Calorie counter app

How counting calories works

Every food has an energy value, shown in kilocalories (kcal) or kilojoules (kJ). One kcal is 4.184 kJ, so a 1,350 kcal day is about 5,648 kJ. A counter looks up each food per 100 g, scales it to the amount you ate and adds the day up. Protein and carbohydrate count 4 kcal per gram and fat 9 kcal per gram, the standard factors we use on how we calculate.

The part that moves is the target. A common way to estimate it is to work out resting energy from age, height, weight and sex (the Mifflin St Jeor equation), then multiply by an activity factor. Our calorie calculator and TDEE calculator do exactly that and show their working.

A worked example with two real sets of numbers

Take a 35 year old woman, 165 cm and 68 kg, with light activity (one to three days a week). Her resting energy comes to about 1,375 kcal and her total daily energy to about 1,891 kcal. To keep her weight she would eat close to 1,900 kcal. For a gentle loss of about 0.5 kg a week the usual rule takes 550 kcal off, which gives a target of 1,350 kcal, above the 1,200 kcal floor we never go below for women.

Now a 42 year old man, 180 cm and 90 kg, light activity. Resting energy is about 1,820 kcal and total daily energy about 2,503. With the same 550 kcal off, his target is 1,950 kcal, above the 1,500 kcal floor for men. The point of the two examples is the gap: the same rule gives 1,350 and 1,950, so a number copied from someone else's plan is a poor target.

Estimates for healthy adults from the formulas in our calculators, worked on 23 October 2026. Not personal advice.

One whole day, added up line by line

Two profiles show how a target is built. A day of eating shows what the other half of counting looks like. The table below is a made-up day of ordinary foods, with each line taken from the food table behind the Food page (USDA SR Legacy, read 23 October 2026). Nothing here is a recommendation, it is arithmetic you can check against your own plate.

Computed from the Food page table on 23 October 2026. The rounded lines add to 1,839; the total uses the unrounded values.

Three small lessons sit inside that day. The olive oil is 13.5 g and only a tablespoon, yet it adds 119 kcal, which is 8.8 percent of a 1,350 kcal target. Oil, butter and nuts are where a rough entry costs the most, so weigh those if you weigh anything. Second, the macro grams multiplied by the standard factors (4 for protein and carbohydrate, 9 for fat) give about 1,874 kcal, around 2 percent higher than the table's 1,838. Food tables and the Atwater shortcut never agree exactly, which is one more reason to treat any total as an estimate. Third, 116.9 g of protein on a 1,350 kcal day would be about a third of the energy, a good prompt to open the protein calculator and the macro calculator and see what your own numbers say.

Kilojoules, for readers who think in kJ

Australian labels show kilojoules first and many readers think in them, so the Food page and our calculators show both. The conversion is one kilocalorie to 4.184 kilojoules, which means a kJ figure divided by about 4.2 is a quick mental kcal. Here are the targets used on this page.

Worked on 23 October 2026 with 1 kcal = 4.184 kJ.

If you want the sums for any other number, the kJ to calories converter does it both ways, and kJ vs calories explains why the two units exist. For the labels themselves see nutrition labels in Australia, which covers the per serve and per 100 g columns.

How counting works in the Daily Journal

This is what the free account does today, in the order you would use it.

1. 1
   Open the Food page

   Tap Food in the bottom menu. You see today's totals and a box to type into.

2. 2
   Type what you ate

   Write it the way you would say it: 5 eggs, 200g chicken, 200g potato. The page matches each part to a food and an amount and offers the closest food if it cannot find an exact one.

3. 3
   Read the day

   Calories, protein, carbs, fat and fibre add up as you go, with an all nutrients table underneath.

4. 4
   Add your own foods

   If a food is missing you can ask for it to be added. New foods go into the list without an app update.

5. 5
   Look at the whole day

   Home and Tracking show food next to your sleep, movement, mood and gratitude, so you can see which days felt good.

