My-Calorie-Counter.Com - Comparative Review
The following is a paid review, however the statements made are based on my thoroughly going through the site and all it offers, in order to give the most accurate statements I can. There’s no telling if this will wind up positive or negative - but at the very least, I hope it helps you decide if you want to use it or not (if not, then maybe the site owners will get a clue!). Enjoy!
My Calorie Counter, at first glance, appears to be a sort of “wannabe SparkPeople”. I say it that way because the site, in my opinion, isn’t as visually stimulating or inviting as SP is. But allow me to delve more into things, page by page…
Home Page
Okay, so the first thing I see is a wide skyscraper ad on the left hand side. Hm. I’m really not liking that - not for a site that touts all this “free” access to stuff, but then crams ads in your face. Sure, I understand the need to show ads to help offset costs but this much on the home page just makes me thing that they’re only in it for the money. Lemme tell ya gang, weight loss ads don’t pay much. ;)
There’s a photo of a healthy looking woman hugging a scale. And a “get started” section where you plug in your height and weight, gender, and target weight and join the site for free. Below that are two testimonials, and talk about opting in to share your blog and read more about their specific weight lost.
Some site/user stats on the right hand side below the login section and then at the bottom a “What did you eat today?” search bar and below it… all fast food links?! What the heck is up with that? There’s also a “What activities did you do today?” search bar, with some relatively common kinds for quick searching.
The top menu takes us to the “Join For Free” page next. So I did.
After signing up, there’s a quick start guide with links on how to do different things. I skipped it because I’m pretty sure I can figure it out, but it’s a nice feature for people who are new to computers and online journaling.
The Journal
Okay, the first thing I noticed, that I really don’t like at ALL is the fact that the targets they gave me are so incredibly high! It looks completely uncalculated and generic:
Cal: 2000 (!!!)
Fat: 65g (!!!)
Carb: 300 (!!!)
Protien: 50 (that’s IT?)
Fiber: 25
That’s just absurd. I’m sorry. I was trying to look past the design of the site, the ads, all that - but those targets are COMPLETELY OFF. They seem standard, as if my current weight, age, height, and target weight weren’t even taken into consideration when calculating it. (If any of you sign up, please let me know your stats and what it gave you?)
I also noticed that now, once you’re signed in, if you try to go to the index page, it takes you straight to your journal page. I’m signing out so I can go back to the original menu and keep analyzing.
Next we hit a “What is…?” page - this discusses the site, and what it offers, and sounds remarkably like SP. NEXT!
Nutrition Facts Page
Okay, so this appears to be a you-don’t-have-to-be-a-member-to-see-it section. You can search, or start clicking on the alphabetized list. What’s first on the list? “100 GRAND - CANDY BAR - 1.5 OZ WRAPPER Nutrition Facts”
WHAT THE HELL!?
Okay, if you’re going to make a searchable database, and just list everything out, why would you not keep the candy and fast food searchable only? I don’t understand this logic. First they ask me if I’ve eaten any fast food today, and then they tell me I can have up to 2000 calories, and then they tell me to eat candy bars.
*sigh*
The “Calories Burned” database is better, of course. But I don’t know how you can burn calories doing things that you shouldn’t do to burn calories. Short of smoking crack or something. I dunno.
Ahhhh - I went to search, and was asked to log in. So now they’re misleading you - you have to join to use it. Thank god it’s free, eh?
Login. Search. Yes, sex counts as a calorie burning activity.
But what’s this?
Search Results
1 - 4 of 4 for sex [0.0313 seconds]
Click an entry to add it to your journal.
* se*ual activity - active, vigorous effort
* se*ual activity - general, moderate effort
* se*ual activity - passive, light effort, kissing, hugging
* NATURE MADE - RE KINDLE FOR WOMEN - ENHANCES SE*UAL DESIRE SATISFACTION & ENJOYMENT 90 CT BOX
(asterisks added by me)
Ahh, nutritional information (which when clicked through shows zeroes for everything) for se* pills.
Mmhm.
Okay, I’m not going to drag this out any further. I just found a “premium” section. You can’t do the following on a free membership:
Create custom entries (foods, meals, activities)
View daily food nutrient totals from journal
Update your daily nutrient targets (!!!)
