Lose It! is a solid calorie-tracking app, especially if you want something simpler and more affordable than its main competitor, MyFitnessPal. The free version handles basic calorie logging, and the premium tier costs roughly half what MyFitnessPal charges annually. Whether it’s the right fit depends on how much tracking detail you want and how you feel about the company’s data-sharing practices.
What You Get for Free vs. Premium
The free version of Lose It! covers basic calorie tracking. You can log meals, set a daily calorie budget, and monitor your weight over time. For many people trying to build awareness of what they eat, that’s enough.
The premium version unlocks the features most serious trackers actually want: barcode scanning, macronutrient tracking (protein, carbs, fat breakdowns), meal and exercise planning, device syncing, and access to community support tools. If you’re trying to hit specific protein targets for muscle building or dial in your macros for any reason, you’ll need premium.
How Much It Costs
Lose It! Premium runs $39.99 per year. That’s significantly cheaper than MyFitnessPal, which charges $79.99 annually or $19.99 per month. Lose It! also offers a lifetime purchase option, though the pricing is inconsistent. Users report seeing lifetime prices anywhere from $99 to $299, depending on when they check and what promotional pop-up they receive.
The app uses dynamic, individualized pricing, which means the cost you see may differ from what someone else is offered. Discounts of 60 to 70 percent appear roughly three to five times per year, with Black Friday being a reliable window. Some users have had luck contacting customer support directly and receiving a discount link better than whatever the app was showing them.
Does Calorie Tracking Actually Work?
A 2022 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research looked at weight loss outcomes across smartphone-based tracking apps. People using these apps lost an average of about 4.8 pounds (2.18 kg) at the three-month mark, with the effect remaining statistically significant through 12 months, though it tapered to about 3.6 pounds (1.63 kg) by that point. Interestingly, results in the first three months alone weren’t statistically significant, suggesting that consistency over several months is what makes the difference.
That’s a modest but real effect, and it aligns with what most nutrition researchers would tell you: the act of tracking what you eat creates awareness that changes behavior. The app itself isn’t magic. It’s a tool that works when you use it regularly.
How It Compares to MyFitnessPal
Lose It! and MyFitnessPal are the two dominant calorie trackers, and they overlap heavily in core functionality. The meaningful differences come down to feel and price.
- Interface: Lose It! is generally considered cleaner and more intuitive. MyFitnessPal has a larger food database but a busier, more cluttered layout.
- Cost: Lose It! Premium is half the annual price of MyFitnessPal Premium ($39.99 vs. $79.99 per year).
- Goal setting: Lose It! offers more structured goal-setting tools, letting you set targets for weight, exercise, and body measurements in a personalized plan.
- Calorie detail: Lose It! provides a more detailed calorie counter view, which some users prefer for seeing exactly where their numbers land throughout the day.
MyFitnessPal’s advantage is its enormous food database, built over years with millions of user submissions. If you eat a lot of niche or regional foods, you may find more entries already logged there. But Lose It!’s database is large enough that most users won’t notice a gap in everyday use.
Device Compatibility
Lose It! syncs with Apple Health on iOS devices, allowing it to pull in step counts, exercise data, and other metrics from your Apple Watch or iPhone sensors. The integration is straightforward: you toggle on which data categories you want shared between the two apps. Premium users can also sync with various fitness trackers and other health platforms.
The Privacy Trade-Off
This is where Lose It! deserves some scrutiny. The app collects detailed personal health data: your name, birthdate, height, weight, sex, everything you eat and drink (including photos), your exercise habits, and potentially even genetic test results if you opt into partner services.
More notably, Lose It!’s parent company, FitNow, states in its privacy policy that it may sell or share personally identifying data with third-party advertisers and business partners. This includes the possibility of selling your name, mailing address, phone number, and email to third parties. The policy also explicitly notes that sensitive personal data may be sold under Texas law. The one exception: data pulled from Apple’s HealthKit framework is protected from advertising use per Apple’s requirements.
This is more aggressive than many users would expect from a health app. If data privacy matters to you, it’s worth reading the policy before entering detailed health information. You’re giving the app a remarkably complete picture of your daily habits, and that picture may be monetized.
Who It Works Best For
Lose It! is a good fit if you want a straightforward calorie tracker without a steep learning curve. The free version works for casual awareness. The premium version is well-priced for people who want macro tracking, barcode scanning, and structured goal setting without paying MyFitnessPal’s higher subscription fee. It’s particularly popular among people focused on weight loss rather than detailed athletic performance tracking.
Where it falls short is in privacy practices and in the inconsistent, sometimes frustrating dynamic pricing model for premium tiers. If you’re comfortable with those trade-offs, it’s one of the better calorie-tracking apps available.