Favorite Four iPhone Apps for Sticking to a New Year's Diet

As we mentioned in our favourite four apps for keeping New Year resolutions, weight loss (as well as getting into and staying in good healthy shape) tops most people's list of desired self-improvements. Few other goals are harder to achieve, however. We don't have the secret formula, but we do have four iPhone apps that make getting into the right shape a lot easier. Hit the break for our favorite four apps to do just that.

CalorieKing Calorie Counter Simplicity is often the key to success in keeping resolve firm, and CalorieKing Calorie Counter is simplicity itself. An inviting GUI offers users a painless way to check calories, but also info on fats, sodium, cholesterol, even alcohol content for over 70,000 foods. The app contains listings for 260 fast food chains and popular restaurants and makes comparing choices and getting all the food 411 as easy as tapping.

Lose It! Long-time critical and user favorite, now with barcode scanning to get nutritional information on the fly along with more intuitive search functions that allow for brand names, Lose It! offers dieters a rich interface and vast array of features for a complete approach. Users set a calorie "budget" and use the app to spend it wisely. The calorically obsessed will appreciate have those burned by exercise accounted for too. LoseIT! accommodates custom recipes and has nutritional information. With a free account on Loseit.com extensive logs can be kept, badges earned, and the app incorporates social features to make the journey a bit more fun.

Calorie Counter: diets & activities Don't be fooled by the name, this app does a whole lot more than count calories - consumed or burned. To call it multi-purpose would be an understatement. It's a goal keeper, vitamin and mineral guide, body shape tracker, and can be used to create custom diets to suit a variety of dieters even those with special medical needs. The app has over 400,000 food items, is universal and syncs data across devices. It speaks Metric and Imperial, has the skinny on exercises, tracks important health data like mood or blood pressure changes over time, even incorporates photos of those on a fitness quest along with charts to visually track body changes not just units of energy. It calculates BMI and has a bar code scanner too. Not enough? The best feature is the live support. All the gadgets and apps still can't replace human encouragement; this app offers the best of all worlds.

Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal We've included this one in previous similarly-themed lists because it is one of the most inclusive and comprehensive in this category. As we've said before, MyFitnesspal is straightforward, has a vast database of calorie counts and other important nutritional information, and includes 350 exercises for both strength and cardio training. The app is social, feature-rich, as has a ton of serious information to benefit anyone from a health care worker to a dieter.