I was wondering what other people use to track their calories and steps.
Currently I use the Lifesum App which makes it easy for me to track how much Huel I have taken and has an integration with Google Fit to track how many steps I have taken.
Are there also people who have an activity tracker or use another app like MyFitnessPal perhaps?
Let me know, I’m always curious about these things.
Yeah, I use MyFitnessPal and find it to be fantastic. There’s a paid version which gives a bit more detail but the free one is perfectly adequate for my needs.
I also use MapMyRide to track my cycle commutes, and the fact that it syncs the (estimated) calories burnt straight into MyFitnessPal without any prompting is brilliant.
My favourite feature though has to be MyFitnessPal’s barcode scanner. Sometimes you have to do a bit of mental work to figure out roughly how many grams of something you’ve eaten - but it takes all the hassle out of working out the calories and the various macros and other nutrients.
(to be fair before I discovered the barcode scanner I loved how their database seems to have every food by every brand imaginable on it, the scanner just makes it even easier)
I haven’t used any other apps so they might be just as easy to use - I just don’t really have any need to go looking
What kind of details do you get with the paid version? And do you also track your water intake?
Lifesum has a barcode scanner as well which is very handy! But they don’t have so many integration with other apps possibilities as MyFitnessPal.
You can track your water intake but I don’t personally.
The paid version lets you add custom targets for particular nutrients e.g. 100g protein (the free version lets you decide what proportion you want to aim for e.g. 40% carbs, 30% fat, 30% protein, but doesn’t let you say “but I always want to hit X grams of a particular one”)
It also lets you see which foods rank highest in calories or particular nutrients, and lets you change the focus of the dashboard (the free version is calorie-focused). It lets you export data to a CSV file - there are quite a lot of additions. But to be honest none of them really tell you anything that you can’t already find out with the free version, it just makes it much easier and gives you more control over how the information is presented to you. E.g. I can tell at a glance which foods have the most calories, without having to have a ranked list - and it does tell you how much of each macro you’ve consumed in a day, whether or not you’re able to set a target.
I use Lifesum Free. It works well enough
I just installed the app and looking around now. Very impressive! Almost all Huel products are in the database, unlike Lifesum’s database.
I’m trying out the Premium for free for 7 days. It lets you set an amount of calories per meal, so you can say: I want breakfast for max 400 cals everyday. That’s a nice feature. Also checked out the Dashboard in which you can choose where to put the focus on.
Yeah, sometimes the database can almost seem too big (if that were possible :p). It took me a few days to realise that you really have to search as precisely as possible to find the exact thing you need, but it’s almost always there.
For the first few days I was using the entry for Huel v 1.2 because searching for just “Huel” brought up so many results I didn’t find v 2.3 in the list - whereas when I searched for “Huel v 2.3” I found it straight away
I don’t really use much tech
Just my brain … and iPhone activity tracker plus the map my ride on the iPhone
I’m probably not as dedicated as most on here …
I consume regular huel drinks, huel granola and family meals, drink plenty of water when I’m thirsty.
I weigh myself regularly (a bit too regularly ?)
Use the health app on the iPhone to keep track of walks and gym use
That said I bought a cycling computer and I don’t really use it ! (Use the iPhone app)
I have two BP monitors (irregularly used) and a chest heart rate monitor (not used since batteries died)
My wife bought a Fitbit and again it’s not used
Years ago my friend and I had virtually identical minis … I had a speedo, fuel and another gauge which I can’t remember…
My friend had a dashboard full of every gauge possible … He constantly worried about what he saw and took the car to be fixed when one gauge or other wasn’t at the exact position it was supposed to be at !
I knew my mini and fixed it when I ‘knew’ something wasn’t quite right !
Sometimes we can have too much information ?
That said … knowing what your body needs and when is a good thing 
Hardware-wise, I use the following:
iPhone X
Apple Watch
Nokia Smart Scale
Omron i7 BP Monitor
Software-wise, I use:
Lose it!
Nokia Health Mate
Health (Apple app)
Autosleep
Heartwatch
I used to use MFP but I now use Lose it! as I like to join the challenges available on it, either on the app itself or on the Challenges app. The company I work for uses Lose it! for its company-wide challenges too, so we’re kind of forced to use it instead of MFP, although that doesn’t bother me.
I have a Fitbit Charge 2. It’s good for the steps, while goes crazy with stairs (sometimes it gives me like 200 floors a day 
). They also made crap straps, constantly fall apart (the same with my old Charge HR). Luckily, they always send me new ones for free
That said, it’s cool and I also have HR and sleep tracking which is good to show to me how badly I sleep I also use the Fitbit app to track weight in a very cool always descending graph since I’m using Huel.
I don’t count calories in because I’m too lazy. 
iPhone mainly for steps.
Polar m400 watch, does steps etc but it’s a bit bulky sometimes.
Garmin 810 for cycling (with HR)
All uploaded to Strava, which then syncs nicely with my fitness pal.
If you haven’t given cronometer a try then you’re missing out folks. It’s more than carbs fats protein. It does this and more (vitamin, mineral).
CRON-O-Meter by Cronometer Software Inc
I found most of the calorie tracking apps a bit frustrating. I didn’t want to have to pay to see such basic info as macro splits for a day.
As a techie I actually ended up building my own calorie and fitness tracker. It meant I had to learn how calories and weights linked up, which was educational. Finally I ended up manually entering my most commonly consumed foods, which meant I became more familiar with their macros.
I use it each day to add or plan meals, and then compare with my energy out. It’s clunky but I have most of my foods there now, and it works for me. Screenshot attached. I am hoping to polish it off and launch it for others to use in the future.
I track all of my workouts on Strava (https://www.strava.com/athletes/19399837) and am currently playing with their API so that I can import all my workouts alongside my meals for each day. I need to be able to see both alongside each other to know how to scale food for that day. (I am training for an Ironman and then hopefully a 100 mile run.)
For someone who runs and cycles, Strava is amazing. I love it, and it’s one of the few fitness products I happily pay for.
I use a snazzy Garmin fenix watch to track all workouts, as well as giving me a total calories OUT reading each day based on HR, activities and any movement I do with it on my wrist. It’s accurate enough. Strava always tells me I burned more calories than Garmin, but Strava doesn’t take heart rate into consideration, which seems bizarre to me considering how comprehensive the rest of their offering is. They’ve had pressure to update their algo, but I think a lot of users would be sad to see their activities suddenly burning much less than they originally thought!
I use a fitbit aria scale for weight and BF%. Not the most accurate, but seems consistent over time so it’s enough for me.
Currently in a weight loss phase whilst training 6 days a week so I really need a good overview of energy out on each day vs what I’ve eaten. It’s a careful balance to not underfuel and feel lousy. I use Huel pretty much every day, but often mixed with other fruits & whey products, or to pimp a porridge.