Been using Macros for almost 3+ years. It's basically just a convenient excel sheet, but that's the beauty of it. It's simple.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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I use Cronometer.
Myfitnesspal is a dumpster fire, I used fatsecret for a while but cronometer is much faster to input meals and repeats and recipes and doesn't have core features locked behind a paywall.
Plus cronometer supports Health Connect which integrates with other FOSS local-only projects like gadgetbridge.
I want to try a fully FOSS app like Waistline to be fully open source and not sell eating habits to advertisers and insurance companies, but they all lack Health Connect support with issues for them open for 2+ years with almost no response.
MacroFactor is nicex
If you care about the app being open source, I've used Energized: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.flasskamp.energize/
Worked well enough for me, but my needs are low 👍
I use this every day. It's not perfect, but covers all my needs. Barcode scanning is a life saver, though it doesn't work about 5% of the time. Manual typing in bar code works in those cases, which helps
As the other commenter said, I recommend not counting calories. I don't necessarily recommend low-carbing (I've done it, it works, but I don't think it should be the first line for weight loss), but I agree that counting calories is not a great strategy.
Here is the thing: you used MyFitnessPal 10 years ago. And yet, here you are again, looking to lose weight. Either you gained the weight back, or you never really lost it the first time. This is a familiar experience for almost everyone who counts calories. Because the thing to realize is that all (reasonable) weight loss programs work, just as long as you keep doing them. But if you stop doing them, you gain the weight back. So the only way to achieve your body comp goals and stay at that level the rest of your life is to figure out a body comp strategy and keep doing it for the rest of your life. And counting calories, for most people, is onerous and annoying and just one more thing to do, and now you can't eat as much pizza and ice cream as you want, and it sucks.
Instead, most people who stay lean for years and years simply focus on living healthy lives. The long term solution for most people isnt going low carb or counting calories or whatever. It is creating a fundamental shift in their identity to "I am a healthy person, who does the things healthy people do." And then by doing those things and spending time with other healthy people, their body comp naturally stays in check.
Honestly, my biggest recommendation for achieving long term body comp goals is to go make lots of skinny friends and hang out with them as much as possible. You'll naturally adopt their habits, lifestyle, and mindset, and the weight will come off without even trying.
On your own, I do think the most impactful thing you can do is track what you eat. But track quality rather than quantity. For this, you can just use a normal notes app, or just a pen and paper. Every day, track how much you weigh, and track what you eat. Eg:
5/16 - 100kg egg sandwich at home taco bell burritos grilled chicken + veggies at home
Then every week, review your weight fluctuations and what you ate. Then with, for example, the taco bell, you can ask yourself "why did I do that, and how can I avoid doing it in the future?" That might mean asking why you were stressed out, suggesting you coworkers go somewhere else for lunch, or leaving your credit cards somewhere difficult to access so you are less tempted to eat out. Over time, you change your lifestyle and habits, and you find you are eating unhealthily far less often.
make lots of skinny friends and hang out with them as much as possible. You'll naturally adopt their habits, lifestyle, and mindset, and the weight will come off without even trying.
That might not work as well as you think. I'm (was?) one of those skinny people who would eat a lot more than others when with friends and eating out, but on my own, I'll hyperfocus and forget to eat entirely. It averages out to a pretty low Calorie intake. Neither of these are exactly good habits to pick up, and you're likely only going to see the big meals when we hang out together. The mindset is just doing whatever you feel like doing. That's the case for all of my skinny friends. I think it's the muscular friends that you want to follow since they're more intentional with everything.
Counting calories is the only thing that works for me. The swaps and tricks to lower calorie intake don't do enough and I can't intuitively eat less, or out exercise my diet because I end up just eating more. It's not for everyone, and I'd say the end goal is to be able to intuitively eat as needed, but I'm not there yet most days. The mindset matters and understanding the weekly average is more important than individual days. If you get in the routine and focus on the weekly average, it's entirely sustainable to me. Just throwing my anecdote in the ring
I love fatsecret. I tried a lot and used MyFitnessPal for a long time. I prefer fatsecret
I’ll give this a look too! Thank you!
Counting isn’t for everyone. If it makes you feel extra shitty about some choices, or extra anxious about hitting particular numbers, try to learn the nutrient density of foods you regularly eat and don’t use the app to track things.
Lose It has been perfectly fine for me, and I use it about half of each year. I’m grandfathered into a 10 USD annual subscription, which I think is a bit silly, but switching over to anything else with an extensive database is overpriced by comparison. They also regularly give me “exclusive offers” to buy a lifetime plan for some ridiculous price.
MFP had a better database but they made their actual app utterly unusable over time. Sadly Lose It is messing with their UI too and frankly I liked it better a few months ago. The war on information density has to end, please.
My friends like MacroFactor.
This being Lemmy I think the expectation is to abhor all subscription services, and for good reason, but I think I’d still get my money’s worth even from an overpriced one if it contains enough food from my part of the world and if its UI isn’t too tedious.