I used to use the My Fitness Pal app to count calories, but it seems that since I’ve last used it they put more things in the paid tier, including barcode scanning which I always found super useful. But I think I’ll go back to CICO tracking because my weight has crawled back up to where it was before.
Is there a good alternative app with as powerful logging and calorie counting features or should I just pay the money?
LoseIt is (or was last I looked) pay once, use forever and pretty good overall, but I found the crowd-sourced database highly inaccurate and/or unhelpful often. I moved to Chronometer about 6 months ago, which is subscription based, but has a large verified database of foods and a great custom food/recipe creator/importer. I would prefer a pay-once model, but Chronometer is sufficiently worth the ongoing expense, at least as long as I am a work-in-progress. When I reach my target, I’ll reevaluate.
Tacking onto this with more info: LoseIt has a decent free version (barcode scanner is available but stuff like logging future days and setting macro targets is not), otherwise they’ve got a monthly/annual and a lifetime subscription that are kind of pricey but all go on sale pretty regularly. Overall it has been my go to for a long time. Totally agree about the useless database though, even the “verified” foods tend to be wrong. I’ll have to check out Cronometer!
As an update, LoseIt currently has a Lifetime Membership tier but also an annual tier (that I use). The premium is often offered on 50% off sale and rarely a 75% off sale (I scored on this on a Black Friday).