MyFitnessPal Review 2024: Pros & Cons, Cost, & Who It’s Right For

MyFitnessPal Key Takeaways

• MyFitnessPal is a health and fitness app that provides food, water, and exercise tracking tools, curated meal and workout plans, and a community connection.
• MyFitnessPal is not recommended for those who have a history of disordered eating or who have been diagnosed with an eating disorder.
• The app offers an extensive one-month free trial.
• Developers have recently added a new “Sleep” feature to help users understand how food and exercise impact sleeping habits.

What Is MyFitnessPal?

MyFitnessPal is a health and fitness app that helps users reach weight loss and other health goals. They provide food-tracking tools and curated meal and exercise plans that can be customized to fit your lifestyle. MyFitnessPal costs $19.99 monthly or $79.99 annually and comes with a one-month free trial.

MyFitnessPal’s program begins with a brief questionnaire about your current weight, health goals, obstacles you’ve experienced in the past, and general inquiries about your lifestyle. Once you’ve completed this, you’ll be shown your daily net calorie goal and the tools and features that you’ll use to track your weight, calories, and macros (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates).

Next, you’re led to MyFitnessPal’s dashboard, which is fully customizable. For instance, you can change your main screen to show your daily calories, macros, or heart health. You can sync MyFitnessPal to a smartwatch, Fitbit, or other health-tracking apps. Your Dashboard is where you’ll find all your metrics, like weigh-ins, caloric intake, daily steps, and burned calories.

At the bottom of the dashboard, you’ll see the “Food Log,” “Newsfeed,” and “Plans” sections. The “Food Log” is where you’ll enter your daily intake, and MyFitnessPal makes this process as easy as possible with a library of various foods and a barcode tool to log packaged foods. The “Newsfeed” hosts several health blogs that feature topics like how food affects your sleep, how to handle overeating, and low-calorie alcoholic beverages for the holidays.

The “Plans” section is where you’ll find dozens of meal plans and exercise plans. Some highlighted meal plans focused on eating more greens and boosting your immune system, while exercise plans included everything from yoga and pilates to HIIT and walking programs. When you click on the ‘More’ tab in the lower right-hand corner, you’ll see a list of other features, such as healthy recipes, sleep support, friend requests, and community message boards.

How Much Does MyFitnessPal Cost?

MyFitnessPal costs $19.99 monthly or $79.99 annually and comes with a one-month free trial. They also offer a basic free version, but it has limited tracking tools and many advertisements.

How to Sign Up for MyFitnessPal

Signing up for MyFitnessPal and starting your customized health plan is very easy. Simply visit the MyFitnessPal website or your device’s app store, download the app, and follow the steps below.

1. Choose ‘Sign Up For Free’
2. Take the onboarding survey and set personalized goals
3. Choose a monthly or annual payment plan
4. Get started with your one-month free trial
5. Customize your exercise and meal plans
6. Log your first meal

MyFitnessPal Detailed Review

MyFitnessPal offers several key features that support weight loss, encourage exercise, and connect users to a community of others on similar health journeys. MyFitnessPal offers a basic free version with limited tracking tools and a premium version that offers all key features and costs $19.99 monthly or $79.99 annually and comes with a one-month free trial.

Logging & Tracking Tools

The central focus of MyFitnessPal’s program is the logging and tracking tools. The strategy is meant to help users pay closer attention to their food and water intake, discover new ways to transform their diet, and adopt healthier habits. After logging each meal, I could see an analysis of my calories and macros consumed. This allowed me to understand how decreasing or increasing fats, proteins, and carbohydrates impact my weight, energy levels, and mood.

It was easy for me to log food, water, and exercise. However, the app is very text-heavy, and the font is small, indicating a need for an upgrade soon. While I don’t think the food logging system is as easy as Noom’s, it is straightforward and provides accurate analyses. After logging food and exercise, I used the journal-like “Notes” feature to track my mood, challenges, and ideas for success for the following day.

Curated Meal & Exercise Plans

MyFitnessPal’s meal plans were a massive help to me. They clearly lay out the objective of each plan, a reasonable timeline, and specific instructions. They even include a “Choose This Plan If…” section to help you determine if it’s right for you. I chose the “Eat Green” two-week plan focusing on eco-friendly meals and the five-day “Eat Right, Sleep Tight” plan that helps you understand how food affects your sleep habits.

The plans made it easy for me to stick to healthier routines and helped me learn more about how my food choices impact the environment. While focusing more on making healthier meals, I saw dozens of exercise plans for building muscle and flexibility, increasing daily steps, and burning calories. These premade plans can be incredibly effective if you hope to tackle both diet and exercise to boost your overall health.

Community Connection

The community message boards may seem like a secondary feature to some, but I witnessed a lot of empathy, compassion, encouragement, and motivation being exchanged in these forums. MyFitnessPal also makes it easy to invite friends and follow other members. Research shows that taking on weight-loss or exercise challenges with friends, family, or co-workers can significantly impact success, making this a powerful feature for many users.¹

Who Is MyFitnessPal Right For?

MyFitnessPal would be an excellent resource for anyone who wants to change exercise and eating habits and those looking for a support system, online community, or partners to join them on their health and fitness journey.

