MyFitnessPal (free, link) is a calorie counting and tracking app that uses an extensive online database to simplify finding the calorie counts of foods. It helps you lose weight by displaying a suggested calorie total for a desired weight loss pace, then subtracts your actual calorie intake against it. For a free app, MyFitnessPal offers some powerful features, and it syncs with the excellent MyFitnessPal website.

While keeping a calorie journal up-to-date on a daily basis can be difficult in the long-term, the conveinence of carrying around the journal in your pocket or purse makes it a little bit easier. Even if you can’t keep up the calorie journal for too long, using MyFitnessPal is worth it simply to clarify the total calories of all the food you eat in a single day, as you may be surprised how calories can really build up.

There is one important thing to note about the app: it requires an Internet connection (a recent updated add offline functionality)—there is no offline mode. Essentially, it is an extension of the MyFitnessPal website, which the app saves your data to. The first time you launch the app, you’ll be asked to create an account as well as set up your dieting goals. For example, if you want to slowly lose weight, you can set a desired weight loss rate of 0.5 pounds/week, or if you want to move faster, 2.0 pounds/week. Then the app takes over and tells you how many calories you can consume (or have left to consume) in order to be on pace to lose weight.

The app really does speed up the calorie tracking process, as searching for a string of keywords like “Subway turkey honey oat american cheese” brings up that exact Subway sandwich complete with calorie count. Even when it doesn’t have the exact food, you can piece the calorie count together by searching for the ingredients. For example, I like to put olive oil on sourdough toast. So I search first for sourdough then olive oil, and together I get the correct calorie count.

There are also nice fine-tuning tools for getting the correct calorie count from different sized portions, in case a restaurant gives you a larger or smaller amount than normal.

If you can’t find the food you’re eating by searching the database, you can add it using the app, you’ll just have to know the calorie count and portion size.

Add food to the database.

Every time you open the app, it will immediately display how many calories left you have left to consume that day. As you record calories or burn them through exercise, the calories you have left to consume that day will change. You can move backward or forward in time too, in case you want to fill in entries from a few days ago or add what you have planned for dinner tomorrow.

Yes, the app tracks calories from exercise too. Entering physical activities into the app works much like food. You choose from either strength or cardiovascular categories, then do a search for your activity (jogging, spinning, lifting, etc). The calories burned from the activity will be added to calorie allowance. It’s nice to see the 500 calories from that hamburger disappear after your 40-minute jog.

The app also helps mark your progress via some basic weight tracking Simply enter in your daily weight, and a small chart shows you your progress over the past month. Nothing too fancy, but it’s quick and easy.

The app is missing a few features that could drastically improve it. I’d like to be able to directly add calories without searching for a food. It’s also not the best at showing you your progress. The weight tracking is nice, but I’d like to see calorie totals for the week and months, along with other charts and graphs.

Conclusion

MyFitnessPal has some pretty powerful features for a free app. Even if not used for the long-term, it can at least help educate you on the calorie count of the foods you are eating. The mobility of the iPhone enhances the usefulness of the app as well. The only thing holding the app back is the need for a constant Internet connection.

Overall, the app helped me recognize exactly how many calories I was consuming (who knew two pieces of toast could have so many calories?) and, perhaps more importantly, how many I shouldn’t consume, and it helped me lose a few pounds the past few weeks (and going). We can highly recommend the app for simple calorie tracking and establishing and clarifying dieting goals on a daily basis. And best of all, it’s free!

MyFitnessPal is a free download in the iTunes App Store.

Looking for a good mountain bike trail near you? The Mountain Bike Trails app ($1.99, iTunes link) has details on over 5,000 trails across the country, and more trails should be added in future versions. You can utilize the iPhone’s GPS to find the nearest trails or search in other locations by name or city. Each listing includes information like driving directions, the trail’s skill level, and the closest bike shops.

