Best Calorie Trackers Reviewed and Rated

Before you actually understand how convenient the best calorie tracker is, lets first break down how you would count calories without it. First things first, you must learn how to do it correctly and precisely. No calorie counter band will be that accurate, so it might be even useful to learn how to do it by yourself, in order to have full insight into your health.

The very first thing you need to do is learn how much energy you need on a daily level. This is simply the number of calories you need to eat every day. You can either ask a dietician to do it for you, or you can use an online calculator to know how much you need to eat every day to stay on top. Once you know your number, you need to adjust it to your goals - so you can either increase the number of calories if you want to gain weight or decrease the amount if you want to lose it. If you want to lose or gain one pound a week, just increase your daily intake by 500 calories. If you want to lose or gain two pounds per week, either add or subtract 1000 calories. But the common consensus is that you shouldn’t go under 1000 calories per day unless a physician is supervising you.

Once you know how many calories you need, simply count the number of calories in every food item you eat. Use the nutrition label for the most accurate assumption. Here are some things you should always remember to do or don’t do in order to get the best possible results:

Do not rely on your memory. It’s hard to remember what you ate throughout your day, even if you are on a well-controlled diet. Even if you do know what you eat, it’s impossible to know just how much of the food you ate, so keeping a food journal is your best bet for the most precise readings.

Do not guess your portion size. Usually, people underestimate the size of their plate, so you might think that you ate much less than you actually ate. There are even specific foods that we tend to overeat, like cereal. We pour way too much on our plate without even thinking about it! You can mitigate this by buying a good kitchen scale. The scale will help you understand just how big your portion is. This way, you will know just how much calories you consumed with the meal. And don’t forget to count snacks too, even if it’s just one measly peanut!

And of course, you will get the most accurate results if you combine this with a good calorie counter. All you need to do is strap it around your wrist, charge it, connect it to your device and you’re good to go with the best calorie tracker!

The Fitness Tracker that you wear on your wrist does all of its magic on the basis of motion sensors. Most of the data produced is based on your step count. When it comes to calories burned, however, more is needed than that. That’s why most calorie burn calculator watches will require you to add in extra details such as your age, weight, gender, and height. Each app will then use its own algorithm as the basis for determining your calorie count.

Clearly, the more sensors and data points a fitness calorie tracker has, the more accurate it's calorie count will be. The best calorie tracker will also be able to take an accurate reading of your heart rate, as this is an essential factor in calculating your calorie burn. The most accurate calorie counter watch, then, will monitor both heart rate and calories burned.

Most people who go to the gym are well aware of how inaccurate the calorie counter on the treadmill or life stepper are. That is why many of them invest in a fitness tracker that has a built-in calorie function. They realize how important it is to monitor the calories they’re burning during their workout, and they want a device that is going to give them that number as accurately as possible. Unfortunately, recent research reveals that your fitness tracker may be just as inaccurate as the treadmill. A study out of Iowa State University had 30 men and 30 women wear 8 different fitness trackers with calorie counting functions as they completed a 69-minute workout. The session included 13 different activities, ranging from typing at a computer keyboard to play on a Wii to playing basketball. In addition to wearing the commercial calorie trackers on the fitness bands on their arms, the study participants were also fitted with a metabolic analyzer to give a very accurate record of their caloric consumption.

The head researcher on the study, kinesiology professor Gregory Welk, made the following comment:

• “People buy these activity monitors assuming they work, but some of them are not that accurate or have never been tested before. These companies just produce a nice-looking device with a fancy display and people buy it.”
• When it comes to accurately count calories, the majority of fitness watch calorie counters will do a far better job of recording your pure aerobic work, such as running, than your resistance workouts. However, there is a range of new monitors emerging onto the market that do a better job of tracking calories during strength training.

With other research indicating that most people tend to grossly overestimate the number of calories they burn through exercise, it is important to get as accurate a reading of expended calories as possible. Yet, according to Professor Welk, so long as the reading is within 10-15% accuracy, it can still be a useful measure.

The validity is probably not as important as the usability and utility of an individual user. If the device helps to prompt and nudge behavior, then it is doing its job.

The Professor added some pertinent advice for calorie trackers in order to maintain balance:
“A person shouldn’t only worry about counting calorie intake or expenditure since it becomes too difficult and cumbersome. Learning to pay attention to cues such as hunger can help to avoid overeating, and trying to get some physical activity is a simple strategy for energy expenditure.”

Most of the watches we mentioned here are water-resistant, with different letters and numbers showcasing just how cool and waterproof they really are. But if you don’t know what those numbers and letters mean, it’s hard to be impressed, so we will break down what the numbers mean to help you understand your devices better.

You must know that there is a difference between being waterproof and water-resistant. If a device is waterproof, it means that water will not damage it no matter how much you try and leave it submerged under, while a water-resistant device can keep water away for a specific amount of time until it breaks down. Smartwatches and phones are almost always water-resistant - it’s really hard to make a waterproof device such as them!

The very first thing you will see is the IP. IP is the name of the standard the International Electrotechnical Commission, or IEC thought of. IP determines how resistant a device is to freshwater and various particles flying around the air, like dirt, dust, and even sand. The first number you see after IP (most usually 6), defines the device’s resistance to solids. The number after that defines is the actual water resistance rating. Most of the numbers seen here are either 7 or 8. The number 7 means that the device is protected from immersion in water in a depth of up to one meter, for up to half an hour. 8 is the number that means that your device is protected if it is submerged deeper than one meter, and the manufacturer discloses the actual depth. So your calorie tracker will be well protected from water, but you still shouldn’t leave it underwater for a long time!

Every calorie tracker we mentioned here does not only track your calories. In fact, all of them do a lot of things that can help you understand your health and life to an even deeper level.

The very first thing every tracker will do is count your steps. But, not every pedometer was created the same way, and don’t be surprised if the numbers that pop up on the screen don’t match the number of steps you’ve counted! Lots of things can influence the number, ranging from your height, weight to where you actually wear your device. Even sitting in a car while the ride is bumpy can set off some devices!

Then, most devices will track your sleep. Most devices will determine how much time you’ve spent in deep sleep or light sleep by measuring how much you moved whilst you slept. But this might not be so accurate, because your brain waves determine how much time you spent in deep sleep, not your wrist movements. No device can still do this for you, so take this measurement with a grain of salt.

And last but not least, it measures your heart rate and even your blood pressure. This happens either all the time, automatically, or you can do it manually whenever you want. This measurement will give you insight about your heart rate when you exercise, and subsequently, it will inform you about how much calories you burned. Some bands can even be paired with a heart monitor, so you will have a very reliable method to track your pulse and calories burned.

None of these trackers will last forever. They all have batteries that power their little brains and help them measure your whole life. But if you use every function all the time, chances are that you will drain the battery very fast, and the device could even die when you need it the most!

This is why it’s important that your tracker has good battery life. Most of the time, the trackers have batteries that last anywhere from 5 days to two weeks, with one extreme going up to one year! You can prolong the battery life by turning off some of the automatic functions, like non-stop heart rate monitors. Also, the devices need to be charged for only an hour or so, and some of them even have built-in USB blocks, meaning that you don’t even need a cable to charge them - all you need is a PC or an adapter and you’re good to go!