You Want to Transform Eating & Exercise Habits

MyFitnessPal is truly an all-encompassing health app. You can find new recipes, health blogs, workout plans, and a wide range of metrics to track. Everything is customizable to meet your personal goals, and the one-month free trial allows you to use every tool and feature before you commit to a subscription. If you want more than a weight-loss app, MyFitnessPal could be a great fit.

You’re Looking for a Support System

MyFitnessPal makes connecting with others or inviting friends to join your program very easy. Their community message board has a variety of forum topics to follow, including “Getting Started,” “Food & Nutrition,” “Recipes,” and “Mindfulness & Overall Wellness.” You can also send friend requests and follow other users with similar health goals.

Who May Want an Alternative to MyFitnessPal?

You may want an alternative to MyFitnessPal if you’re only looking for weight loss or exercise support, not both. MyFitnessPal is also not appropriate for those who struggle with disordered eating or have been diagnosed with an eating disorder.

You Only Want to Focus on Weight Loss or Exercise

The MyFitnessPal app has much to offer, but it may be too much if you want to lose a few pounds or commit to a new exercise routine. For instance, if you’re just hoping to focus on weight, Noom may be a better fit. If logging meals isn’t your thing and you’re only looking for new exercises, Asana Rebel could be a great alternative if you want to try yoga-inspired workouts.

To learn more, you can check out our comprehensive review of Noom and our Asana Rebel review.

Disordered Eating or Eating Disorders

Apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom that ask users to track calories and weight consistently could be inappropriate or even dangerous for those with a history of disordered eating or diagnosed eating disorders. These types of apps can be considered controversial with the rise of a toxic diet culture. If you struggle with these conditions, it’s crucial to get support from professionals with strong backgrounds in eating disorders, such as Equip Health, which offers online treatment.

To learn more about their program, check out our in-depth review of Equip.

What Users Are Saying About MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal has 4.7 stars from 1.8M reviewers in the Apple App Store and 4 stars from 2.68M reviewers in the Google Play Store. Users love how easy it is to log food and track calories and macros. Many reviewers also mentioned appreciation for the ability to invite friends and share progress. However, several users expressed frustration with removing the barcode feature in the free version.

Easy to Log Food & Track Calories/Macros

Many reviewers mentioned how easy it is to log food and track calories and macros. They said that closely monitoring their meals and getting a precise analysis of their proteins, fats, and carbohydrate intake was helpful in losing and maintaining weight.

Accountability with Community Features

Another common thread in user reviews was the appreciation for the community message boards and the ability to invite friends to join fitness journeys. They expressed that sharing progress and similar experiences and exchanging support and motivation are valuable tools for committing to a new diet and exercise routine.

Frustration with Limited Free Version

Most of the negative reviews mentioned frustration with the newly released free version. Several complained about removing the barcode tool, which is used to log packaged food quickly. Many reviewers were also disappointed by the amount of advertisements shown in the free version, stating that they were distracting and often led to giving up on completing food logs or weigh-ins. I only used the premium version during my review, but I can see how constant ads and a lack of a barcode tool affect my commitment to the program.

MyFitnessPal Vs. Competitors

MyFitnessPal is a major player in the health and fitness app world, but they’re not the only option. Below is a brief summary of MyFitnessPal and its top competitors.

MyFitnessPal Vs. Noom

MyFitnessPal and Noom are incredibly popular weight-loss apps, each with over a million downloads. Both offer food logs, calorie counters, daily macro analysis, and an extensive diet and exercise educational library. However, MyFitnessPal offers curated meal plans and exercise routines, while Noom mainly focuses solely on the psychology of weight loss and teaching caloric density.

One key difference is their premium versions’ subscription costs and free-trial periods. My Fitness Pal subscriptions cost $19.99 monthly, including a one-month free trial, which is extensive for this type of service. Noom’s costs depend on individual weight-loss plans, and they only offer a seven-day free trial.

MyFitnessPal Vs. Lose It!

MyFitnessPal and Lose It share many similar tools and features, including food logs and calorie and macro tracking. Both are customizable to meet your weight-loss goals and include a barcode tool for easy logging with packaged foods. In addition, MyFitnessPal and Lose It provide extra educational and tracking tools for those interested in intermittent fasting.

The cost is the most significant factor that sets these two apps apart. MyFitnessPal’s premium subscriptions cost $19.99 monthly or $79.99 annually and come with a one-month free trial, and Lose It’s premium subscriptions cost $39.99 annually and come with a seven-day free trial. While Lose It’s pricing is more budget-friendly, MyFitnessPal’s one-month free trial offers an extensive member experience before committing to a purchase.

History of MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal was developed by engineer Mike Lee in 2005 as a way to track his weight loss. The app quickly gained popularity among his friends and family, and Lee decided to launch it publicly in September of the same year. MyFitnessPal was initially available as a web-based application, but Lee later developed mobile versions for Apple and Android devices. In 2015, MyFitnessPal was acquired by Under Armour for $475 million. In 2020, Under Armour sold MyFitnessPal to a private equity firm for $345 million.²