Mountain Bike Trails launched earlier this month, and it debuted at a relatively high price of $4.99. The developer, TotalSquare, is set to release version 1.1 soon, so the app will be on sale for $1.99 for a limited time. It gets decent ratings at the iTunes store, although the app relies on user-submitted descriptions that are pretty skimpy at this point. This app may definitely be worth checking out once more descriptions are added.

Mountain Bike Trails is a $1.99 download at the iTunes store.

You can add food to your log in two ways — search the FoodScanner database or scan the UPC code on any packaged item using the iPhone’s camera. The scanner works remarkably well, and it is really fun to use. Tap the lightening bolt in the corner of the screen and guides appear that show you where to position the UPC code. Once you have it lined up correctly, a “hold still for scan” message appears. You’ll hear an audible camera click and your results will be displayed. 

More often than not, FoodScanner brought up the right food. It did have a few problems with more obscure items, like a bag of ground flaxseeds. When this happens, you get a “no items found” message and you can manually add the food or search for it in the database. The scanner responds quickly to UPC codes on flat items and boxes, but it has a little trouble with curved containers. I was unable to get the app to scan the UPC on a can of black beans or a bottle of vodka (that adds calories too!), although it had no problems with a soda can or a jar of pickles. 

Other than the scanner, there’s not much going on with this app. Your food intake is lumped into one list under “Today’s Foods,” so you can’t view information for just one meal. There’s a calorie total at the bottom of the main page, but no breakdown of fat or protein grams — that info is only available from the online version. Under the information tab, there is an option to sync your data with an online DailyBurn.com account. 

Ultimately, there are free apps that are far superior for tracking calorie intake, including SparkPeople. FoodScanner is undeniably fun to use, but it doesn’t separate your food into meals or provide much info other than total calories. I give the FoodScanner app a limited recommendation — once the novelty wears off, you’ll probably wonder why you paid for this app when there are better alternatives available for free.

The FoodScanner app is normally a $2.99 download at the iTunes store, but it’s currently on sale for $0.99.

RunKeeper Free (free, iTunes link) is an app for runners that tracks the time, distance, and speed of a run as well as records the route of the run using GPS. As a running tool, we think RunKeeper Free outclasses the Nike+ system in almost every way except for integration with the iPhone’s iPod functionality. Overall, RunKeeper is one of the best fitness apps for the iPhone, and we have added it to our Best of iPhone Apps list.

See your runs displayed on Google Maps.

One thing we liked about RunKeeper is that its interface is basic and easy to use. To begin tracking your run, tap the Start button. Once underway, you can tap Pause to pause the app’s tracking in case you have to stop for traffic or tie your shoe. Your pauses will even be recorded and represented on the map by gray pins. To resume tracking, tap Resume. When you’re finished, tap Stop.

RunKeeper saves your data locally on the iPhone, but you can also sign up for a free web account within the app with RunKeeper.com (which I highly recommend). With the account, RunKeeper will automatically upload each run (for free) to the site where you can access additional data like more feature-rich maps and charts.

See a history of all your runs.

I should note here that there are two versions of the app: RunKeeper Free and RunKeeper Pro ($9.99, iTunes Link). The free version (the version I’m reviewing) has most of the functionality of the Pro version, with the Pro version having two exclusive features: audio cues (hear your stats via headphones) and training workouts (hear interval prompts via headphones). The developer said the Pro version will have more features added soon.

A map from RunKeeper.com. Click to embiggen.

The website puts some extra twists on the information not available in the app. For example, the website has an interactive map and line chart for each run. The line chart displays your speed and altitude over the course of your run. But here’s the cool part: as you drag your mouse pointer across the line chart, it simultaneously shows the corresponding GPS position of that exact moment of the run on Google Maps. Doing this allows you to see where you slowed down or sped up during your run.

The website also supplies additional data like total distance ran per week, feet climbed, estimated calories burned, start and stop time (ie, time of day), and pace for each individual mile. You can use the site to publish (either manually or automatically) your runs to sites like Twitter or FaceBook. You can also export your runs to Google Earth.

