16 Helpful Weight Loss Apps For 2021

A great weight loss journey starts with a great support system and goals. Your goals can, and should, include both exercise and food management. These weight control apps are going to help you focus on food and losing weight by choosing healthier options, tracking your foods, and learning more about nutrition.

Choosing the right one for you will depend on a number of aspects including your:

• current health status
• regular lifestyle (sedentary, active, etc)
• dietary restriction needs (gluten free, vegan, etc)
• desire to lose the weight!

Remember, it IS possible to lose weight naturally. There are a great many apps to track and improve your health, these are only to help you manage or lose weight. They’re separated into free versus paid apps as well as both Android and iOS or only iOS so take your pick and have fun with it!

As always, please speak to a doctor before trying out anything that could be dangerous for you.

Both Android and IOS Weight Control Apps

Free:

Lose It!

This top rated (at least 4.5/5 stars) app has a number of various features that will aid you in your weight loss.

This app does many super helpful things like scan a barcode of the food you eat, take a picture and measure the portion (awesome technology!), and set up a plan to lose weight and track calories.

You can get some advanced features like nutrient tracking and exercise planning in the premium, but much of the app is free!

MyFitnessPal

This Under Armour sponsored app is one of the longest-running weight control apps around. It now also connects with other apps like Garmin connect and FitBit for easier tracking.

All of the food tracking is part of your basic free plan, but their premium plan at $9.99/mo or $49.99/yr adds on the advanced features like meals/recipes, nutrition plans, and an ad-free experience.

If you’re simply looking to log what you ate, this is a good tool that lets you save regularly eaten meals or foods. However, with its 11 million strong database that is primarily human-entered, you may be searching for a while to find the right amounts.

FatSecret

With this free app, you’ll get a great deal of features as well including a food and exercise diary, recipes, and image recognition.

If you’d like, you can opt for a subscription for $6.99 per month or $38.99 for a year. This will get you additional features such as meal plans for custom diets like keto or intermittent fasting, water tracking, and advanced meal planning for calories and nutrients.

Cronometer

This free to download app has a detailed daily food and exercise diary as well, but also includes your biometrics like your BMI.

To unlock additional features, you’ll need to upgrade to Gold and you’ll get more benefits like a fasting timer, advanced nutrition insights, and custom charts.

This upgrade costs $6.99 per month or $39.99 per year.

Fooducate

Fooducate will be very helpful if you find that a grade for each food is what you need! They have a strong database of foods you may think are healthier for you than they really are (like granola with pounds of sugar aka high fructose corn syrup).

This app will also help you track the total between your calories, exercise, and goals instead of focusing solely on calories. It also will alert you if you scan or enter a product that contains an allergen you want to avoid.

Many of these features are available in the free version, but if you want to focus on a special type of diet like keto, there are add-ons that vary from $.99 all the way up to $89.99. Make sure you know what you want to get out of an app before you purchase add-ons.

SparkPeople

Another healthy database, SparkPeople will allow you to enter your foods and enter all of the nutrition and calorie info. One great aspect of this app is that if you want to try an exercise they recommend, you can click on it to view how to do it correctly.

Another great feature of this app (also on web) is the community forum. There is a strong base of community for this company so it’s very much a focus of supporting you in your weight loss journey.

It just may be a bit overwhelming as there really is a lot of nutrition info as well as many complaints of ad interruptions. The app is free to download and the premium upgrade is $4.99 per month.

MyNetDiary

You may get a little tough love with this health tracking app! It will allow you to create goals for weight loss, better eating, and exercising more. But, it may admonish you a bit if you eat something unhealthy by not even letting you enter it into your diary.

However, it can sync with other apps like your FitBit as well as a GPS tracker for running and walking. It also helps customize your meal plan to special diets like Low carb and vegan. They also have a verified food database rather than every user’s entry making your food diary easier to enter.

This app is also free of course, but the premium subscription for more features is $8.99 per month or $59.99 for a year.

Lifesum

Lifesum is great to be able to see your calories, macros, and exercises in a simple view. You’ll be able to customize it to different types of diets as well like fasting and paleo.

Use this weight loss app to create your shopping lists as well and help you stay on track with your goals. In app premium purchases will range from $8.99 to $49.99.

Paid Subscriptions:

WW (Formerly Weight Watchers)

If you’ve ever used Weight Watchers, or been anywhere near the weight loss world in the last decade, you know they help you lose weight based on a point system.

This would be a great option if you’re in need of weekly check-ins, face-to-face accountability, recipes, and/or community support. They also have challenges within their app and plan to help you compete with others or yourself. Make it fun!

