
Archive
Livestrong.com Calorie Tracker review
Andrew Williams
We review Livestrong.com Calorie Tracker, an app that lets you scrutinise and keep track of your daily routines
Rating: ![]()
Verdict: Livestrong.com Calorie Tracker doesn't let you take any shortcuts when adding your daily intake, but if you're willing to put in the effort, it clearly lets you see how your diet pans out.
Pros: Clear calorie tracking screen, connects to Livestrong.com accounts
Cons: You have to input foods individually each time, relies on connection, can't add custom foods, some US-centric features
Version reviewed: 1.1
Publisher: Livestrong
Price: £1.79
More Info: The main Livestrong website
Once you've learnt to discount all the unhealthy fad diets - the plans for every letter of the alphabet - the basic strategy behind weight loss isn't too hard to fathom. It's just a case of using more calories than you consume.
Although probably the least fun part of any diet, the one most likely to drive you off the rails, managing what you eat is important. The Livestrong.com Calorie Tracker lets you keep a daily record of what you've eaten, the exercise you've done and its offsetting calorific value- and your weight.
An app that demands a bit of dedication, it works best if you input your intake and exercise as it's happening. Livestrong.com Calorie Checker's home screen shows how close you are to reaching your daily calorie limit, which is worked out simply by adding up all you've eaten and subtracting it from any exercise done.
Each element has its own tab down at the bottom of the screen. The food and fitness tabs are pretty similar though. They just consist of a search bar and a space for your search results to be spewed out. Unfortunately, being able to add food or exercise to your day relies on having a network connection.
There's no way to add them manually, you have to rely on the Livestrong.com database. Not only is this inconvenient, it's inflexible too. Livestrong lists an egg sandwich as 350 calories, but if you make your own and shove loads of mayonnaise in it, it could easily rise above that figure. Equally, use lighter bread and no extra filling and it could be below.
Most food types will have a few different options, but they're optimised for US food outlets, and so are often a bit useless if you're UK-based. In the exercise tab, there are even multiple entries for the same type of exercise, saying that it's worth different numbers of calories. Confusing indeed.
These faults aside, the Livestrong.com Calorie Tracker is still a very simple and easy to use way to keep an eye on your diet plans. An additional tab lets you input your weight each day, while a graph keeps track of this, showing how it has changed over time. The simple way Calorie Tracker displays both you weight and calorie credit is the app's best feature, acting as a motivator within the laborious process of entering food and exercise.
When dieting's so often about establishing a routine, it's a pity you can't enter chunks of previously entered data at once, but then again weight loss and laziness don't exactly go hand-in-hand. Calorie Tracker links in with existing Livestrong.com accounts though, so if you're already using the site, you'll already have done a lot of the ground work.
If you're not already a Livestrong member, Calorie Tracker's less of an essential download. We still like the interface, but its core inflexibility and lack of short cuts mean it needs a bit of commitment to get the best out of the app. Very apt, then, considering it's a dieting tool.