So if you don’t pay, you’re stuck with 2000 calories and all the above.
Bottom line? Go to SparkPeople, and here’s why:
- SP is TRULY 100% free, no premium membership required to get true, targeted results.
- SP has a HUGE community. MCC one has less than a dozen possible forums, and not a single one has more than 1500 posts. (And that’s only the “introduce yourself” forum.)
- MCC is ugly. Too many ads (Oh look! Diet pills!) and no “pop!”
- MCC doesn’t do anything to discourage you from eating fast food and candy. They’re practically encouraging it. “Mmm… Wendy’s… FROSTIES!!” That makes me just ill.
- MCC has no articles from what I could find, no incentives (like SparkPoints) to track your stuff regularly, or do anything.
I could probably list a lot more, but I feel bad for them. Hopefully they’ll read this review and do something about their site… Sorry, MCC - 5 Thumbs DOWN!
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I tried it, and it gave me 2000 calories too! I’m around 130 pounds, hoping to lose 5. I’ll never get there at that rate! Woah, 20 grams of saturated fat per day? Sodium is 2400? If I click on the Target link, it takes me to a page where I can edit these numbers, but that defeats the purpose of the site, doesn’t it? How does the average person know how many calories they should consume off the top of their head? Also there’s a note that the default values are based on the FDA DRV Targets, except for the 50g of sugar (clicking this link will just send you to a google search for “recommended daily sugar intake” - HA!).
Hi Lara! Thanks for visiting my blog! I did a review for My Calorie Counter too. I wish I had read yours first and found SparkPeople - I had no idea SparkPeople was just like it, only free! I spent $5 to sign up for the month w/ MCC and I really only used it for a week. I just keep forgetting to go back! Oh well.
Hi Julie! Thanks for stopping by!
Drop MCC and get over to SP, chica! It’s not even just like MCC, it’s 10,000 times better!!! :)
I have to watch my sugar intake, so my-calorie-counter is the way to go for me. I couldn’t find sugar on SparkPeople, could you guys? If you did, please let me know. I went through the whole setup and could not find where I could add this to my journal. I like to watch all nutrients, not just a few. I went ahead and paid the $99 Lifetime membership for my-calorie-counter and I’m able to enter my correct calorie and nutrient targets. I think their defaults are from the FDA, which is on the back of the food labels, too, so I don’t think they pulled 2000 of their a$$ or anything. You either have the discipline to keep going back (whether you are on myfooddiary, sparkpeople or my-calorie-counter), and if you don’t have the discipline, there’s no point in getting on any of these websites. I looked at myfooddiary but I didn’t want to pay the 9 bucks to even try it out. The support and forums on my-calorie-counter are better than any I’ve seen.
By the way, SparkPeople has Hershey’s chocolate bars in their listing, and McDonald’s! You just have to go through 20 minutes of signing up to finally find it. Way too long.
To each his own, I guess.
Hi Kailey, thanks for your comment!
You can track almost anything on SparkPeople - It bothers me that you spent that much money for something that I’m sure won’t give you as much as SP will. I’ve used DOZENS of online food diaries and trackers… SP is by far the most comprehensive.
(I copied the tracker to an email to Kailey - I’ll post screenshots soon)
you can add as many things as you want… i’m not sure where you got the idea you couldn’t.
and the support and forums on sparkpeople are phenomenal… did you give them an honest try?
i’m sorry - i just don’t see the value in spending $99 (especially when you refused another site that was 1/10th that, and now you’re refusing SP, which is now and always will be FREE)
you’re right, to each her own… but i seriously have an aversion to poorly designed websites (i want to go someplace that makes me want to be there, visually stimulates me, you know?) and a major issue when the first bunch of things listed is candy bars.
and yes, i know that you can track those on sparkpeople. any good counter site would have that info - we’re human. but it’s not designed to encourage you to eat that stuff, like MCC is.
i don’t know - i’m a web designer and internet marketing person by trade - i own the company. i wouldn’t dream of building something so amateurish and visually un-appealing… much less make it default to fast food and candy bars for people who are trying to lose weight.
the bottom line? i’ve seen sites like MCC come and go. they throw up this crap, charge a mint, and then fold up, and start all over again with some new hairbrained scheme.
personally, i think SP is going to blow even WWonline out of the water soon enough. and i was a paying member of that for almost 8 years, until I found SP.
anyway, thanks again for your comment… best of luck whatever you choose to do!
