Best Nutrition Tracking Apps: A Certified Sports Nutrition Coach Shares His Top 10 Picks

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If you’re like most people, you have admirable intentions when setting your health and fitness goals, but we all know how hectic life can be sometimes. Despite our best intentions, family, work and basic daily activities can get in the way of eating well and hitting the gym. If this scenario feels all too familiar, then you’ll likely benefit from the guidance and accountability of a nutrition tracking app.

As a certified sports nutrition coach and clinical weight loss practitioner, I often encourage my clients to utilize these apps, and many have found tremendous success while doing so. These apps have a variety of helpful features, from simple calorie and macro tracking to recipe recommendations, meal planning services and tips for building healthier eating habits. I’ve compiled a list of the nine best nutrition tracking apps available in 2024, and in this article, I’ll review the features, functionalities, pros and cons to help you find the best nutrition tracker app for your needs.

This content is meant to be informative, but should not be taken as medical advice. It is not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention or treatment of health problems. Always speak with your doctor before starting any new supplement or exercise regimen.

Our Picks for the Best Nutrition Apps of 2024:

• Best Nutrition App for Weight Loss: Noom
• Best Diet App: Yazio
• Best Nutrition App for Athletes: Future
• Best Nutrition App for Counting Calories: Noom
• Best Nutrition App for Meal Delivery: NuMi by Nutrisystem
Best Nutrition Tracking and Fitness App: Future
• Best Nutrition App with Meal Plans: NuMi by Nutrisystem
• Best Nutrition App for Intermittent Fasting: DoFasting
• Best Food Tracking App:  Yazio
• Best Pregnancy Nutrition App: Ovia Pregnancy Tracker

Best Nutrition App for Weight Loss: Noom

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Noom is a paid nutrition app that includes individual and group coaching, along with a course curriculum focused around improving both mindset and accountability. Instead of promoting restrictive dieting, Noom is designed to create awareness of your eating habits and attitudes toward food. The goal of the app is a healthy attitude toward food and positive behavioral changes that support good eating habits.

Noom uses a stoplight approach to dieting, meaning that foods are categorized as green, yellow or red. The green foods are the least calorically dense and/or the most nutrient dense foods. Examples include fruits, vegetables and whole grains. The red foods are the most calorically dense and/or the least nutrient dense foods, and they should be eaten sparingly. Oils, nuts, fried foods and cheeseburgers are all examples of red food. The yellow foods fall somewhere in the middle, and are likely the foods that make up the bulk of your diet. They include lean meats, eggs, beans and low-fat dairy. The color designations don’t represent good or bad foods; instead, they correspond to the foods that should make up a large, medium and small part of your daily diet.

Related: Noom Diet Review: Is Noom The Right Weight Loss App for You?

Pros:

• As part of their commitment to education, a Noom subscription includes a series of 10 mini-courses that you can complete at your own pace. Interactive lessons include a variety of topics, including goal setting, stress relief, gratitude, joyful movement, breathing exercises, self-care, triggers, types of hunger and more.
• The Noom app doesn’t rule out any particular foods, and instead uses a stoplight approach to represent the foods that should be prioritized or eaten in moderation.
• Noom includes both one-on-one and group coaching, as well as a peer group to help you on your healthy eating journey.

Cons:

• The Noom app recommends weighing yourself daily, which may be a turn-off for some.
• Noom doesn’t offer specific meal plans, which may be helpful to some users.
• This app tracks calories, but doesn’t indicate the macronutrient profile of the foods.

App Store & Google Play Ranking

The Noom app has over 10 million downloads on the Google Play store, and it earns 4.3/5 stars from Android users. On the Apple App Store, Noom has 4.7/5 stars and over 730,000 reviews from iPhone users.

Subscription Details

The Noom app is a subscription-based plan. After the initial seven-day trial, Noom costs $70 per month or $209 for the year.

