Manage your diabetes with these four apps picked by Vanderbilt experts.
While sometimes a nuisance at the table (seriously, how many times do we have to tell those teens to just put it away?), your phone can be very helpful if you or a loved one has diabetes.
We asked Vanderbilt Diabetes‘ Shichun Bao, M.D., and Amy Kranick, registered dietitian 2 and certified diabetes educator, which apps they recommend to patients with diabetes. The following are their picks:
GoMeals
GoMeals goes beyond counting calories. In addition to tracking your meals, you can also record your physical activity and glucose levels. Having your diet, exercise and glucose readings all in one log can be handy when discussing your health with a physician.
Other features:
- Restaurant locator helps you find healthy restaurants nearby.
- Cloud sync backs up your history to cloud network so you can use it on multiple devices.
- Fan of the Fitbit? With GoMeals you can link your account so that the calories you burn sync automatically.
Price: Free
My Daily Plate
Inspired by the USDA’s MyPlate icon, this app focuses on what you should eat, rather than what you shouldn’t. My Daily Plate can show whether you are eating the right amount of fruits, vegetables, protein, grains and dairy. This app also allows you to export your information to share with your physician or dietitian.
Other features:
- Easy to use: No keyboard or data entry is required. Just a few taps required to enter your food.
- Enter the water you drink in your preferred unit of measurement, but see equivalent amounts in other units.
- Wondering how you’re eating overall? You can access information that will give you an average of progress from the last seven days or an overall average of the recorded days since your first entry.
Price: $0.99
Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal
With MyFitnessPal, you can access a database with more than 5,000,000 foods (including countless restaurant items). This app also features a recipe importer so that you can easily see the nutritional information from the meals you make at home!
Other features:
- Connects with more than 50 devices and apps.
- Built-in step tracker can track steps right from iPhone 5s/6/6+.
- Bar-code scanner can track a food just by scanning its bar code.
Price: Free
Calorie King
If you just need a quick way to check the nutritional information of your next meal, Calorie King is … king. The app contains nutritional information on more than 70,000 foods and 260 restaurants.
Other features:
- Interface allows for quick comparison between food options.
- Access to detailed food information including protein, fiber, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium and alcohol.
Price: Free
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the cost of diabetes? Check out eight ways you can reduce the cost of day-to-day expenses.
