Calorie & Food Counter

Calorie & Food Counter
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Calorie counters are helpful tools if you're trying to lose weight, gain weight or track the intake of a particular macronutrient. There are many free calorie counters that can be found online or as applications on smartphones. Using a calorie counter can help you consume your recommended daily caloric intake.

Consider Goals

To lose weight you must create a calorie deficit, which is the difference between what you burn and what you eat. Creating a calorie deficit forces your body to use stored energy, which will cause the weight loss, says StraightHealth.com. If you're trying to gain weight then you need to consume more than what your body requires.

"Lose It" App

The Lose It application is a free calorie counter that can be utilized on any smartphone or iPod Touch. This app is easy to use and displays your daily calorie consumption on an easy-to-read table. Also, the Lose It application allows you to add foods that are not found in their database, which is a feature that may not be available in other calorie counters.

Calories Per Hour

CaloriesPerHour.com is a web site with free features such as total calories burned, total calories consumed and a daily caloric calculator. Its database consists of more than 675,000 items in the food library and 1,500 choices in the activities menu.

Fat Secret

FatSecret.com is another web site with free calorie-counting calculators, food libraries and more. It also offers a calorie-counting app that correlates entries between your smartphone and the web site. This calorie-counting web site lists foods in alphabetical order, which makes it a user-friendly tool.

Fit Watch

The calculator on FitWatch.com takes into consideration your height, weight, age and gender when it recommends your daily caloric intake. This calculator will figure your estimated daily caloric intake required to maintain your current weight based on your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and your activity level.

References

Article reviewed by Eric Althoff Last updated on: Sep 28, 2010

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