Filed under: Software
Be fit with BeFit for Mac
BeFit works like most food tracking applications in that it lets you count exactly how many calories you're taking in. If you take in fewer calories than you expend, then you'll lose weight over time. BeFit includes over 7,000 foods from the FDA/USDA food database. Spotlight search is built into the application to make it easy to search for foods, and when you find them they're displayed with a full Nutrition Facts panel like those on food packages.
You can create a huge number of individual tracking lists, rename them, and sort them. If you're just looking for certain nutrients to track (e.g., carbs or saturated fats), you can hide other nutrients, then get a running total for those items you're interested in.
BeFit 1.0 is US$15.95 and existing customers of Jon Brown Designs get a 50% discount. All purchasers of BeFit 1.0 receive free upgrades through version 3.0. There's a demo available from the BeFit website.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Angel said 8:27AM on 8-28-2008
I'd love to try it, but I downloaded through their website AND MacUpdate. Every time, I got "not recognized" error when attempting to open the DMG. Sucks.
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Ahmed said 8:29AM on 8-28-2008
What would be really cool is if you could combine nutrition labels i.e. combine chicken, a few vegetables, and rice, and the program would give you a nutrition label for the meal. I have a lot of home-cooked meals, and this would a great idea!
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Jon said 10:48PM on 8-30-2008
You can add all the foods in one folder and It will give you food totals.
Den said 8:49AM on 8-28-2008
You should also take a look at Calories from NSObjects. Much better app for my taste.
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Julie said 8:50AM on 8-28-2008
Any diet/exercise app without an iPhone/iTouch extension isn't going to work for me. These guys (all diet/exercise apps, not just BeFit) should have been in the App Store from day one.
This looks like a good program, but I don't think it will make me switch from CalorieKing.
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Pete said 9:19AM on 8-28-2008
There's a inexpensive iPhone app called iScale that is currently one of the staff favorites in the iTunes store. It might be worth checking out as well.
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fitzage said 9:27AM on 8-28-2008
I use CalorieKing right now, as it has an incredible database that is extremely helpful.
I downloaded this app, and tried to enter my breakfast. Not only are Cheerios not on the list, but even a generic search for cereal comes up with nothing.
Sounds like I'll be sticking with CalorieKing for now.
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Jon said 10:48PM on 8-30-2008
Cheerios is in the Full Database
jim said 10:22AM on 8-28-2008
What a horrible application. You have to create a folder for every day & meal. Calorie King while butt ugly at least functions correctly. Calories is good but you can't track exercise yet in it. I haven't looked at any of the iphones ones becasue there isn't a desktop or web equivalent.
My biggest disappointment w/ all these apps is the lack of ability to share foods. For example, the USDA database that most of these are based on is only released a few times a year and a lot of local foods producers don't make it in there but you can't share it once you add it.
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Daniel said 10:32AM on 8-28-2008
Jim, have you tried adding 2 bananas to a folder...? :) Yep you've guessed it... you can't
Soybean said 10:23AM on 8-28-2008
I would never use a food tracker that wasn't online. I want to be able to enter my food at work, at home and on the go.
I've gotten pretty obsessive about losing weight, so at the bachelor party I attended this weekend I was entering everything I ate at fitday.com and I was making sure I didn't drink more than my allotted amount of calories.
It's tough, let me tell you!
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Daniel said 10:32AM on 8-28-2008
Bought the app today. It's suffering from a heavy case of being 1.0, and I hope it takes off from that soon.
Now, on the topic of food intake, I've yet to find a single resource listing SubWay sandwiches to actually ask me what I put along the basic stuff (you know, lettuce, tomato, olives, peppers...) and give me a somewhat correct calorie number
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BigDoba said 10:31AM on 8-28-2008
I don't know why you would buy any application when sites like www.thedailyplate.com are completely free and have a huge database of product information.
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Jere Krischel said 10:57AM on 8-28-2008
Sigh. Carbs count, calories don't. A semi-starvation diet only drives the body to lower its metabolism, and to rebound once food is available again - this is the yo-yo dieting we've all heard of.
The real weight gain/weight loss is done because of insulin levels, which promote the collection of fat, or allow it to be released (high insulin, collect fat, low insulin, release fat).
What we need is a glycemic index app, and something that pays special attention to carbs. Check out Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories", or google for his berkeley presentation "gary taubes berkeley". I've lost 40 pounds eating more food that I ever did and reducing my exercise regimen significantly - and my cholesterol numbers are better.
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Devon said 11:02AM on 8-28-2008
Typed in Chicken Breast, no listing. At least on the demo. Can't even really use the product to test it out if it doesn't even have a basic chicken breast in the list.
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Jaydub said 11:16AM on 8-28-2008
thedailyplate's website has the most robust database of food, meals, and add-able foods, as well as workout tracking. Absolutely excellent--now, if they'd just get an iPhone app. Also great is the Palm "Diet and Exercise Assistant"--also needing an iPhone app. GRR. None of the other websites or iPhone apps come close to either of those.
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Quentin said 12:15PM on 8-28-2008
Hi, I'd love something like this. Is the US based or International ???
Different locations, different foods !!!!!
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John said 1:54AM on 8-29-2008
Can anyone recommend a good workout tracker for the Mac? I've been using Weightmania but have not found it particularly user-friendly.
Thanks.
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Fritz Laurel said 4:21AM on 8-29-2008
Okay, so I download the demo (I LOVE that they still support 10.4, whereas "Calories" requires 10.5).
Then, I figure I'll try to track what I had today just to see how many calories it says I had. So, I type in "toast." Nothing. Okay, I type in "bread." Still nothing. Then, I type in "milk" and up pops 500 entries with every type of milk EXCEPT whole milk from a cow.
So, let's see. Out of the "vast" food library of 7000+ entries, you don't have bread or milk. Yeah, that's good.
And what's up with not being able to resize the window?!?!? I have a big honking monitor but I'm restricted to what this guy thinks I should use?
I definitely will NOT be buying this app any time soon.
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Jon said 10:48PM on 8-30-2008
The demo is limited, yes. But the full version does have milk, and milk from a cow :) It has toast and most common breakfast items. As mentioned before this is the FDA database, not every food item gets logged by the FDA we will be adding the ability to add your own food and to share your custom foods with others.