I have put on weight lately and since two days ago I am trying to actively loose is, but this time by eating better and controlling my caloric intake.
I have been researching online solutions with iPhone apps and there are quite a bit.
Well normally I keep track of my weight with an apple software called dietcontroller, but I am not carrying my mac everywhere, so it is not very handy to keep adding the food you eat.

In my case there is an extra problem, I live in France/Switzerland and most of the stuff out there are for american users (types of foods, stores, etc…) so there is actually no good solution for me, with the food I eat (that I buy at migros).

Here you have the options:

1.- I have been using for a while a service (free) called fatsecret (I know, horrible name) which is good. Most of the foods are there and it is sort of a community. Again, using the iPhone browser was not good enough but now lately they have open the API and there is an iPhone app (free) called Calorie Counter. I was going to give a try but it only works with iPhone 3.1.2 and I am not going to upgrade for that.

2.- I continued researching for similar solutions and I found myfitnesspal. This is a great service too (free) with the addition of exercices as well. Here you set up your target, and upfront you have the calories left for the day. I liked it. They have a nice iphone app, where you can add what you eat, classifying it in breakfast, lunch, dinner and snaks, discounting from the calories you have left for the day, add exercises. Very good, and the iphone app too.

3.- I found a third one called diet tv which has by far, the best website in terms of nice and graphics. I have not tried this a lot though. Looks like you can do most of what the other two can do: log food, weight, measures, see your progress, engage in the community, record your diary… and in a very nice interface. I don’t think they have an iPhone app, so for me is a no-going.

4.- Finally what is probably the best, but you have pay plans, is DailyBurn. You can do basically the same than with fatsecret and myfitnesspal but when you add food, the results are much better than with the chaotic other two. They have photos for each entry (which is a killer feature) and you can also track your workouts. They have two iPhone apps, one (free) to enter your weight and food, and another one (paid) to scan food code bars. Looks like it is good for the US, but not for Europe. What I don’t like is that you just keep adding food but you cannot structure it on breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is just what you eat. I also don’t like that you can only create 20 favorite food entries (otherwise you have to pay).

I guess for me the winner is myfitnesspal. With myfitnesspal and dailyburn you can use the withings scale (a weight scale connected to wifi), which make life easier. Withings scale can even twit your weight… cool (and expensive) gadget.

If dailyburn would be free, it would probably be my winner.