A lot of people wonder how accurate the app is. Well, I had no scientific way for testing RunKeeper’s accuracy, but I did a crosscheck with Google Maps and found that RunKeeper said 2.7 miles for one of my runs, while Google Maps said 3.1 miles. However, it should be noted that Google Maps gives driving directions while RunKeeper tracks my position to within a few meters. Since I was running on a sidewalk in what basically is the equivalent of the inside lane of a running track, the difference in distance seems about right to me. I think RunKeeper is accurate, at least more so that trying to plot your run on a map.

RunKeeper does have a few drawbacks. Its integration with the iPod isn’t up to par with the Nike+ system. You can listen to iPod in the background, but you have to start your music first, then launch RunKeeper. iPod controls can only be accessed if you set your “double click the home button” setting to bring up the iPod controls.

Also, many of RunKeeper‘s features rely on the iPhone getting a decent GPS signal. If you have difficulty picking up these signals in your area, the app loses most of its functionality (while Nike+ would still retain its).

Another drawback to the app is that the developer suggests you always turn off WiFi before a run to aid in the app’s route-tracking accuracy. If the iPhone can’t find a GPS signal, it may use a WiFi network’s location instead, which can add sudden bizarre jumps in your route. Turning off WiFi is annoying to do before every run, although I should note that I’ve run with WiFi on and it didn’t seem to effect the app’s accuracy. So, run with WiFi at your own risk (you can always fix the route later at RunKeeper.com).

Conclusion

RunKeeper Free is easy to use, packed with features, and easily outclasses the Nike+ system for tracking runs in every way save for integration with the iPod app. Used in conjunction with the free website, the app is actually a fun way to track your runs and view your performance over time. We highly recommend RunKeeper for runners.

Name: RunKeeper
Developer: FitnessKeeper, Inc
Version Reviewed: 1.4.8.2
Price: Free or $9.99
iTunes Link: Download

iFitness ($1.99, iTunes link) is a fitness app that helps create and track exercise routines for the gym or health club. There’s over 150 individual exercises to search through, and each is explained with graphics and text. What sets iFitness apart is its ability to log workouts and track them over time. Recognizing and feeling good about your progress can be a great long-term motivator for exercise. Realizing when you’ve hit a wall is also important for knowing when to switch things up. iFitness can help you do this, only, we wish it would focus its interface on the exercise-log feature instead of burying it underneath the others. Recommended.

Display your exercise progress in charts.

Advice and “how to” information on exercise isn’t exactly scarce these days. And the quality of the information in iFitness is pretty generic. Similar information is usually posted on the gym equipment. One thing iFitness has going for it is that it structures information in a way that will help you plan an entire workout. If you want to focus on your abdominals, tap on the abdominal tab to get a list of appropriate exercises. There’s also a cool anatomical graphic where you tap on a muscle group to see corresponding exercises. You can also add you own exercises along with descriptions and pictures into the app.

Log your exercise and keep track of your progress.

iFitness can display your workout log as a chart, so you’ll have a visual representation of your progress. If you want to get even nerdier with your data, there’s also the ability to email the information as csv file, which can then be imported in Microsoft Excel, where you can do even more nerdier things with it.

Choose an exercise by muscle group.

Our biggest complaint is the app’s poor layout. Buttons are too small, and navigating through the app feels cumbersome. To start logging your workout, you’ll have to navigate down through a couple menus and then press a tiny button that is squeezed in between two other tiny buttons. The app could use a serious visual makeover.

Conclusion

We found the main utility for iFitness is for logging your workouts, although the ability to create a workout plan is also nice. It’s information is somewhat generic, as is the overall design of the app. Overall, we recommend it for anyone looking to plan a workout from scratch, or who wants to keep track of their exercise data.

Name: iFitness
Developer: Medical Productions
Version Reviewed: 8.8
Price: $1.99
iTunes Link: Click here