Logging food

[Milvy]

I found logging food works much better with loseit but unless I pay for a loseit account it does not work with fitbit.

I hope many people will vote for this topic then maybe fitbit will improve their food logging abilities. I find it difficult to find food on this ap. They take you to all sorts of fastfood restaurants where I would never eat - applebees, McDonalds, etc but they don't have simple things like a tomato. I've actually found a medium tomato but I'm sure you know what I mean. Then when I create new food, it doesn't seem to come up easily when I go to log the same thing again.

All in all the food log needs to be better, idiot proof, more simple and perhaps just have the basic foods people eat.

[EmmaH27]

I agree that the food logging in the Fitbit app needs improvement.

I use MyFitnessPal to log my food and manual exercise as I find the interface much easier to use and different foods are easy to find when searching or using the barcode scanner. It syncs to the Fitbit app (and it’s free) but I would much prefer to keep track of everything on one platform.

[SunsetRunner]

Could you explain a bit further? I have had no issues finding basic foods within the food databases. You are saying you could not find a tomato? I just want to understand the issue a bit more.

[Milvy]

They do not give you basic foods. For instance, if you look up tortilla chips, you get some trashy version of the food. Nothing basic or plain.  If I go to a restaurant and want to log what I eat, inevitably, the restaurants that come up are fast food restaurants. If I want to log a hamburger, same thing. I have to go find beef. It is not intuitive at all.

[SunsetRunner]

Unfortunately, here is the issue with that - you could get a hamburger that is 80%/20% (the most common lean to fat ratio), but some restaurants could use 93% lean or they could use a combination of ground beef with top round steak etc. The same goes for tortilla chips - corn? flour? I do find myself looking on the restaurant's database to find the exact meal (especially if I go there a lot) and then enter that into my program as a custom food. Whadda ya think?

[john-is-my-name]

To add to this, the restaurant ground beef is probably going to be supermarket grade, at best.  I buy grass-fed ground beef directly from the farmer who raises the cows, so it's all healthy fat.

95% of my diet is all meat, eggs, and vegetables. I'm not that concerned about the occasional dietary dalliance, as it's insignificant.  

[WendyB]

@SunsetRunner  I do the same. Now a days NI is listed for most restaurants on their site or even on their menu.

[ThérèseMonet]

I agree with @EmmaH27 ...MyFitnessPal is ideal for properly logging in food and automatically syncs with your fitbit application and vice versa (the Fitbit will sync workout to your MyfitnessPal account) additionally you can create custom recipes and meals that you make from home right from the app and the browser version (on a computer) is even more interactive than their already phenomenal app. 

[SunsetRunner]

Logging food in the Fitbit app was always crippled. In some parts of the world ( like the UK ) pretty much useless ( no barcode scanning, lack of detail breakdown of macros etc. ). So I'm also siding with using the MFP. Everything works and there is a new feature introduced some time ago which helps with logging restaurant food. You can pick the restaurant from the map and log the food from their menu. For now, it seems to still be at an early stage and lots of restaurants don't show their menus yet but I believe it will change over time. In my area, I see roughly 30% of restaurants and coffee shops filled with menu data. Well, better than nothing and hopefully, it will get improved. In the UK, where most of the restaurants have nutrition guides it may become a very useful feature. So if I had to choose between simplified and more sophisticated solution I go with MFP.

[mteets50]

These places just need to make health facts barcode for their products.

[Sarra01]

I absolutely agree with you

[Reaganne2022]

Does anyone have any good suggestions besides the Fitbit app to track their calories?

[PinkShirley]

Cronometer is the most accurate calorie counter because they keep their food database clean.  You can add your own foods and recipes, but most everything is spot on for nutrition values - and - Cronometer also syncs with FitBit.

[Gretwee]

Thanks for sharing.

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