MyFitnessPal™ is an app and website that will help you track your exercise and food. It is free to use and the basic features are more than enough.

Several of these apps are available, and this one is one of the best, if not the best. Here's why:

Calorie Counting

• You tell the app how many calories you want to consume daily.

• The app calculates the daily calories of food using the foods you input and subtracts these amounts from your daily allowance.

• It also credits back calories based on your exercise.

• There are many 11 million food items in their database.

• You can also scan the barcode on the food item or package.

• You can input your own food or meal, which is then saved.

App and Device Connections

• The app connects to Apple Health.

• It also connects to many fitness trackers or apps (Fitbit, Garmin, Run Keeper, Strava, and the MapMyFitness family of apps MapMyRun, MapMyWalk, etc.).

• It connects to Renpho products like their smart scale, so you don't have to input your weight manually.

Recipes

• Recipes are categorized by meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner) or:

• They are also categorized by type (high-protein, low-carb, low-sodium, vegetarian) or:

• You can also find recipes by calorie count (under 500 calories, under 300 calories).

• The recipes include ingredients, directions, and the calories and macros so you can add them to your daily meals.

Tracking

• Input your goals such as starting weight, goal weight, weekly weight loss or gain, and activity level.

• input your nutrition goals such as calories, and percentage of carbs, protein, and fat.

• MyFitnessPal™ will track all of these goals, compares them to your input, and provides progress graphs, etc.

The days of paper tracking are long gone. Fitness apps are flexible, useful, and mature, and using them will increase your commitment and enjoyment of the journey.