Great Apps for Food Journaling

Food journaling is a great way to track your daily nutrition. You can keep track of your calories if you are trying to lose weight, or you can use it to see how certain foods effect your mood and fitness performance. Many Beachbody programs come with nutrition plans which specify a certain amount of fats, proteins, carbs, etc, and this is an easy way to keep track of them. 

There are plenty of high-quality, free apps that you can use for food journaling. Below are a few of my favorites:

LOSE IT - The Lose It App is my favorite and it's the one I use to track my daily calories. It is very user-friendly and has a lot of great features. I use their recipe function to input recipes I make often so I can quickly track them. It also has a UPC scanner so I can scan-in any grocery items I use. You can choose to monitor your protein, fats, carbohydrates, sugars, and other nutrition data so you can easily follow nutrition plans that are included with most Beachbody programs. You can also track exercise with this app either by choosing their pre-entered workouts or you can add custom workouts, which his great if you have a heart rate monitor that tracks calorie burn. 

SPARKPEOPLE - This app is associated with the very popular sparkpeople.com website, which has been around for a long time. With the app, you can track your calories and exercise, daily water intake, and nutrient data. This App also has features for adding recipes, custom foods, and scanning UPC codes. You will also have access to recipes, exercise demonstrations and fitness articles. Sparkeople has a huge community of members who connect with each other to share fitness information.  

I find this app to be a bit too much information for me since my exercise and nutrition have already been mapped out, but it's still very useful and easy to use. 

myfitnesspal - This app is very popular with the Beachbody community for it's simplicity. It easily helps you track calories, nutrients, and exercise. Similar to the other two apps I mentioned, myfitnesspal lets you add custom foods and recipes, scan barcodes, and add exercise. There is also a large community associated with this app, many of whom do the Beachbody programs. 

One added benefit to joining myfitnesspal is the way it interfaces with some of the new fitness technology available. If you have a Garmin, Fitbit, Jawbone, etc, check out the myfitnesspal.com webpage to see what they offer.