Yazio Fasting & Food Tracker

We’re back with a different kind of app review this time. We are diving into the world of fitness and nutrition with Yazio.

This app simply joins the calorie counter apps that are widely popular, the most recognized of the bunch being My Fitness Pal. In essence, most of them have these particular characteristics as a minimum:

• Access to a database of common whole foods (e.g. tomatoes, bananas, chicken breast) and a product database (your typical package with a codebar) together with their corresponding calories and macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein and fats) per unit of measure.
• Daily log of all the food that was consumed (entered manually by the user).
• Daily activity tracking via other measurements (for example the active energy tracked by an Apple Watch).

Ease of use

Since this kind of app is tailored for daily use, the speed in which you can get your data in is paramount. Having the same actions reachable with as few taps as possible is very important. Luckily, Yazio does a good job at this, allowing for quick taps and listing previously used foods first.

Tracking is done through a series of 4 meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks), though it really doesn’t matter much how you group your food as long as it’s in the same day. You can also prepare food (and enter it in the ap) for tomorrow. For each of these groups you can also take a photo so you can remember what you ate - much like a journal.

Food database

The database available is quite extensive and it features verified nutritional facts on all the whole foods available (e.g. vegetables or meat, even in raw form). However, since we live in a consumer economy, not everything is natural so some food comes in sealed containers, with codebars attached. Just like other competitor apps, Yazio offers a quick barcode scanner that will prefill all the nutritional information if the product exists in their database. If not, there is even the option to add it yourself, thus contributing to the known barcodes for all other users. The downside is that this list is not curated, so whenever scanning a product make sure you double check the nutritional information that others, less careful users, have added.

Other features

Some of the things that might be appealing to others (which however, were not a selling point for us) are the personal coach and recipes that are available for the premium (paid) plan.

Basically you get access to a stream of constantly updated recipes that come together with all the ingredients and quanitites necessary.

Along with collecting a lot of nutritional information, the application also taps into your fitness activity (if you allow it). Thus, you can factor in days when you exercised a lot and also days when you lived the couch potato life. The idea here is that you can eat more if you exercise more.

Subscription

While the free version is quite suitable for the average user that just wants to track their calorie and macronutrient intake, some features such as in-depth food information like vitamins and minerals are available for paid customers. Along with these come a variety of other stats and information that can provide a better overview of your progress.

The price usually fluctuates a lot. Yazio is running discounts for most of the year so you can expect a yearly plan at around $16.

Summary

So what do you think about Yazio? Have you tried it? Let us know in the comments below!