The Best UK Calorie Counting App

I run my own business in the Health and Nutrition sector, so to me it's very important to reflect what I coach and mentor my team to do themselves. It's all very well doing a 'kickstart' body cleanse, but in order to continue to lose weight, you have to change the habits of a lifetime and learn how to control calories, eat a healthy balance, drink enough water, and get some regular exercise. That's where NutraCheck does an excellent job. I tried the 30 free trail and was absolutely hooked.

It starts by asking a few questions about you, your weight, where you want to get to and by when. it then creates a daily target for calories and fat consumption, as well as how much exercise you need to do each day.

This is a way to effortlessly compile your food diary and calorie consumption because the App knows 100,000 barcodes of UK foods. This is an important point. There are lots of US Apps which know about US foods and which are useless here in the UK. NutraCheck is designed for the UK and there are not too many Apps out there which are UK-centric. No barcode? No problem, the search engine instantly comes up with suggestions - one of which will approximate what you are looking for. Having a favourites and recipe section also means that you can create shortcuts to foods that you consume often.

I was impressed to find that the calorie counter on the NHS website is powered by the NutraCheck search engine.

As well as keeping track of calories and fat and it also knows how many of your 5 a day you have consumed, which I find prompts you to eat fruit and veg in case you are falling behind. It also prompts you to drink enough water because it keeps track of that also.

Then there is the exercise section, which works just like the food area. The App knows the calories that you will expend for hundreds of different activities - even an activity that apparently can't be mentioned on this site! It also stores your history by the week, so you can instantly see if you were over or under your daily and weekly target, and it has a graph to show you your progress towards your weight loss goal in lbs, Kg, or Stone.

Things to improve: The App keeps track of calories and fat consumed. I wish that it would also keep track of protein and carbohydrate so I could make sure that I was eating the right balance of fats, protein, and carbs.

I find the small monthly fee well worth the price. I get everything I need from the App only version, so this keeps the cost down.