Best Diet App: Yazio

Experts say that there are a number of habits that can help you lose weight, including keeping a food diary, using a meal planner, eating nutritious food and exercising. The fasting and food tracker app Yazio is our pick for the best diet app because it helps you keep tabs on all of those things and more. Once you download Yazio, you’ll be asked a series of questions about your age, height, weight, activity level and goals. From there Yazio suggests a daily calorie intake. The app has a large food database that users can search to keep track of their calories and macros. We like that users can also track their water intake and that the app can be paired with a fitness tracker to monitor your steps and exercise. While the app is free to use, a premium version unlocks more than 1,000 healthy recipes that make meal planning easy and provides more detailed nutritional information in your food diary. We think this app works well when paired with a weight loss program to keep you on track.

Pros:

• Offers more than 1,000 healthy recipes for various diets such as vegan, gluten free, low carb and more
• Straightforward interface makes tracking calories and macros easy
• Fasting tracker provides guidance on intermittent fasting
• Can be paired with fitness tracker

Cons:

• There are frequent in-app advertisements
• Users complain the food database often provides inaccurate nutritional information
• Full access to recipes and nutritional information for each meal requires subscription
• Can be time consuming to enter in each meal or snack

App Store & Google Play Ranking

Yazio earned 4.7/5 stars from an average of more than 29,000 ratings on the App Store. On Google Play it has a rating of 4.6/5 stars with more than 300,000 reviews.

Subscription Details

Yazio has a basic version, and a “Pro” version, which requires a membership of $19.99 for three months or $39.99 for 12 months. The “Pro” version of the app unlocks the ability to track calories and macros per meal, whereas the basic version only gives total calories and macros for the day. The “Pro” version also provides additional nutrition information tracking, access to recipes and various intermittent fasting plans.

Best Nutrition App for Athletes: Future

Nutrition is one of the most difficult parts of training because it takes a lot of time, effort and focus to fuel your body for optimal performance. There are a lot of factors to consider when designing a meal plan, so if you’re looking for the best nutrition app for athletes, we recommend Future.

Future is a personal training app that connects you with certified coaches to help you reach your fitness goals, and many have backgrounds in nutrition counseling. Future costs $149 a month but right now you can get 50% off your first month. Though Future isn’t a full nutrition app, you can get access to a personalized nutrition plan from your Future coach that’s designed to fuel you for your fitness goals—whether they be weight loss, bulking, shredding or any other goals.

Your Future membership places you on a one-on-one training and coaching plan to help hold you accountable, give you tips on your form to avoid injury and encourage you to stick to your program.

Pros:

• Matches you with a coach that’s suited to your fitness and nutrition needs
• Provides one-on-one accountability for those who struggle to stick with a diet
• You can switch coaches anytime
• Coaches check in with you daily

Cons:

• Can be expensive

App Store & Google Play Ranking

Future has a 4.9/5 star rating on the App store, and a 5/5 stars on the Google Play store.

Subscription Details

Future costs $149/month. However, Future often runs deals, like 50% off your first month.

Best Nutrition App for Counting Calories: Noom

Noom is a great nutrition app for a number of reasons, but one thing I love most about the program is its unique approach to counting calories. With Noom, the focus is not on how many calories are in a given food item, but rather caloric density. Caloric density is how many calories a specific food contains in a given amount. The goal of Noom’s program is to help you balance your calorie intake by highlighting which foods you can indulge in (calorie-light foods) and which you should limit (calorie-dense foods).

Normal calorie counting apps will ask you to restrict foods that are high in calories, but that’s not the focus of Noom. Noom wants to educate you on where your calorie excess is coming from. That way, you can adjust your diet and still lose weight without a strict portion control of all foods at every meal.

Noom’s classification system is red (high caloric density), yellow (moderate caloric density) and green (low caloric density). You’ll get a calorie budget for the day based on your weight loss goals, but it’s up to you to decide how many calories come from each food group. Pro tip from someone who has used this program: Find green and yellow foods you enjoy and indulge in them. You’ll feel fuller without blowing your calorie budget.

