Leave a Review Lifesum
Not Great
I bought the premium version because I thought it would be friendlier and more helpful than apps like myfitnesspal. Its not very smart, it doesn’t have a lot of foods in its database, and the recipes provided are few and not impressive. There’s no way to find easy meals, it seems to be time consuming and not super appetizing. For example, a suggested recipe to me was a tomato and buttermilk shake?? While that might not be hard to make, it sounds disgusting. Most of these recipes seem to be more about looks and “instagram” quality than nutrition and simplicity, which is what most people loom to food trackers for. In the app’s attempt to be more millenial-geared and well-rounded, they made a complicated app with a few flashy features (choosing your type of diet, taking a picture of your food to log it-which didn’t work when I tried-, and recipes-which have limited options and seem complicated). I wish they offered a trial of the premium but I understand why they don’t because I definitely wouldn’t have bought premium if I knew that not much would change, and the additional features are less than satisfactory. I absolutely regret purchasing this.Show lessjilshs
Needs improvement
I think overall it’s a good app. I can’t afford the premium features so I basically have to ignore the day ratings. You can’t customize the macro goals unless you have premium and mine are different from the ones they set for me. The one thing that really irks me is their meal rating system. It doesn’t teach indulgence in moderation, which I think is key to maintaining a healthy diet, and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If you eat one sweet thing it ruins your entire meal rating. For example: I had scrambled eggs and protein powder in coffee this morning — it gave both of those an excellent rating on their own, but didn’t give the meal as a whole a good rating because I hadn’t consumed enough calories. Then I had half a serving of honey vanilla Greek yogurt and it gave it a :| rating, which then ruined my whole meal rating. And you can get an explanation for why things are rated that way unless you pay for premium. I try to get good ratings all day so it really bugs me when I get a bad one. I’m starting to just not take them seriously.Show lessshaetoday
Meal plans impractical
Just downloaded this today and got a premium subscription for 3 mos. Haven’t been able to do much but most of the features seem nice! I like that it tells you how good certain foods or meals are for you and tracks how “on track” you are. It puts it a step ahead of most other trackers I’ve seen.
A feature I was really excited for with the subscription but disappointed by is the meal plan. It seems to be a new feature so I don’t want to give up on it yet, but there are almost no customization options, as far as I can tell, of how many unique meals you want per week, changing measuring units (what does a “standard serving” of blueberries or chicken constitute as?), or how many servings you want of each meal. Right now it just offers you 4 unique meals every day and expects you to wrap your head around purchasing ingredients, prepping, cooking and storing 28 unique meals every single week.
I like to keep things simple. I eat 1 kind of lunch and alternate between 2 different dinners all week. I also skip breakfast, which would be a nice thing to have as an option for meal planning. My boyfriend and I live together and like to cook and eat together. His calorie need is greater than mine, so being able to add 2 extra servings of a dinner to a grocery list would take a lot of the headache out of figuring out what we need to get. For now, I think I’ll stick with adapting recipes from other plans and coming up with my own meal plans.Show lessstuphunuu
Developer Response
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on our app! The meal plans are designed to be a kick-starter to your diet and are supposed to last a short period of time. It is possible to swap meals throughout the week in order to eat the same meal each day, so there are small adaptations possible. Thanks again for your feedback and good luck with your goal!New user- Edited
I just started using this app, trying to really kick off my dieting. I like organization when I diet and i just wish you could more closely edit your planner from day to day. How it is set up now- you have to scroll through all of the days and once you finish one day you have to scroll alllllll the way back down to the next day. Also, not sure if it’s just a diet they are trying to promote, but no matter what answers I choose when taking the quiz I always get the Keto Burn. I don’t necessarily have a problem with this diet, I just would like to see what other diets I could choose from that would also be recommended. If I am just overlooking how to do this please let me know! Other than these two things I am very impressed with the app and how affordable it is!
I have decided to edit my review because after using the app for a couple weeks now I am no longer able to edit my “planner” or my “shopping cart” which is really disappointing because those were the biggest reasons for choosing this dieting app compared to others. I am a working student so I need the organization but I guess with the most recent update they decided to get rid of those features that I loved so much. I am going to cancel my subscription and attempt to get a refund. Back to traditional dieting I go. :(Show lessdrahonslaya
The only health app I’ve stuck with
I’ve tried lots of different apps to help me along my fitness journey and this is the only app I have been able and have wanted to stick with. It’s awesome when you track your food and are able to see a rating beside what you’ve had. Also, it’s very easy to track your exercise. As of recently, I have purchased an Apple Watch and it makes it even easier because it just takes the activity information from my watch and coverts it into the app. There is also a cool weight tracker you can use to count towards your weight goals. Tracking water intake is also nice and the app even gives you tips and encouraging words to reach your water, calories per meal, and exercise goals. I thought every app like this was the same and they all seemed so hard to figure out. Lifesum is short, sweet, and simple and I give the creators and developers of this app major props because usually I get bored within this category of apps, but this one has kept me focused and excited to use it. Thank you, Lifesum!Show lesstgk2669
My perfect health app!
