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Usefulness:
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During the initial set up, the application asked me a number of questions about my age, sex, current weight, height, weight loss goals, and activity level. Within the weight loss goals you could choose from weight gain, gradual weight gain, maintaining your current weight, gradual weight loss, and weight loss. Within the activity level it gave you options ranging from sedentary to very active and all that is in between. Based on your answers the application then calculates your RDI or Recommended Daily Intake, a measure of nutrition based on the majority of healthy individuals.
**All of the features and tools available in this application are all very helpful and useful, but, for safety's sake, consult with your doctor or nutritionist about any diet or exercise plans you intend to pursue to make sure you are on a healthy track for your individual body. This is an important part of using any calorie counting or exercise tracking application because, while it can provide a good guide with useful information, it is not able to take into account other issues or risk factors that could impact your health when dieting or exercising.**
This application has proven to be a very valuable tool for any person trying to manage their weight and exercise. I found myself wanting to update my daily information with the food and exercise diary features. I also found myself using the search feature to look at the nutritional information for foods that I was considering eating throughout my day and making self-motivated healthier food decisions off of that. There is so much information available about menus from chain restaurants and fast food places that it would be worth the download just for that alone. The exercise diary also had plenty of activities to choose from so that nearly all aspects of your day could be accounted for in terms of calorie burning including desk work, driving, housework, standing, and yard work (as well as many other typical exercise activities).
There were also hundreds of recipe ideas for every food category imaginable, each including directions and nutritional information. If you are on the go and need to pick up something for dinner on your way home this application lets you search nearby grocery stores through the Google maps feature. And, if while shopping at the store you come across a food and you are curious to see how it fits into your personal diet, use the barcode scanning feature with the camera on your Android device to get instant information about the nutritional facts of the food you are looking at. The barcode scanner seems to work with most items that you will find in an average grocery store.
This application also allows you to synch your information across devices through an optional online account. If you sign up for the account and choose to leave the online service just email FatSecret and they will cancel your account without hassle. I did this to test the service and it did not seem to affect the diet data I had already saved on my tablet, so, I could continue using the service just without access to the online community and synching features.
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Ease of Use:
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This application was very easy to use and had a few different layout options, all with simple navigation, to accommodate most anyone's style. The search feature worked well and came up with the right items most of the time and when it did not have a food in its database it was easy enough to compile the information in parts (like listing tortillas, cheese, and chicken separately for a homemade chicken quesadilla). Or, if you had the complete nutritional information available, you could add and submit that food to the database. I did this with the Reese's Crunchy Peanut Butter Cups so now it is available for the future.
The barcode scanner was easy to use and came with instructions. It was also very simple to add and change exercise activities, modify serving sizes, and track your weight with the weigh-in option. You could also easily attach a journal entry to your weigh-ins with important notes about that day.
For those of us with routines do not fret. To make it even easier you can set up exercise schedules for certain days (like 2 hours jogging on Mondays) to automatically record those events. You can also choose from recently eaten or most often eaten lists of foods. You can even add foods to your schedule in advance if you have your meals planned out or know you will be busy during the week. Overall, this application is very easy to use and I have encountered hardly any problems with it.
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