Pros:

• Unique approach to calorie counting that doesn’t restrict foods
• Vibrant community for support throughout the process
• Education focused to help you maintain long-term success
• You can purchase time-dependent plans for your specific goals

Cons:

• Noom doesn’t have any pre-made meal services
• Recipes can be tedious to input into the tracker

App Store & Google Play Ranking

Noom has a 4.7/5 star rating on the App store, and a 4.2/5 star rating on the Google Play store.

Subscription Details

• Monthly auto-renewing plan: $70 USD
• Two-month auto-renewing plan: $129 USD
• Three-month auto-renewing plan: $159 USD
• Four-month auto-renewing plan: $169 USD
• Five-month auto-renewing plan: $174 USD
• Six-month auto-renewing plan: $179 USD
• Seven-month auto-renewing plan: $184 USD
• Eight-month auto-renewing plan: $189 USD
• Nine-month auto-renewing plan: $195 USD
• 10-month auto-renewing plan: $199 USD
• 11-month auto-renewing plan: $205 USD
• Annual auto-renewing plan: $209 USD

Best Nutrition App for Meal Delivery: Numi by Nutrisystem

Numi by Nutrisystem is a nutrition app and healthy meal delivery service targeting athletes and active people. The meals are all designed by nutritionists or registered dietitians, and they’re portion controlled with your specific goals in mind. To support your various dietary and fitness pursuits, the NuMi app allows you to log your Nutrisystem meals accurately as well as your outside food choices and snacks, alongside your water intake and exercise. As far as plan options, you can choose from Women’s Standard, NutriSystem for Men, Vegetarian Plan, Nutrisystem D for diabetics, Partner Plan for couples, Complete 55 for women 55 and up, Basic, Uniquely Yours (the most popular plan) and Uniquely Yours Max+. All of these plans are completely designed from preparation to delivery.

Nutrisystem’s Uniquely Yours and Uniquely Yours Max+ plans give you greater control over the kinds of meals you would like to receive, preventing boredom with the same old picks. The Basic meal plan is the least expensive meal plan option, with at least 100 menu choices for 5 days worth of meals weekly. Nutrisystem will still portion control your choices, prepare the meal and deliver it to your door. The meals start at about $9.99 a day. If you’re looking for balanced meals that are prepared for you, delivered to your door and designed to support your wellness pursuits,as well as an active food diary NuMi and Nutrisystem is a great option.

Pros:

• Nutritionist-designed meals
• Free shipping across the continental U.S.
• Multiple meal plans that can accommodate dietary preferences
• Plan options that let you choose your meals for delivery

Cons:

• Four week of meals come at once, so you need plenty of fridge space
• Smaller portion sizes

App Store & Google Play Ranking

NuMi has a 4.6/5 star rating on the App store, and a 3.6/5 star rating on the Google Play store.

Subscription Details

The NuMi app is free to download and use without Nutrisystem. If you want to incorporate the Nutrisystem meals into your plan, then the price starts at $9.99 per day.

Best Nutrition Tracking and Fitness App: Future

Future combines the best aspects of fitness apps and nutrition programming apps all in one place. By matching you with a certified fitness trainer that also has a nutrition coaching background, the program is set up to hold you accountable to your eating and workout goals. There are a few things to consider about Future before you start using the app.

First, Future provides a personal trainer at your fingertips that costs less than an in-person trainer or nutrition coach. After you sign up for a Future account, you’ll get matched with a coach based on your fitness experience, available equipment and nutrition goals. You can also get specialized programs for your personal needs, such as if you’re pregnant or postpartum, recovering from an injury or have other conditions that may change how you approach your wellness.

Second, after matching with your Future coach, you’ll meet them via video call to build your custom fitness and nutrition plan to help you stay on track. Future is one of the most comprehensive apps you’ll find, that’s the closest thing to working with a trainer and dietitian IRL—at a fraction of the cost.

Pros:

• Guided workout training
• Coaches to help you develop a fully personal nutrition plan
• Fitness-centered
• Heavy accountability to prevent falling away from your goals

Cons:

• Expensive subscription
• No food logging or calorie counter

App Store & Google Play Ranking

Future has a 4.9/5 star rating on the App store, and a 5/5 stars on the Google Play store.

