Whether you want to get more exercise, lose some weight, or build some muscle, mobile fitness apps are ideal. Some of the most popular apps offer a whole range of functions, such as tracking your workouts and even what you eat.
If you want to lose fat, you need to reduce calorie intake; to build muscle and you’ve been training for a while, increase calorie intake.
But how do fitness apps calculate the calories you consume? And how does that help with your fitness goals?
How Apps Calculate the Calories You Take In
You might wonder how fitness apps calculate the calories you take in. All packaged foods come with a nutrition label that contains relevant information; the number of total calories; the amount of fat, protein, and carbohydrate; fiber content; and so on.
Much of this data is stored online, so when you run a search or scan a barcode, the app hits a database to find that information. It then pulls it into your food log and adds the number of calories to your intake.
While many fresh foods don’t come with nutrition labels, information on caloric and nutrient content has been measured and is also available online, so that can be pulled into the app, too.
Have you ever wondered how companies figure out how many calories their food products have?
How Many Calories Are in Different Foods?
Because calories are a measurement of energy (the amount of energy available to your body after digesting them), the old-fashioned way was to burn the food in a device called a bomb calorimeter and see how much energy was released.