You’ve done the research on macronutrients. You’ve chosen a macros ratio for weight loss. You’re ready to begin your journey, only…how are you going to keep track of your macronutrient intake? As a trainer and nutritionist, this is a common concern among my clients. I have found that tracking your food is one of the essential steps for having a successful weight loss journey.
If you’ve been there before, or you’re there now, you’re in luck! We’ve found the best macro tracking app for most people, plus good options if you care more about price or if you have trouble finding all the foods you eat in the database. And if you don’t know anything about macronutrients, don’t worry because we’ll give you a quick rundown before we get started. Let’s get into it!
What are macronutrients?
Macronutrients are the major building blocks of your diet — protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Achieving the correct balance of these nutrients can improve your health, energy, and exercise performance. You can contrast macronutrients with micronutrients, which are vitamins and minerals that you only need a small amount of. People’s diets can contain dramatically different levels of each macronutrient, but it’s important to get all three.
Why should you use a macro tracking app?
Food tracking apps can be incredibly useful. They can help you see how different foods affect you, keep track of calories, and figure out what vitamins and minerals you’re missing. But apps that track macros are even better.
Figuring out if you’re getting too much fat or not enough protein can tell you so much more than just adding up calories. Getting the wrong proportions of macronutrients could be damaging your health — and you might never even know. According to NIH, “Excessive or deficient macronutrient intake is associated with adverse health outcomes in the general population and may originate from inadequate consumption of an individual macronutrient or an overall excessive or deficient energy intake.”
Factors to consider when choosing a macro tracking app
Price
Most macro trackers require monthly subscriptions. Some of them have a limited free version, with more complex and useful features locked behind a paywall, and often have ads on the free version.
Database
Macro trackers have large databases of foods and drinks, so you can just tell the tracker what you ate, and it can pull up the nutrition information for you. The larger a database is, the less often you’ll have to manually enter the nutritional information of something you’ve eaten. You also need to be able to trust that the information in the database is accurate.
Features
All of the apps listed here can track macros, but they also have a variety of other useful features. Some of them can track vitamins and minerals or your water intake or adjust your plan based on weight changes, like shifting macro ratios as you reach your goal weight.
What is the best macro tracking app?
Overall, we think Cronometer is the best macro tracker today. It offers a powerful free version (although with lots of ads). It has many extra tools beyond macro tracking, some of which are available for free (like tracking all of “the essential 84 vitamins and minerals”) and some only available on the premium version (like an intermittent fasting timer).
The premium version is pretty affordable; it costs $11 per month, or only $5 per month if you pay yearly (so $60 once a year). Cronometer can scan the barcode of foods to look up their nutritional information easily. It’s also simple to personalize and add foods that aren’t in their database.
Pros:
- Free and premium options
- Offers a lot of tools
- Easy to personalize and add foods
- Barcode scanner
Cons:
- Very ad-heavy without premium
What other apps should you consider?
MacrosFirst
MacrosFirst is exactly what it sounds like: a tracking app dedicated to macros above all else. It has a great free version without too many ads, and it scans both barcodes and nutrition labels. It also has a high-quality nutrition database. Probably the best feature of MacrosFirst is that, based on your goals, it will calculate a recommended portion size of the food you’re eating.
The premium version of MacrosFirst is $6.67 per month, which is billed yearly in a single $80 charge. With the premium version, you can track things like your water intake and your net carbs, plus see and analyze your trends over time.
However, MacrosFirst doesn’t track your weight alongside your macros or adjust recommendations accordingly. The name really says it all. It’s macros first – and not much else.
Pros:
- Good free version
- Calculates portion sizes based on macros
- Scans barcodes and labels
- Designed specifically for macro tracking
Cons:
- Doesn’t track weight
MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal’s major selling point is its huge, crowdsourced database, where any user can add information about a food’s nutrition. It also includes a lot of entries for restaurant foods, which can be very useful if you eat out a lot. However, some entries can be inaccurate since they were created by a random user.
There’s a free version, but the free version does not include macro tracking. For the premium version, you’ll need to pay $20/month, or $80 once a year, which is the same price as MacrosFirst. The premium version also offers a barcode scanner and a variety of other tools. MyFitnessPal’s capabilities are fairly basic, especially on the free version. It’s not really a macro tracker; it’s just a food tracker that happens to include macros.
Pros:
- Huge database
- Barcode scanner (premium only)
- Restaurant foods
Cons:
- Free version is somewhat ad-heavy and doesn’t track macros
- Data can be inaccurate
Frequently asked questions
Is MyFitnessPal good for tracking macros?
MyFitnessPal doesn’t really focus on macros, and the free version can’t do it at all. Although it can track macros, it’s probably not the best choice for the job.
What is better – Cronometer or MyFitnessPal?
Cronometer is better for most people and in most situations since it has more powerful tools and a more reliable database. However, if you eat at restaurants a lot, MyFitnessPal might be a better choice for you.
What is the best way to track macros?
An app is almost always a better way to track macros than trying to calculate them by hand. Which app is best for you depends on what you’re looking for, but these three are a great place to start.