Subscription Details

Future costs $149/month. However, Future often runs deals. For example, right now, you can get 50% off your first month.

Best Nutrition App with Meal Plans: NuMi by Nutrisystem

Nutrisystem is a weight loss program that has been around in one form or another since 1972. The current model, NuMi by Nutrisystem, allows you to choose a nutrition plan with pre-made, portion controlled meals and snacks for five to seven days, depending on your choice. You’ll also receive one-on-one guidance based on your weight loss goals to help hold you accountable and to give you encouragement along the way.

The NuMi app is where you’ll spend most of your time on the Nutrisystem plan. In the app, you can track your meals, keep tabs on your progress, adjust your account, chat with your coach and participate in the vibrant Nutrisystem community. However, you don’t have to purchase a full Nutrisystem plan to use the app. It can be used to track calories, or you can browse a large recipe database of nutrient-balanced meals.

Pros:

• Multiple meal plan options to accommodate dietary restrictions
• All meals are portion controlled to help you stay in your calorie budget
• Nutrisystem focuses on portion size, rather than restricting foods
• The app has a large database of recipes if you want to make your own food

Cons:

• Some meals are extremely low in calories
• Not many dietary restriction plans offered

App Store & Google Play Ranking

NuMi has a 4.6/5 star rating on the App store, and a 3.6/5 star rating on the Google Play store.

Subscription Details

The NuMi app is completely free to use. If you want to incorporate the Nutrisystem meals into your plan, then the price ranges from $9.99 to around $15.32 per day.

Best Nutrition App for Intermittent Fasting: DoFasting

The DoFasting app was created to make intermittent fasting simple for beginners. For those unfamiliar with the concept of intermittent fasting, it’s a cyclical dietary approach that alternates between periods of eating and fasting throughout the day. The most common is the 16:8 approach, in which you have eight consecutive hours to consume all of your calories over the course of a 24 hour day.

The app's primary feature is a customizable fasting schedule and timer, but it also includes weight, water, steps and calorie tracking features. Some potential benefits of fasting include easier weight loss, improved markers of health and reduced inflammation.

Related Post: The Best Intermittent Fasting Apps

Pros:

• The app has over 5,000 healthy recipes to help improve your nutrition; however, some reviewers wish the recipes had a better search feature and filter for certain foods.
• The app uses daily reminders and motivational notifications for improved accountability.
• The DoFasting app includes a library of workouts that are suitable for all ages and skill levels.
• App tracking features include weight, water, steps and calories.

Cons:

• Intermittent fasting is not advised for athletes who need a constant supply of energy for sports and activity.
• If you miss a day of food tracking or forget to input a meal, you can’t return to a previous day to input or adjust the data.
• Some users are currently having trouble with the app crashing on them or logging them out.

App Store & Google Play Ranking

The DoFasting app has a 4.3/5 star rating on the Google Play store and a 3.7/5 star rating on the Apple App Store.

Subscription Details

DoFasting is a subscription-based app that offers one-month, three-month and six-month plans. The one-month plan costs around $34 dollars, and the six-month plan is around $10 dollars per month.

Best Food Tracking App: Yazio

If you’ve ever kept a food diary, you know how tedious it can be to add up your calories and macros to make sure you’re staying on track. Yazio is our pick for the best food tracking app, because it makes keeping tabs on what you’ve eaten easy. Yazio provides users with a suggested daily calorie intake based on a series of questions about their age, height, weight, activity level and goals. Yazio has a large food database that users can search to add meals and snacks to their digital food diary. Then the app does the work for you, tallying up your calories and macros. The free, basic version of the app tracks those metrics for the entire day, whereas the premium version of the app breaks them down for each meal. The premium version also provides more detailed nutritional information like vitamins, minerals, saturated fats and sodium and provides a rating detailing what is “good” and “bad” about each food.

