CalorieKing
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Daily iPhone App: ControlMyWeight keeps you honest
CalorieKing is one of the oldest nutritional tools available online and the service bills itself as "America's trusted food database." If you're looking for the caloric content of a meal -- be it homemade or from a fast-food joint -- you'll likely find the answer on CalorieKing, and the website features an in-depth weight management program as well. Late last year CalorieKing launched ControlMyWeight, an app that acts as a food and exercise log as well as a nutritional research tool, and its ease of use is quickly making it one of my favorite fitness apps. For a somewhat steep $3.99 entry fee ControlMyWeight gives you a suite of tools to help you manage your intake and workout routines. Entering a meal or snack is as simple as a few taps and the massive database of foods from CalorieKing means you'll rarely have to manually enter a food. In the rare cases you can't locate your meal in CalorieKing's library a simple "Create Food" button lets you enter as much or as little information about your meal as you want. You can also create recipes to save for later by entering all the ingredients into a list. Saving the recipe allows you to recall it whenever you want, and for those who spend their evenings crafting their own grub will find this feature particularly useful. When you first start up the app you are prompted to enter your current weight and a goal weight. Over time your progress towards your goal is plotted out on a handy graph that you can check any time you want. The app will remind you when to check in with your current weight - usually every couple of days - and your daily budget of calories is adjusted accordingly. ControlMyWeight also includes a handy exercise tracker as well, allowing you to choose a workout from a list of various exercises and then subtract the calories you burned from your daily budget. If your exercise of choice isn't listed you can enter your calories burned manually and let the app do the math for you on how it affects your calories for the day. The one complaint I've seen leveled against ControlMyWeight is that it doesn't automatically sync with CalorieKing paid memberships. That means if you're entering your data on the app you need to do it again when you log into your official CalorieKing account. However, the app does such a great job of tracking your data over time that I'm not sure there would be any need for your average calorie counting guy or gal to bother with a web-based tool on top of it - though that's largely a matter of personal preference. Regardless of this small note, ControlMyWeight is a mighty capable weight loss tool that does its job without putting up a fuss.
