Luxia Le

Weight is something that many people struggle with, myself included. I’m on a whole handful of pills, several of which cause weight gain and insatiable hunger. Learning how to manage that has been a journey, at times healthy and other times not so healthy. However, one app that caught my attention right away was BitePal. As I mentioned last week in my review of Finch, I love virtual pets. So a virtual pet that helps me manage my weight? Sounds like a dream. Let’s take a look at what I like most about this app.

At A Glance

App	BitePal: AI Calorie Tracker
Platform	Android, iOS
Free	Freemium, some features locked behind paywall
App Type	Virtual Pet, Calorie Tracker, Water Tracker, Macro Tracker, Weight Managment
Subscription	BitePal Pro ($35.99 USD)

My Experience with BitePal

Right away, I noticed that BitePal helped me figure out my meal structure better. One thing I liked a lot was that the calorie deficit it put me at wasn’t very big, it was about 100 calories and I could adjust it up or down if I wanted. However, i found that aiming for about a 100 calorie deficit was the perfect goal for me. I actually haven’t even been eating my entire caloric goal from BitePal, so hopefully I’ll be able to lose the weight faster than expected simply because I don’t need to eat as much as the calorie goal it gives me. I like that because it makes me feel motivated to eat less than my calorie goal. It’s a little dopamine hit that makes it easier not to overeat.

Nutrition Label Scanner

One thing that has been super useful from BitePal was their nutrition label scanner. It makes counting my calories super easy; I just scan the labels! They also have an AI assistant that can analyze pictures of food to give you an estimation of how many calories it is based on the picture. This was super useful when I went out to eat with my mom, I could just snap a photo of my food and get an idea of how much I could still eat when I got home.

Typically what I do is in the morning, I scan the nutrition labels for all my daily supplements, even if I haven’t taken them yet. This way, I can ensure that I don’t overeat to the point where I don’t have calories left for my supplements; they’re already accounted for.

Pet Could Be More Interactive

The one thing I will stand to criticize about BitePal is that the virtual pet experience isn’t very interactive. Logging your food is the only real “goal” of the app and that just keeps your pet’s HP bar full. There are some achievements you can unlock, but the virtual pet experience could use some upgrades, ways to interact with the pet that make it feel more personal.

Would I Recommend BitePal?

I would recommend BitePal but be aware that this app is really only for calorie counting and macro tracking. There aren’t many features beyond that at the stage of this review, so there really isn’t much to review. However, I will say that the photographic calorie tracking is incredibly useful. Being able to estimate the caloric content of my restaurant food on the occasion that I have some is very helpful and makes keep track of my food intake a breeze. So far, I’ve already started losing weight from tracking with BitePal and it’s cuter and more fun than MyFitnessPal. However, MyFitnessPal does have a web portal that I like, though it’s rather ugly.

Is BitePal Pro Worth It?

BitePal Pro is not the most expensive calorie tracking app out there and it does have a lot of extremely useful features. However, I wouldn’t say that BitePal Pro is worth it at this time. The app isn’t interactive enough and there aren’t many worthwhile things unlocked through BitePal Pro. It really only unlocks the achievement feature and the ability to track your fiber intake, which could be helpful for some people but are not necessary for all users.

UPDATE: Intermittent Fasting Tracker

One thing that has been added since the publishing of this review was a tracker for intermittent fasting. You can set your goal to be 12, 14, or 16 hours of fasting and your raccoon will remind you one hour before your fasting window starts so you can grab an extra snack! Still not worth the price for Pro, though.