MyFitnessPal and Lose It are two of the app stores most popular, and theyreyour favorites too.

Lets see how they stack up.

you’re free to also log and track your weight through these apps.

MyFitnessPal(free,iOS/Android) is part of Under Armours kingdom, alongside MapMyRun and other fitness apps.

Its full of features and connects easily to other devices.

(free,iOS/Android) is simpler, but still does everything a diet tracker needs to do.

Both are free, but offer a premium level with more features.

Lose Its premium subscription is $39.99/year.

Search for a food from their database, which includes packaged foods and restaurant meals.

Indicate that this meal is the same as a previous one (handy for leftovers).

Add a recipe, either manually or by pasting the URL from a recipe website.

Enter a food thats not in the database, by copying all the numbers from its nutrition facts label.

Scan the barcode from a label.

Once youve been using the app for a while, adding recently used foods is the quickest.

MyFitnessPal has the same feature, but limits you to calories in the free version.

Unfortunately, the feature didnt find my local Wendys, so I had to search for it anyway.

Tap a label, and youll find yourself in a search for that item.

Lose It guessed pancakes, hummus, and ice cream; chicken wasnt even in the top ten.

They say the feature is still in beta, so it may improve.

Still, I found it handy as a shortcut to search for some items.

For the same 4.5-ounce portion of steak, MyFitnessPal listed 156 calories and Lose It listed 328.

Both apps give you a target number of calories, based on your age, sex, and weight.

Entering the same information, I got a target of 1,650 from MyFitnessPal, versus 1,916 from Lose It.

We cant declare a winner here, but its good to know what the discrepancies are.

If you used the Snap It feature, youll also see a thumbnail of the photo of your meal.

You keep getting bumped back to the home screen, for example, which is full of blog posts.

By contrast, when you complete an action in Lose It, you return to the food diary itself.

MyFitnessPal Connects to More Apps and Devices

That complexity, though, is MyFitnessPals strength.

Its part of the Under Armour family of apps along with MapMyRun, MapMyFitness, Endomondo, and more.

you could also install UA Record to get a snazzy dashboard view of various aspects of your health.

But in the end, either will track your diet effectively.