With all the nutrition trackers available, it’s difficult to choose one that’s accurate and will help you with your fitness journey. The applications usually have a food diary where you can choose the foods from a database and log them into the app. Logging your food helps you see which foods you eat often as well as your eating habits. In addition to tracking your food, they usually recommend calories to stick within based on the information you enter into the app, which includes age, gender, and activity level.
Because each app is different, it’s important to do your research about the features each tracker has and how it fits in with what you’re looking for. Some apps like MyFitnessPal have recipes and allow you to create your own meals that can be easily assessed in the app. There is a also a barcode scanner which makes logging food easier. These apps break down your nutrient intake into macro and micronutrients which are helpful when you’re looking to add protein, carbs, or fat while training.
What’s a Macronutrient?
Macro-counting involves tracking your dietary intake and hitting calories goals in carbs, fats, and proteins. Nutrition trackers can help you determine a caloric intake for each category of macronutrients which vary based on your health needs, gender, age, and activity levels.
What’s a Micronutrient?
Micronutrients include vitamins and minerals and they can be divided into water-soluble vitamins, fat-soluble vitamins, macro-minerals, and trace minerals. Each micronutrient has a recommended intake and they come from different food sources, which makes them hard to count. Eating a variety of foods, will help you get all the vitamins and minerals you need in your diet.
