Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

New Year - weight loss. ugh. (yeah, I am getting started a little late - don't judge!) I downloaded four free apps to find the best one to help me manage my plan: Calorie Counter by FatSecret, Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker (this one), Diet & Food Tracker by SparkPeople, and Lose It! by Amazon Digital Services. You'll probably see similar reviews to this one on each of those products. I wouldn't download this app - if you don't have a wireless signal, you cannot even log in to use the service. You aren't always around a wireless signal when you want to log your food/exercise.... and if you are anything like me will forget unless you can do it while you are thinking about it. The Calorie Counter by FatSecret is good - especially to be free. Some of the better features are recipe suggestions in line with my desired weight loss plan and LOTS of pre-programmed foods from restaurants & grocery stores. However, I found a better app for me (also free) which is the Lose It! app. The Calorie Counter by FatSecret requires you to be connected to the internet to use, too, but the Lose IT! app does not. This is worth it, too, because (as above) sometimes it's just better to enter things as they happen rather than wait until you can find a signal. Lose It! allows you to add in foods that aren't just those pre-programmed from restaurants & groceries, which is not an option with the Calorie Counter by FatSecret. Let's face it, every food in the world will never be in one database, so having the ability to add stuff is more realistic than expecting to only eat what your app can account for. Being able to create your own foods & recipes allows you to expand the food database outside of the created app and really make it work for you. This alone makes Lose It! the better app for real diet tracking. I also downloaded a companion app that is a restaurant calorie counter, so I can accurately add in those foods I eat. I really think I would have had to do this with any of the apps to really get accurate info, but again, I could not have entered the foods in the Calorie Counter by FatSecret database had they not already been there. Lose It! also lets you create new exercises - I have not utilized this feature.