Pros:

• Straightforward interface makes tracking calories and macros easy
• Fasting tracker provides guidance on intermittent fasting
• Can be paired with fitness tracker
• Users can track water consumption and set reminders to drink water
• Offers more than 1,000 healthy recipes for various diets such as vegan, gluten free, low carb and more

Cons:

• There are frequent in-app advertisements
• Users complain the food database often provides inaccurate nutritional information
• Full access to recipes and nutritional information for each meal requires subscription
• Can be time consuming to enter in each meal or snack

App Store & Google Play Ranking

Yazio earned 4.7/5 stars from an average of more than 29,000 ratings on the App Store. On Google Play it has a rating of 4.6/5 stars with more than 300,000 reviews.

Subscription Details

Yazio’s free version provides access to basic food tracking metrics and its large food database. The “Pro” version requires a membership ($19.99 for 3 months or $39.99 for 12 months) and unlocks access to recipes, various intermittent fasting plans and additional nutrition information tracking.

Best Pregnancy Nutrition App: Ovia Pregnancy Tracker

The Ovia Pregnancy app is an all-in-one pregnancy tracker that has a baby development tracker, a calendar, a due date countdown, medication reminders and food and activity logs. Since this is a nutrition tracking review, I’m going to focus on the nutrition component of the app.

As we know, nutritional needs change during pregnancy in order to support a healthy mom and growing baby. However, figuring out exactly what you can and can’t eat during this time can feel overwhelming, especially if this is your first pregnancy. The Ovia Pregnancy app simplifies this process and makes it easy to ensure that you’re getting the nutrients that both you and your baby need for a healthy pregnancy. Specifically, the app suggests recipes and nutrients that will help to support fetal development, and it includes a food safety guide and helpful articles regarding pregnancy nutrition and health.

Pros:

• Ovia is a completely free app with no subscription plans required.
• The app promotes a comprehensive approach to the health of pregnant women and their babies.
• The app comes with a food safety guide for pregnant women.

Cons:

• There are frequent in-app advertisements.
• This app lacks tracking data points and trend analysis.

App Store & Google Play Ranking

Ovia Pregnancy Tracker has a 4.7/5 star rating with over one million downloads on the Google Play store, and a 4.9/5 star rating on the Apple iOS Store.

Subscription Details

This app is completely free to download and use. At this time there are no in-app purchases or subscription plans available.

Why Use a Nutrition App?

Nutrition apps are excellent tools that can help you achieve your wellness goals through a healthy diet. They function in a variety of different ways, including calorie counting, nutrient tracking, educational courses, blog articles and even helping to keep you accountable through daily and weekly check-ins and reminders.

I personally have found these apps to be extremely effective in helping my clients learn about serving sizes and how many calories are actually in the foods they’re consuming on a daily basis. For example, food items such as condiments, dressings and cooking oils are not calorie free and often go unaccounted for when determining daily caloric intake. People are shocked to learn what a tablespoon of peanut butter really looks like, or that their salad with dressing is double or even triple the calories that they expected. These realizations are incredibly important, especially for people with weight loss goals.

Related: The Best Health Apps for Your Wellbeing

How We Chose the Best Nutrition Apps

I chose nutrition apps that have lots of different brands and food items in their databases—that way, their nutrition information is more likely to be accurate. Additionally, I picked apps that have well designed user interfaces that are intuitive to understand and use. Versatility is also a critical component to a well-designed nutrition app. In most cases, simply tracking the calories in a food isn’t enough information to help someone achieve their goals. That’s why the majority of the apps on this list include features like macro and micronutrient tracking, hydration protocols, healthy recipes, workout plans and informational courses.

Finally, customer reviews are very important to consider when deciding which nutrition apps to use. I read through user reviews, and encourage you to read reviews on the Google Play or Apple App store to determine which app you want to download. The reviews provide a lot of insight regarding the user interface, the overall experience and any potential red flags or buggy software. Learn more about our product review process.

How to Choose the Best Nutrition App For You

Nutritional goals

The three questions I like to ask my clients when determining their nutritional goals are: Where are you now? Where do you want to be? How are you going to get there? In my opinion, these are the most important questions you need to answer before beginning your health and wellness journey, much less choosing the best nutrition app for you.

