, I love it!
Brought to you by our friends at appgrooves.com.
