Livestrong Review
Calorie and exercise tracker.
Livestrong is the app I am currently using to track my calories. That’s saying something, because I have tried nearly all of them and have concluded, that for my purposes, this fits the bill.
If you’re not already aware, it’s been proven that regular tracking of your calorie intake and exercise is key to achieving your weight and health goals. Most people if given a Ferrarri would take care of that car like it was gold. Who wouldn’t? Your health is far more important than any car, yet ironically we treat our bodies with less affection than we’d treat that Ferrari. Understanding what you eat, and what exercise you’re getting is key to your weight and health goals.
Full review after the jump.
Let’s start with simplicity. I read a reader review one time of another calories tracker app and it stuck with me. How hard is it to simply record eating an apple? For livestrong, it’s 1 click to access search, type “apple” and you’re given your options. One click to assign the period (breakfast) and one click to say “I Ate This”.
When you launch Livestrong, you are presented with the “My Plate” screen which is a calorie breakdown of your day. It is a summation of your caloric intake and expenditure. As you scroll down you can see how your day progressed through each meal and snack, as well as your exercises of the day. This also represents the first icon along the bottom of the app. It’s a great way to get an overview of where you’re at for the day.
The second icon along the bottom is for tracking and reviewing your weight. As you add weight entries over time, they plot over the week and provide a number for your body mass index.
The next icon is for food entry. Clicking the button brings you to food search, but also a list of your recently eaten foods for quick entry. Like most, I tend to fall for the same types of foods, whether it be fruits, fish, veggies or even lunch fare.
One of the things I really enjoy about this program, compared to others, is the food database seems to be one of the best on the market. Not sure where they get their data, but for me it’s been really great. Not only are most of the food I eat easily accessible, when the foods are presented to you, you’re not overwhelmed. Getting back to my “apple” example, you’re not given crazy things like baby food. Seriously, several food apps list baby food as one of the options. Because their data is presented alphabetically, baby food turns up rather high on the list, meaning you need to scroll a good deal to potentially get what you’re looking for. Livestrong seems to be a good mix of data, with a restrained presentation that seems about just right.
After you’ve picked your food, you need to classify the period, i.e. breakfast, snack, lunch, etc. As you scroll down, you can see the nutritional info per serving. THis is critical, because you can determine your serving size, and if you need to track Sugars, etc, it’s all there. Often I will eat more or less than the suggested serving. Knowing so, will easily allow me to adjust the number of servings by clicking on servings and using the scroll wheel to find what I’m looking for. Once you’ve finished your entry, click “I Ate This” and you’ve made your entry. It’s rather simple, and ultimately if it’s not simple enough, you’ll never use it. I use this and I need SIMPLE!.
Of course before you really can start entering data, you’ll need to register and manage your profile. Registering is actually great becasue the data is backed up online in what seems an instant and happens without you knowing it. You’ll need to enter the usual; height, weight, weight goals, and activity level. From here you can also access the program online via you PC/Mac and also other phone systems like BlackBerry. As of today, there’s still no webOS or Android version, but I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time.
Let’s move on to the fitness icon where you can add your exercises. As with food, this is done by using search. There seems to be a rather good database here as well, although, I’ve noticed that on some exercises, the calorie burn is slightly higher than I actually do. For example, I typically burn slightly less than 15.6 calories per minute. That means that if I simply plug in my total time (1 hour) I will get a higher calorie burn than I actually completed. I tend to check via the BodyBugg, as well as the machine I am using. I trust the BodyBugg (more on that another time). However, it’s easy to make adjustments to calorie expendature by adjusting your time. If anything, this is an area I’d like to see changed. If I know my caloric expenditure for any given exercise, give me the option of adding it manually if I prefer.
Now that you’ve entered your food and your exercise, you can go back to the home screen and get a picture of what your day is like. Often you can look at that piece of pie and know that, another 30 minutes on the stationary bike means another bite of pie!
As I said at the start of this review, I use this app as my main exercise and calorie log. In fact, I use this and not the BodyBugg software which I find cumbersome.
Pluses:
Great food database
Great exercise database
Easy entry and great UI
Minuses:
Needs manually calorie entries on food and exercise
um… we’re still thinking
Filed under: Health & Fitness •Apple Health & Fitness •
(Page 1 of 1 pages for this article )
Search
App Info
Score (1-5)
4.5
Get App
Release Date
Sept. 21, 2009
Developer
Demand Media Inc
Version
2.0.4
File Size
.7 MB
Price
$2.99
Latest Apple Posts
Livestrong Review
Calorie and exercise tracker.
Ads