Nutrition apps are designed to help with the “How are you going to get there?” phase of your journey. When choosing, think about the features of a nutrition app that will best help you to achieve your personal goals. Is simply tracking your calories and macronutrients effective? Or do you need a specific system or plan to follow? Maybe you need a coach who you can ask specific questions and who can help keep you accountable. Once you have these questions answered, you can choose the app that will best suit your needs.

Weight loss goals

Having a weight loss goal is one of the primary reasons people begin using a nutrition app in the first place. However, the true benefit of these apps isn’t simply weight loss, but developing the healthy habits and routines that lead to long-term beneficial health outcomes. This is an important distinction because the real goal is developing a healthier lifestyle, with weight loss being the happy side effect. Luckily, the use of these apps have been shown to improve diet and weight loss outcomes, especially when utilized in conjunction with physical activity.

Diet preferences

When used correctly, the nutrition apps on this list will accommodate just about any dietary preferences that you might have (gluten-free, paleo diet, keto diet, low-carb diet, etc.). In most cases, these apps are not telling you exactly what to eat; instead, they allow you to track the foods that you are consuming in order to understand the amount of calories and nutrients they contain.

Features

The majority of nutrition apps focus on calorie counting and nutrient tracking. Others provide some additional benefits like nutrition education and psychological benefits centered around mindful eating. One app on this list was even created specifically for people who are pregnant. If you are someone that relies on teamwork, consider apps, like WW (Weight Watchers), that offer community forums for extra support. No matter what you're looking for, you can find an app that suits your specific needs.

Rating

Since these apps are available via the Apple or Google Play app stores, they have thousands of downloads and reviews. Check these ratings and reviews before deciding on an app. The reviews often contain valuable information regarding whether or not the app is a good fit for your needs.

Endorsements

Certain apps are endorsed by athletes or celebrities, but this shouldn’t be a deciding factor in which app to choose. Instead, you should focus on the features and functionalities the app provides and how they align with your personalized goals.

Cost

Some of the apps on this list are completely free to download and offer upgraded packages for a monthly fee. Others are subscription based services or require a one-time fee to join. Ultimately, choosing the best food tracking and nutrition app comes down to what you think will provide the best results. If you’re looking for a simple, free tracker, then MyFitnessPal, Cronometer and MyNetDiary are great options. If you want an app that’s more in-depth or want to unlock specific features behind a paywall, then go for an app with a subscription plan, like Noom or WW.

Nutrition App FAQS

Is there an app that tracks all nutrients?

If you’re looking for apps that go beyond calorie counting, then I suggest using either MyFitnessPal or Cronometer. Both of these apps offer excellent free versions with subscription plan offerings with added benefits. They also allow you to set your daily macronutrient goals and track a variety of different micronutrients like vitamins and minerals.

How do I track my daily nutrition?

The majority of the nutrition apps on this list enable you to add the foods and serving sizes that you’re consuming. Then, the apps will track your calories, macronutrients and even micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. The apps either have a stored database where you can select the exact foods you’re eating, or they can estimate the nutritional value of foods that you manually enter. MyFitnessPal is a great example: You can use your phone to scan the barcode of the food you are eating, and it will populate the calories and nutrients for you (this feature is behind the subscription paywall).

Final Thoughts

Nutrition apps can be a big asset in your health or weight loss journey. Simply logging what you eat can cause you to think twice before eating certain foods. For the best results, be very diligent about recording your food and beverages, including snacks, cooking oils, condiments and extras like coffee creamer. These “hidden foods'' can be what’s hindering you from reaching your nutritional goals. 

Also, be aware that nutrition apps can potentially increase disordered eating behaviors. If you notice that you’re very preoccupied with hitting the exact number of recommended calories or that you feel like a failure when you don’t hit your numbers, it may be a sign that you should take a break from using a nutrition app. However, in most cases, using a nutrition app can be an incredibly effective tool to help you reach your health goals and develop better eating habits.

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