One area many people struggle with when it comes to losing weight is diet. Luckily, thanks to the help of technology, knowing what to eat has become easier than ever before. Meal planning apps have gained a lot of popularity in recent years, and for good reason. They can help create a diet plan tailored to your needs, making it easier to stay on track and achieve your weight loss goals.
Today, there are countless meal planning apps available that can make the process more attainable and enjoyable. Better yet, they offer a range of features, from providing healthy and delicious recipes to tracking calorie intake and nutritional information, enabling users to create personalized meal plans that suit their specific needs and lifestyle. If you struggle with eating healthy and want to lose weight or don’t know where to start, here are 6 of the best meal-planning apps to consider!
MealPrepPro
MealPrepPro provides users with customized meal plans based on their specific dietary goals and preferences. The app can help users plan and prepare healthy meals in advance, which can help them avoid making unhealthy food choices due to a lack of time or planning. By following the meal plans provided by the app, users can ensure that they are consuming the right amount of calories and macronutrients to support their weight loss goals.
The app also provides a grocery list for each week’s meal plan, which can help you save time and money by avoiding unnecessary purchases. MealPrepPro offers both free and paid versions of the app. The free version includes limited access to recipes and meal plans, while the paid version provides full access to all features and content. A monthly subscription costs $9.99 USD whereas an annual subscription is billed as a one-time payment of $69.99 (which works out to be $5.83 per month).
Shutterstock/Monkey Business ImagesPlan to Eat
Plan to Eat earns a spot on this list of best meal planning apps because of its organizational tools that can help you stick to your goals. With this app, you can keep and organize all your favorite healthy recipes in one place. From there, you can start planning out your meals by scheduling the recipes on your calendar. There’s no limit to the number of events on your meal planner so you can plan out breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Once your meal plan is made, Plan to Eat automatically adds and organizes your shopping list for you.
Plan to Eat costs $5.95 per month or $49 per year, with a 14-day free trial available for new users. To make sure you love it, they also offer a 60-day, no-questions-asked refund policy. While the app may not be as comprehensive as other weight loss tools, it can be a useful tool for individuals who need help with meal planning and grocery shopping.
Suggestic
Whether you like to eat out for social reasons or convenience, you can still stick to your weight loss goals with the help of Suggestic. This meal planning app can assist even the most experienced chefs in finding takeout dishes that adhere to their diets, from keto to vegan, and more.
Suggestic features a database of over 500,00 restaurants across the country, ensuring that you can find a healthy meal option no matter where you are. It is also useful for planning meals at home, as it provides simple recipes to build a meal plan for the week. This meal planning app also sends motivational notifications to help you stay on track.
The premium membership also comes with additional recipe options, education videos, and eating programs. While there is a free version of the app, the premium membership costs $13 per month or $60 per year.
Paprika
Paprika is primarily a recipe manager but it offers a high level of customization for meal planning. While it doesn’t have a built-in database of recipes or pre-set meal plans, the app makes it easy to build up your own recipe collection from your favorite websites or by manually entering your own recipes. You can organize your favorite recipes by category by creating custom categories such as “Quick and Easy Meals” or “The Kids’ Favorites.” It also allows you to edit recipes and add notes, but still includes a link to the original recipe for reference.
Another major benefit is Paprika will automatically generate a grocery list based on your meal plan, consolidating ingredients as needed, and allowing users to add additional items. While the app displays nutrition data from recipes that include it, there isn’t a built-in program to calculate data for recipes that don’t have it.
Paprika offers a free app option, allowing users to download up to 50 recipes but if you need to store more recipes and want advanced features you can upgrade to the paid version. Paprika costs $4.99 USD for the iOS and Android mobile app, and $29.99 for the desktop version.
Lose It!
Lose It! is a calorie and macronutrient tracker that includes meal planning features in its premium version. The app calculates a target calorie range based on your personal data, including your height, weight, and activity level, and estimates the time it’ll take to reach your weight goal. The app’s timeline feature also allows users to monitor their progress over time.
The free version of Lose It! allows users to input their own recipes to create meal plans and scan barcodes of foods to add to the database. However, users have to upgrade to the premium version to access more meal-planning features. While the app is useful for monitoring eating behaviors and weight loss, its main focus is tracking. One potential drawback is it lacks automatic, customizable grocery lists to pair with meal plans. While you can use the app for free, if you want to take full advantage of the premium features, the app costs $39.99 per year.
PlateJoy
PlateJoy is another great meal planning app that creates customized meal plans according to your dietary preferences and weight loss goals. In fact, they cater to a variety of diets from vegetarian and vegan to gluten-free, low-carb, and so much more! Upon signing up, users complete a lifestyle survey that covers everything from food preferences and allergies to fitness and calorie goals. Using 50 data points, PlateJoy creates a customized meal plan that is tailored to the individual’s needs. It even allows you to sync the app with your Fitbit or Apple Health to track your health objectives more efficiently.
Another benefit is the app generates tailored grocery lists and reduces food waste by allowing you to log the food already in your fridge or pantry so you can avoid buying what you already have. Additionally, depending on where you live, you can send your grocery list to Instacart for grocery delivery.
One potential drawback is PlateJoy is a bit more expensive compared to some other meal planning apps, costing $12.99 per month, $69 for 6-months, or $99 for a 12-month subscription. That said, if you’re at risk of type 2 diabetes, Insider says some health insurance providers will cover the cost of your PlateJoy membership.