What is in the app today, and what is not

We would rather say plainly what is missing than imply it. This is the position on 23 October 2026.

Feature by feature: the Daily Journal and the paid apps

This table is deliberately honest in both directions. The middle column is what the Daily Journal does on 23 October 2026. The right column only says what our 20 October read recorded about paid tiers, and says not recorded where it did not capture a per app answer.

Sources: the Daily Journal column from the app on 23 October 2026; the right column from the paywall features named in our competitor read of 20 October 2026. Cronometer and MyFitnessPal are the two paid apps whose own pages we read; the rest came from App Store listings, so we do not claim a feature for them.

What paid calorie counter apps charge

Read from each app's own page or its Australian App Store listing on 20 October 2026, nine apps in all with the Daily Journal. Tiers are monthly, yearly or lifetime plans, so the range is a spread of plans, not one price.

Prices change, so check the app's own page.

Monthly or yearly: the sums on three apps

A subscription price means little until it is a year. These are the three apps where our read recorded both a monthly and an annual figure, with the arithmetic shown so you can check it. A year of monthly payments is twelve times the monthly price.

Read 20 October 2026. MacroFactor lists a top tier of A$149.99 but our file does not say it is the annual plan, so we make no saving claim. Lose It starts lowest at A$7.99 a month, A$95.88 over twelve months, but its range is by several tiers.

The pattern is plain. Paying monthly for something you keep costs more than twice what paying yearly does, and paying yearly for something you drop after three weeks wastes most of it. The honest test is a free trial taken on the last day you would otherwise give up, not the first. Where an app has a trial, set a reminder for the day before it ends. Our pricing will show the Daily Journal's price before you pay, if one is ever added.

Which kind of person needs which kind of calorie counter

Not everyone needs the same thing, and the cheapest choice is the one that matches how you actually eat. Read down the left column, pick the line that sounds like you and see what it points to.

These are patterns, not rules. A doctor or accredited dietitian is the right person for anyone with a medical reason to track food.

Mistakes and myths that make calorie counting worse

Most failed attempts at counting fail for the same few reasons, and none of them are about willpower. Here are the ones we see most, each with what to do instead.

• Myth: more precise is better. A food scale on the first day and a guess by the fourth is normal. A table rounds, a label rounds and a portion is a guess, so a steady rough method beats a perfect one that lasts a week.
• Mistake: forgetting the oil, sauces and drinks. The day above shows 119 kcal from one tablespoon of olive oil. The food diary printable has a line for each of them for the same reason.
• Myth: you must hit the number exactly. A day above or below your target is noise. Watch the week, which is why the weight loss journal works from averages.
• Mistake: copying a friend's target. The same 550 kcal rule gave 1,350 for one profile and 1,950 for another on this page. Use the calorie calculator with your own numbers.
• Myth: kilojoules and calories are different diets. They are the same energy in two units, converted with 4.184. The kJ vs calories guide shows it.
• Mistake: eating below the floor. We never set a target below 1,200 kcal for women or 1,500 kcal for men. Lower is not faster, it is riskier, and the health disclaimer says who should not count at all.
• Myth: protein only matters for lifters. Everyone has a reference amount; the protein calculator and the guide to how much protein you need show it.
• Mistake: treating a streak of logging as a score. A missed day does not reset anything that matters.

What to look for before you pay for a calorie counter

Spending money on an app is easier to regret than to undo. Run through this list on the app you are tempted by, and write down your answers before you enter a card.

• Does the free tier let you log a whole day, or does it stop at the first meal or the first chart?
• Is the price shown in Australian dollars, for a monthly plan and a yearly plan, before you enter a card?
• What does it renew at after the trial or the first year, and where do you cancel?
• Does it have the foods you really eat, such as Australian brands and kilojoules on the label?
• Can you export your own log as a file, or is it locked in?
• Are there adverts, and does the paid tier remove them?
• Does it set a target below the safe floors, or push you toward a crash plan?
• Who can see your food, your weight and your photos? Read the privacy policy, as we ask you to read ours at privacy policy and terms of use.
• Will you still be logging in three weeks? If you are not sure, start free.