So far I have been using this app for about two weeks, and it’s actually very impressive. I am coming from Samsung Health, which has helped me a lot over the past year and a half. However, after comparing the two, this app has so much more versatility and it’s very acute regardless of which diet you choose. I decided that I was going to go with the diet plan Clean Eating, and in doing so realized how off course my diet was. More specifically, my sugar addiction problem. I have been working on improving my cooking and reducing my sugar consumption so that I can live a much healthier life. With everything that is offered, I definitely believe that this app is worth paying for.
The area I feel needs improving is relatively insignificant, but when you try to tap the back button the space that you’re supposed to tap is actually slightly beneath where it shows on the UI. I would like to see that fixed, but aside from that everything is awesome! I still haven’t explored the whole thing yet, but for what I have it works very well for me.Show lessEvilmititis
So elegant and visually appealing
What a gorgeous app- that alone makes me want to open it and track. I love that it there's a water tracker, daily fruit and vegetable and weekly seafood tracker and that they give you a life score with details on what to improve each week. Sure, a few glitches like not currently syncing with Health app (I open both then close both and open once more then it tracks), and the recipes and sometimes the database doesn't have the exact food but does have something comparable, just takes a smidgen more work. The beta camera isn't the greatest if you have a deep dish as opposed to a plate but it sure is handy and easy enough to adjust. And there's not many recipes, but the ones available are easy to follow and pleasant to eat, plus how often does one follow a recipe to a T? I've tried other tracking apps (looking at you MFP) and all the ads and monotone color scheme make them too unidimensional- this is beautiful, too beautiful not to use. And the step counter that equates steps to what you burn makes me just competitive enough with myself to make me want to walk even more (I burned 1.5 croissants?!? Bet I can burn 2!). I'd like to buy the app developers a beer. Then go walk said beer off. I saw a couple of review that say the app is rigid in terms of certain foods like sunflowers, and though I appreciate the sentiment, I am using the app for weight loss and do indeed want to know if a food is high in caloric content.Show lessCrmnvds
Developer Response
Thank you very very much for your detailed feedback! We are glad to hear that you like Lifesum! The verified foods are from several food databases: the USDA, food items from Livsmedelsverket in Sweden, from the UK Food Standards Agency and the BLS from Germany. Parts of the food database is created by our users. These food items can, unfortunately contain wrong nutrition values. But it is now possible for users to edit those or add missing values. In order to edit food, please click on the item in question and then on "Edit Food". Please, find more information here: https://lifesum.helpshift.com/a/lifesum---healthier-eating-better-living/?s=food-exercise-tracking&f=can-i-also-edit-correct-items-created-by-other-users Verified items can not be edited by users but can be reported directly through the app. In addition you can, of course, always create your own food / meals / recipes under Me / Favorites. We will, of course, constantly clean the database from our side as well.Very Good, But Could Be Better
I’ve been using this app for a few weeks now, and have to say, the features this app sets out to do, it does very well. The recipes are great, being able to track your meals/diet/and even overall health is very impressive. The only place I would suggest change is, like many have said, the notifications. Unlike most of the other “suggestive criticisms,” though, my chief complaint/wish is that there are never any “night shift mode” capabilities in health tracking. Many of us in healthcare like me and hundreds of other careers have had to switch their lives nocturnal. 24-hour gyms and grocery stores have helped, but there is still so much room for improvement! If there were just a way to tell the apps to switch from breakfast/lunch/dinner at 8-ish, 12-ish, and 6-ish to those equivalents during the night! Or for activity and sleep to be better tracked at the opposite “normal” time! Granted this isn’t something Lifesum offers at all, but this is such a missed opportunity from health apps!Show lessshelbyfayy
I’m FINALLY making progress with my weight loss
I really like this app, it might sound silly but I think part of why it really works for me is how good the app looks, and it’s much simpler (in my opinion) than my fitness pal. I’ve read that the database isn’t as big as MFP but I haven’t run into any problems with being able to track my food or scan barcodes. When I first started using the app I lost 8 pounds in the first few weeks, so I’m finally under 160lbs! I haven’t been very consistent recently but I’ve just picked it back up again tracking calories and staying under my daily goal. I also love how simple it is to track macros. Overall, I’ve been wanting to lose weight for YEARS and stop gaining 10lbs/year on average and this is the FIRST tool I’ve found that has actually helped me make progress. Only negative I have is the meals on the different plans can’t be changed so I can’t really do them because I’m allergic to shellfish (I could probably just substitute though LOL)Show lessOhmyjeasuus
Pretty, but all the features require premium upgrade
So far I like the layout and the user friendly nature of this app. It’s easy to use and it has a nice aesthetic. The versatility of this app separates it from other fitness apps.
However I wish it was more clear on which features come with the free version and which features are premium. I understand that the developer is trying to encourage people to upgrade (the price seems reasonable) but I’ve realized that almost all of the features listed in the description are premium features. I wish I had been told upfront what I can do in the free version rather than having a popup telling me I’ve encountered a premium feature as I’m touring the app.
As many of the highlights of the app are premium features (barcode scanning, almost all the diet plans, the custom recipes, etc) the app does nothing beyond track calories in its free version and I have no way of knowing if the extra features are worth the money (and reading some of the reviews convince me that the extra features don’t run as well as I would like for a paid service). I’ll stick to my fitness pal.Show lessStaerskye
