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7 Keto Apps to Help You Track Carbs, Prep Meals, and Lose Weight
Need help getting started on keto? Try one of these apps.
At this point in your life as human being on planet Earth, you've probably heard a lot of people raving about the high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diet.
The ketogenic diet itself is complex, but the goal is relatively straightforward: to push your body into a state called ketosis, where it's burning fat, instead of carbohydrates, for fuel. By doing this, proponents of the diet argue that you'll lose weight, lean down, and maybe even reveal at least a two-pack.
Yet there's a certain sense of at what cost? that pervades through the diet. That's because the ketogenic diet is restrictive—even by most diet standards.
You can credit the strictness of the keto diet to fat (the nutrient, not the kind found in a beer belly). Ketogenic diet plans urge followers to consume 60 to 80 percent of their daily calories from fat.
Yes, this is a lot of fat.
And that leaves about 20 percent of your daily calories coming from protein and just 10 percent from carbohydrates.
Yes, this is hardly any carbohydrates.
That delicate balancing act of the three macronutrients—fat, protein, and carbs—can make the keto diet tough to maintain. (This is a major criticism cited by critics of the diet and it's a good one.) Plus, it involves a fair amount of math, meal planning, and follow-through.
Two help with the first two, we've rounded up the best keto-centric apps to help you track your food intake, create shopping lists, and plan meals that could help keep you motivated.
The follow-through, however, is all on you.
Carb Manager has a database of more than a million foods, meaning it's easy to find the specific items you're searching for. Plus, the app offers more than 350,000 low-carb recipes and allows you to track body measurements, weight, and exercise.
Free to track, but premium services cost $40 annually
Available on itunes and Google Play
Happy little fish, isn't he? The KetoDiet app offers all the basics: recipes, food and body weight tracking, and educational resources for beginners. You'll also find a keto starter guide, articles and calculator to determine how much fat, protein, and carbs your body needs to stay in ketosis.
$9
Available on itunes and Google Play.
Senza makes jumping into keto easy for beginners with a five-day starter guide and macro calculator to determine carbs, protein, and fat needed to stay in ketosis. Plus, get personalized food recommendations and access to a keto-savvy nutritionist.
Free
Available on itunes and Google Play
If you're new to meal prepping, check out the Low Carb app, which features cooking videos to help you tackle a style of cooking you may be unfamiliar with. You can also create shopping lists, plan meals, and track calories.
Free for basic version with in-app upgrades
Available on itunes and Google Play
The Keto app allows you to personalize goals based on weight loss—maintenance or gain—so that you can eat the best ratio of carbs, fats, and protein you need for each. The app's food library highlights the carb count for foods that may kick you out of ketosis, so you can stop yourself from mistakenly eating something too carb-rich.
Free for basic version that allows you to track five foods a day
Available on itunes and Google Play
8fit is so much more than a meal tracking app as it includes exercise plans, too. It is not keto-specific, but you can indicate whether you have dietary preferences or restrictions.
According to one app store reviewer, "I have tons of food allergies, plus the need to eat vegetarian two days a week. 8fit is the ONLY app I’ve seen that allows me to customize to this level, and I love it!"
An annual plan that includes meal tracking and workouts costs $60 per year.
Although this food tracking app isn't specifically for low-carb diets, you can use the premium version to specific how many carbs you want to eat per day. And because this is one of the more popular apps, the database has nutrition information for more than 2,000,000 foods. Yes, that's a lot.
Available at www.myfitnesspal.com.
Paul is the Food & Nutrition Editor of Men’s Health. He’s also the author of two cookbooks: Guy Gourmet and A Man, A Pan, A Plan.
Thinking of Trying Keto? Read This First.
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What You Can and Can't Drink on Keto
