App review: Cronometer

Well in my last post a month ago, I reported on the untimely (or perhaps very timely) demise of my fitness tracker, Fitday. One person suggested I try Cronometer, so I installed it. Here are my thoughts so far:

I like that it has a website as well as an app. And it’s free (with the usual “upgrade now for more features” stuff). 

I like that it synchs with Strava, so I don’t have to reinput that info (or more likely, forget to reinput that info).

It has a seemingly enormous database of foods, which is actually more annoying than helpful. It’s aimed at people—specifically Americans and maybe Brits—who eat a lot of prepared and processed mass-produced foods. For those of us who cook from scratch, or shop locally for foods cooked from scratch, it can be tricky to sift through the mountain of brand names you don’t recognize. There aren’t a lot of generics. And as usual whole foods and “ingredient” foods are missing. Does the panettone artiginale I get from a local baker have the same nutrients and calories as the many grocery store versions? It tastes a million times better, so I’m guessing no.

It does have a “create a recipe” option I like, although you still run into the issue of being unable to find the right ingredients.

There are some glitches. For example, even though I entered a weight goal, and it shows up properly on the app, on the website it shows my goal as 0 lbs. That’s zero. Fitday allowed you to enter not just a goal, but a date to achieve it by, and if you entered something unrealistic/unhealthy, you’d get a warning message. Cronometer assigns a goal date based on your weight/other stats, doesn’t allow you to adjust it (that I can see) based on needs or preferences (maybe I’d want to get there more slowly, to make each day a little easier and daily goals more achievable!) and doesn’t warn the user that zero is an unhealth goal (which clearly it is, for anyone!).

So, it has its ups and downs, but so far is good enough. Maybe I’ll figure out some tricks or shortcuts to make it work better for me. We’ll see!