Free tools you can use today, with no sign up

Several parts of counting need no app at all. Our ten calculators run in the page. The calorie calculator and TDEE calculator give a daily figure, the calorie deficit calculator puts a floor under it, and the macro calculator and protein calculator turn calories into grams. The BMI calculator is a screening number with its limits explained, and the water intake calculator covers the drinks.

If you prefer paper, the twelve printable trackers are free to download, among them the food diary, the meal planner, the water tracker and the workout log. They show how a day looks with nothing but a pen, and moving to the app later keeps the same habit.

Go deeper before you choose

Read how it is worked out in how we calculate and the sources page. For the maths in plain words, start with how many calories should I eat, what is a calorie deficit, how to calculate TDEE, how to calculate macros and macro split examples. Protein has its own guides in protein per kg by age, and activity level explained shows why the multiplier you pick moves your target by hundreds of calories.

Food is only one input to how a day goes. The sleep tracker and habit tracker app pages show how the same journal holds sleep and routines, and the journal app page shows the daily screen the Food page sits inside. Planning ahead is on the meal planner page, and the pages on affirmations and meditation cover the mind side. See all ten on the journal tools page.

Why people pay for a calorie counter

Reading the paid tiers, the same few features sit behind the paywall: a barcode scanner, no adverts, custom macro and nutrient goals, detailed charts, and recipe import. People pay when logging gets tedious and the paid version makes it faster. If the free version is quick enough, most of that spend is avoidable.

That is why we start with speed of entry. Typing 5 eggs and 200g chicken takes a few seconds. If sign-ups tell us they miss the scanner or want macro goals, those are the next things we would build, and your request is the sign-up itself.

• Check what the free tier really limits before you pay for any app
• Compare monthly and yearly for the same app: Cronometer Gold is A$18.99 monthly or A$99.99 annual, which works out near A$8.33 a month
• A subscription you stop using is the most expensive one

Counting without losing your head

Counting works best as a short habit rather than a test you can fail. Log the biggest items first, estimate the rest and move on. A rough entry made every day beats a perfect entry made on Sunday from memory.

Watch the trend, not the single day. A big dinner does not undo a week. If you find yourself anxious about numbers, or you have ever had a difficult relationship with food, stop counting and talk to a doctor. Our health disclaimer says who should not use calorie tools at all.

Tools and guides to pair with a calorie counter

Questions people ask

Related guides, prices and tools

Where these figures come from

• Competitor prices: each app's own pricing page or its Australian App Store listing, read on 20 October 2026 and saved in our competitor file. MyFitnessPal and Cronometer own pages are named where they showed a price.
• Resting energy: Mifflin MD, St Jeor ST and others, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1990, as coded in our calculators. Activity factors and the 550 kcal a day for about 0.5 kg a week rule are commonly used estimates.
• 1 kcal = 4.184 kJ. Protein and carbohydrate 4 kcal per gram, fat 9 kcal per gram (Atwater factors).
• Food table: USDA SR Legacy, 246 foods in the Food page on 23 October 2026.
• MacroFactor: Apple App Store AU listing read on 20 October 2026, A$14.49 to A$149.99 in-app purchases, monthly subscription A$17.49.
• Year costs and savings: our own arithmetic on the monthly and annual prices read on 20 October 2026, worked on 23 October 2026.
• The day log: values from the Food page table (USDA SR Legacy), added on 23 October 2026. Atwater factors 4, 4 and 9 kcal per gram.

Updated 23 October 2026. A figure that was not read from a file is written as unknown. Prices change: check the supplier's own page before you rely on one. We are not affiliated with any app named here.