In this MyFitnessPal Review, I’m going to give some basic observations on what I like and don’t like about MyFitnessPal. There are plenty of sites and apps that have similar features (Lose It, Livestrong Calorie Tracker, Daily Burn, SparkPeople) but few with a database as big as MyFitnessPal. And since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I don’t want to get too detailed. Plus, MyFitnessPal is free, so it’s hard to be too nitpicky… so I’ll factor that into the MyFitnessPal Review as well.

MyFitnessPal Review: What is it?

For the uninitiated, MyFitnessPal is a free web tool that allows you to track your nutrition and your exercise. It’s also available as a free app to download to your iPhone, Android, Windows, and Blackberry smartphones. The nutrition database is generated by the users and you can set goals, share your meals, create recipes, and track your exercise. In a nutshell, it’s a fantastic resource that will make reaching your fitness goals easier.

MyFitnessPal Review: The Good

• It’s free and who doesn’t like to save some money?

• There are hundreds of thousands of foods in the database; if it’s not there, you can add it.

• You can keep your food diary private, public, share it with your MFP friends, or give it a passcode and share it that way

• It integrates with other tracking services like Fitbit, Withings, and DigiFit, to name a few

• You can create recipes so that in the future, you can add that recipe rather than having to track down all the items in it

• You can set goals based on calories and/or macronutrients, or just use MFP’s recommendations

• There are sharing options as well, like adding MFP Friends to your account, or posting on Facebook and Twitter

MyFitnessPal Review: The Bad

• MFP isn’t the most intuitive service I’ve seen (hence it needing the “Getting Started Guide” below)

• While it’s not horrible, it’s also not the prettiest thing around, partly due to the ugly ads

• Settings and customization options are limited (for instance, it will automatically add “Calories Earned” to your daily goals if you choose to track exercise… no way to turn this off)

MyFitnessPal Review: The Ugly

In my mind, the single worst thing about MFP is that all the items are entered by MFP users. This leads to two major issues:

• Multiple entries for the same product
• Incorrect data for some items.

To be fair, MFP tries to suggest items if it thinks you might be adding an item that is already in the database. But this alone is not enough to keep outdated, incorrect, and/or multiple data from being entered anyway.

MyFitnessPal Review: Summary

I prefaced this review by admitting it’s hard to be picky about a product that’s free (though I certainly found a way). The fact remains that in spite of the bad and ugly, MyFitnessPal is a fantastic tool to use to keep you on track with your nutrition, which is 60% of your results.

Over time, MyFitnessPal will just get better (more intuitive and a cleaner database). If it doesn’t, something else will come along to take it’s place. Until then, MyFitnessPal gets my hardy recommendation as the easiest way to track your nutrition and keep you on track for your fitness goals. And reaching your goals is what it’s all about.