~ Lara
Actually, I’ve had trouble finding “sugar” in SP’s tracker as well. I see “sucrose” and “glucose” and maybe “fructose” but not plain old regular sugar. Do a search on it in the discussions and there’s a couple threads explaining why they believe tracking overall sugar is a bad idea. I see their point (if they gave you a recommended range of daily sugar intake, you might restrict eating fruit, even though fruit is very good for you with the fiber and the vitamins and everything) but I still would like to track it anyway. Besides, even if I added fructose and glucose and all those things to the tracker, how would it know how much of those I consumed…since I have never seen sugar separated out this way on food labels. Anyway, just my $0.02 (or more like $2.00 :-)
-Kirsten
Hi Lara,
I saw the millions of other nutrients and vitamins that you can add on SP (pretty cool!), but I just want plain old simple sugar. Maybe I’ll give them another chance someday if they add that. It’s really important that I watch my sugar intake since diabetes runs in my family. Thanks for forwarding all of the helpful info from SP. I realize that it’s free, but I need simplicity and once you find simplicity, it’s hard to switch to something else. I could have spent $99 in 11 months with myfooddiary, or I could have gone with $2.92 per month with my-calorie-counter if I purchased the 12 month membership ($35), but I decided to go for the Lifetime with MCC. I wanted to make sure that they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so I called the 800 # and the owner answered, so I got a lot of questions answered. It seems a little more personable than big huge SparkPeople. I wonder if you can talk to the owner when you call their 800# at 9:00 at night? Lara, do you know?
I have to agree with Kailey. I have to track my sugar intake and that’s not listed on SP. They don’t even have a place to enter sugar totals from the nutrition labels of foods or drinks when you do a custom entry. Of the “75 Nutrients” they track - sugar is not one of them. I can’t say that SP is a good choice for people tracking sugar intakes because of diabetes or steroid therapy. It’s pretty and for the casual dieter probably great but for those with medical problems it simply doesn’t track all the proper things.
I found another calorie counter at http://www.myfitnesspal.com which I like better than either MCC or SP. SP has a lot of other features, but for just a pure calorie counter, myfitnesspal’s was the best. Simple and easy to use, and you can track sugar and almost anything else you’d like.
Anyways, just thought I’d share it with you all.
I have been a member of MCC for six months now and I love it! The forums are great. Everyone is very helpful and supportive of each other. Yes, I feel that there are things that could be improved upon…but that is true for just about everything in life. I checked out SP and feel that it is too impersonal. Mycaloriecounter.com is not too flashy or fussy, it is just right for me!
I have to say that this whole review sounds a lot like an advertisement for SP to me.
Hate to break it to ya Cindy, but I’m not an advertising kind of gal here. I’m simply a huge fan of SparkPeople and have been since the first day I found it. In fact, MCC paid me to write this review. Not SP.
I really just didn’t like anything about MCC, especially the fact that when I had visited it, which mind you was over 6 months ago, the first thing in the dropdown list was a candy bar. That totally turned me off at first sight.
After that? The fact that it gave me very high, very generic calorie requirements.
The fact that you had to be a paying member to customize the way you can do on SP for absolutely free.
Cindy, I just don’t like MCC, and happen to like SP much better. Nothing more, nothing less. Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, especially me, and mine, here on my very own website. I’m sorry you don’t like it.
Wait, no, I’m not sorry.
I just wanted to mention that I think MCC has really improved their site recently. They’ve made everything (the customized daily caloric intake feature, adding items, viewing your daily totals) a part of their ‘free’ membership and have added personalize training as the nod to premium membership; which I’m not interested in. I certainly hope that they automatically gave that feature of the new website to old premium clients.
I’ve never used a dropdown menu on the website, I always go straight for ’search’, so I’m not familiar with the ‘candy-bars-first’ problem, but I can appreciate why that would turn you off. Keeping within a healthy weight is a lifetime thing, and so many people treat it as a 9-5 job that they hate. I do enjoy their website and have never visited spark people (although I’ll be checking it out tonight); my mom recommended it to me two years ago and I’ve had nice success with it. I hope others out there are having success no matter what they are doing or going to do it.