Buzz
Protein plays a key role in maintaining our overall health and supporting athletic performance. While calorie trackers like my personal favorite, Cronometer, can be useful for monitoring protein intake, sometimes it’s all about focusing solely on protein targets without the distraction of calories.
Reasons for Tracking Your Protein Consumption
Tracking macros isn't just for weight loss. (And remember, weight loss doesn’t always require calorie tracking; it's just one method among many.) Protein tracking can be particularly beneficial if:
You’re aiming to build muscle.
You participate in endurance activities (such as long-distance running).
You’re pregnant or nursing.
You’re focusing on improving your diet, specifically targeting protein rather than trying to overhaul everything at once.
Protein-only tracking is especially favored by individuals new to weightlifting. You might need to step away from calorie and weight-based metrics and simply concentrate on fueling your body.
To determine the best protein tracker, I tested the top four protein apps on the iPhone App Store that are not comprehensive calorie trackers. Continue reading to see my conclusions.
Most popular protein tracking apps are straightforward and quite similar.
This may be a niche market, but I was expecting more diversity. The App Store is flooded with protein tracking apps, all of which have nearly identical designs: a circular progress bar showing the day’s protein intake (relative to your goal), and a button for adding the foods consumed. I evaluated these four:
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Protein Pal
Protein Log
Hello Protein
Protein Tracker (installed under the name ProteinPlus)
Unlike most calorie apps, these don’t let you search for foods without paying. Two of them (Hello Protein and Protein Log) don’t have a search feature at all. The other two (Protein Tracker and Protein Pal) include a search, but it’s locked behind a premium subscription.
This means that, for the most part, using these apps requires you to already know the protein content of the food you’re entering. You’ll need to check a label, Google it, or just remember it. For someone like me who has been tracking protein for years, it’s easy—I know, for instance, that an egg contains 6 grams of protein—but for beginners, this can really limit the app’s ease of use.
Best for Minimalists: Protein Log
Protein Log is one of the apps that lacks a search feature. It doesn’t help you locate foods or determine how much protein you should be consuming. Instead, it simply allows you to input items like “chicken, 44 grams” and adds that to your daily total.
The app features a history tab where you can review what you’ve eaten and the protein content of each item. It also includes a calendar, enabling you to track your protein intake on any given day in the past. In the Analytics tab, you can see how much protein you consumed each day this week, this month, and this year, compared to your target.
Runner-up: HelloProtein also falls into the minimalist category, but it has a significant drawback: you can’t edit what you’ve logged for previous days. For example, I recorded a few items yesterday, then realized this morning I forgot to log a protein bar. Unfortunately, there’s no way to add it. While HelloProtein does offer an analytics page, what use are my weekly stats if I know Monday’s 20 grams is missing from my log?
Protein Pal offers the most features for the best price.
If you're looking for an app with a built-in search feature, Protein Pal is exactly what you need. It even suggests a protein target for you, if desired. Upon opening the app, it prompts you to enter your protein target, and there's also a 'protein calculator' to assist you if you're uncertain about what number to choose. It recommended I aim for 110 grams of protein daily, which equates to around 0.73 grams per pound of body weight and aligns with muscle gain recommendations (which was the goal I set).
Once you set your target, the app functions similarly to my minimalist pick, Protein Log. The key difference is the search feature, which is available with the pro subscription ($3.99/month or $23.99/year, with a 7-day free trial). You can now search for foods using a text search ('powered by FatSecret') or a barcode scanner ('powered by' followed by a green icon I don't recognize).
Both methods are somewhat clunky. The barcode scanner will show results but then immediately rescan its surroundings, so you need to move the camera away from the item you've just scanned to enter it. Unfortunately, the database isn't always accurate. For example, my favorite protein bar, Barebells Salty Peanut, showed up in the app as containing 16 grams of protein, though the label states it contains 20 grams.
Runner-up: Protein Tracker/ProteinPlus is another app with similar features; even its search function returned the same incorrect 16 grams of protein for my Barebells bar. It offered a 7-day free trial before charging $24.99/year, though the month-to-month cost is $9.99—$6 more per month than Protein Pal. (While Protein Tracker has a slightly sleeker search interface, I’m not willing to pay an extra six bucks just for that.) When I checked my subscriptions (under iPhone Settings > Apple ID), I saw two yearly options: one for $24.99 and one for $19.99. If you choose this app, make sure to select the cheaper option, because paying an extra $5 without any added benefits is just wasteful.
