Counting calories is the best way to control your weight, but it can be quite a hassle. Fortunately, counting calories on your iPhone is a breeze, especially with the Lifesum app.
Counting calories on your iPhone: a Lifesum guide
Counting calories sounds like a hassle, but with the help of the right app, it’s not so bad. It is the best method to lose weight, maintain weight or gain weight if you need it. Only by counting calories do you know exactly how much you eat, so that you can compare that with how much you burn.
If you wear an Apple Watch, it already keeps track of how many calories you burn. What extra you burn in a day can be added to the number of calories you burn through breathing, food processing and putting your brain to work. If you eat more calories than that total number, you will gain weight. If you eat less, you will lose weight.
Apps
There are countless calorie counters in the App Store. Many come down to the same thing, but with a slightly different interface. The best calorie counters allow you to scan barcodes of products, so you don’t have to enter the nutritional values ​​yourself. You can also connect good apps to Apple Health to synchronize your burned calories.
The app that works best in our opinion is Lifesum. This app has a pleasant design, is bursting with possibilities and really motivates you to make the right choices. In this article we therefore explain how to get started with this app. You can download the app via the button below. Other good options are MyFitnessPal or Calories & Nutrition Cracker. If you want something simpler and Dutch, you can try My Eetmeter from the Nutrition Center.
Add food
You start by telling Lifesum what your goal is: lose weight, maintain weight or gain weight. A plan will then be made for you. If you want to lose weight, the app recommends doing so by 0.5 kilos per week. However, you can adjust that. You should also not forget to enter your exercise level. By default it is set to low, and Lifesum suggests far too few daily calories (I discovered this when I was still quite hungry several evenings in a row).
Lifesum tries to make adding what you’ve eaten as easy as possible. It can be awkward at first and take a lot of time. That is only temporary, because you can quickly choose things that you have eaten before. Do you have breakfast in a similar way every day? Then you only have to fill it in once.
Adding food is done by pressing the plus sign and choosing a meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack). You can search for the right product via text or scan the barcode. If a product does not exist in the database, you will be given the opportunity to add it yourself. You only have to copy the nutritional values ​​on the back of the packaging.
It is then important that you indicate the correct amount. You will be given different options for each product, such as ‘portion’ or ‘tablespoon’. You can always choose ‘gram’. It is useful to have a scale ready.
Here’s what you need to know about the main screen
Once you have added some things, you will soon notice that the main screen fills up with information. You can eat the calories that Lifesum indicates as ‘remaining’ without guilt while still achieving your goal. If you notice at the end of the day that there are still 200 kcal left, you can just have a small pastry or some chips without gaining weight.
In addition to your calories, your carbohydrates, protein and fat are also tracked. This is not relevant for losing or gaining weight, but it is relevant for whether your diet is healthy. You can also fall below your calorie goal with unhealthy food. The app wants to avoid this by also giving you insight into these nutritional values. If you have not eaten enough carbohydrates, proteins or fats, the app will still give you a sad face at the end of the day. Even if you’ve achieved your calorie goal.
At the bottom you will find ‘exercise’. This is filled in automatically if you use an Apple Watch or a fitness tracker, for example, but you can also add your activities manually.
Check your progress
You will find your progress in the second tab of the app. This is a nice place to check every now and then to see if the counting is working. For example, you enter your weight here to see in a graph and a progress bar that you are actually losing weight. You can also add your sleep here if necessary.
Water widget
Finally, Lifesum has nice widget options. You can place a widget where you can see at a glance how your calories, proteins, carbohydrates and fats are doing for the day. A more useful widget is the ability to keep track of how much water you have drunk. Every time you down a glass of water, tap the widget once. At the end of the day you can see whether you drank enough water that day.
Lifesum Premium: is it worth it?
Lifesum is free to use, but there is also the paid version Lifesum Premium. Unfortunately, the app tries to motivate you on all sides to pay and with a price of 9.99 euros per month (although the price drops considerably if you take several months or wait for an offer) that is not easy. Is it worth it?
When you pay you get a fasting timer, scores and more statistics to help and motivate you. The app also gives you daily feedback on what you can improve, and can provide information about what is wrong with each product you add. That’s useful information if you don’t know much about healthy food yet.
Paying for Lifesum is therefore especially interesting if you need help with food. You can also get started with meal plans, where the app tells you exactly what to make and eat. You can also browse through the recipes to find something yourself.
Use your iPhone in other ways for your health
You can also use your iPhone in other ways to work on your health. If you don’t wear an Apple Watch, you can install a pedometer app. You can actively work to reduce your stress and set a reminder for your medications.