Their lowest tier to use their guides is $3.19/week and their highest is $9.23/week for a private WW coach.

Sworkit

Here, you’ll get workout and exercise plans that customize to your needs. This could come in especially handy if gyms are closed! They even have custom workout creations for everyone from beginners to kids to rehabilitation movements.

They’ll help you customize your workout for a home gym, with or without equipment, and track all of the progress with it. You can sync it with Apple Health, Google Fit, MyFitnessPal, and Strava if you’d like as well.

Kids’ workouts are free but they require a subscription for everything else at $4.99/mo or $29.99 for Premium access. 

Noom

While this isn’t the first choice if you’re looking to be low cost, it has a number of features you may find valuable. For example, its top feature is a virtual health coach.

It will walk you through your specific goals to help you build a starting point. They’ll help you with a reasonable timeframe and a plan to do it based on all of the questions they ask you. Its focus is helping you build healthy habits based on your own personal challenges including neuro psychology.

For this app, if you pay monthly, it’s $59 and annually is $199.

iOS only:

Apple Health

Built into your Apple phone, this app will work great to get you started. The Health app can be set up to automatically count your steps, walking, and running distances.

You can enter all of your personal information like height, weight, age, and goals. You can then allow it to track all of your activities in everything from running to stairs climbed to standing. It even gives you some insights over time as to how you’re doing and how you may have improved over time.

This app is free, but the Apple Watch or other subscriptions to go with it will not be.

HealthyOut

This Apple app helps you find nearby restaurants that can accommodate your specific dietary needs! Whether you’re low calorie, low carb, or simply want to have a balanced meal, this app will show you restaurants just for you.

It will also help you learn the nutritional value of different meal options within their menu if available. Keep a list of saved favorites and you’ll always have the go-to places for your diet to stay on track.

Mealshare

This weight loss app is meant for the foodie who loves to take pictures. You take a photo into the app and you can send it to be reviewed by a dietician. They’ll let you know what’s healthy for you or not.

Each photo is saved in your app so you can see an overall (literal) picture of what you’re eating regularly. If you’re a visual learner/person you’ll benefit from an app like this one.

It’s totally free unless you want to upgrade to Pro and send your photos to be reviewed.

Foodility

This app lets you track food and workouts both. It’s quite feature-filled with the ability to save a food diary, export stats, and organize your meals with notes. This would be a very handy app if you’re looking to track everything from food to mood!

This is an especially interesting app if you’re not looking to calorie count but to focus on the types of food and exercise you’re getting. In a sticky-note style, you can see what you’re tracking very easily and get a good overview quickly.

This app will run you $2.99/mo or $29.99/yr to access the premium features like preset notes, customizable calendars, and detailed PDF exports.

And if that wasn’t enough, here are some bonus weight loss apps to check out:

• Nom Nom Paleo – An iOS only app, this will cost you $5.99 to download and use. It will help you create customized recipes and meal plans to help you cook your way to health.
• 30 Whole Days – For $3 you can download this app to help you stay on a whole food diet. It will tell you what’s included/compliant or not in your plan and get you started on a healthy habits journey.
• KetoDiet – If you’re looking to learn and stick to a keto diet, this app is free to download and includes some recipes, diet tips, and plans. For premium features, you’ll pay $5.99/mo or $35.99/yr.
• Sleep Cycle – Track your sleep for better overall health and energy with this app. Their website has fascinating stats on sleep throughout the world and it is free to download for basic features. Premium will run you $39.99/yr for extra features like trends and sleep aids.
• Waterlogged – If you’re looking to get better at drinking water, this app will help you out. Premium features cost $3.99 for reminders and integrations, but the act of keeping track may start to help you build this healthy habit.
• Mindful Eating Tracker – An iOS only app that costs $2.99 to download, this one will help you be more in touch with your moods and feelings. Be more mindful with this great tracking app.
• Couch to 5k – Just get started! Download this app to help you safely get from never running in your life to a 5k (3.1 miles) in just 8 weeks. It includes music, tracking, and a guide along the way.
• Nike Training App – Get the Nike Training Club app to build your own workout program. It’s a completely free app so what do you have to lose?

We’re Sorry

We apologize, you’re out of excuses to live a healthier lifestyle and better weight control! Our recommendation is to try one out for a week or two and see how you like it. If you have difficulties using it or don’t find the content helpful, try a new one. Pairing these with an excellent diet and our Portion Forks will help you build a strong foundation for your healthy future!

No matter what you decide to use, as long as you use it to its abilities, you’ll build the healthier habits you need. Just get started so you can be more energetic, happier, and build your overall wellness.