Atkins® Carb & Meal Tracker Reviews

by Laineybee

I can’t tell you how much I dislike Atkins since the reboot. First, I have been trying for at least an hour to enter a custom food. That food has 0.0 grams of carbs and 16.0 grams of fat. I entered all the info about carbs, fat, fiber, protein, and sugar and created a new food. Guess how many carbs Atkins shows for one serving (one tablespoon) of the food? Sixteen! I deleted and reentered the food and got the same thing. It took me a while to realize Atkins is using fat grams for carb grams. I could just put in another food with no carbs, but then my macros will be off. I have also seen, as I was looking for other foods, some foods that show zero carbs that are definitely not zero carb foods. Some newbies may be sabotaged by those entries, and if these are off, some foods that don’t have carbs may list some or list carb counts inaccurately. I had used the old app since it was introduced, but I was optimistic about the update. Silly me! I am now looking for a different app. I no longer have confidence in Atkins.

by Beccaboo6132

I have been doing this app for going on 2 years (although I have done it in the past with success). Atkins update has seriously lost all functionality. Most of the items I scan can’t be found (including this app branded items). When I search by item name, it brings up hundreds of results that are sorted in no particular order (definitely not by closest match), and adding more search terms doesn’t narrow the search, it brings up even more results.

I miraculously was able to locate a low carb brand bar, but I had only eaten half of it so I changed the serving size to half, yet it still counted all of the carbs for a full serving toward my goal.

Atkins LOOKS good, I guess, but what is the point of having a sleek interface if it is so difficult to use. I have gotten so frustrated trying to track that I stopped using it altogether for a while, hoping whatever glitchy design this is would be updated and fixed by the time I came back. Unfortunately, no.

this app in general has been literally life changing for me. I had health problems, chronic pain, and of course was overweight, but this lifestyle has changed all of that. Part of the reason it was so easy to follow was that there were tools for success. Atkins was one of those tools, and I sincerely hope that it is fixed so we can all go back to easy tracking!

by Jake_-_-_-a_-__nator

I lost over 100 pounds over the last two years and this app was a big part of it. Using the this app carb counter app was incredibly helpful. It was one of the main reasons I was able to stay on the diet and do so well. I literally added hundreds of foods and products to the Atkins to facilitate my using it. The new revision to Atkins has made it completely useless. All of my two years of history of added products and food are gone. The scan function simply does not work properly. It pulls up a list of items for a given barcode, none of which match the actual product with the barcode. Finally, when you choose a food two included in your meal that day, it pulls up so many different entries for that food and does not list a quantity or a description next to them. You literally have to scroll through numerous entries to attempt to find what you were looking for an inner the right food with the right quantity. this app, you have done your company and your customers a great disservice by revising Atkins in the way you did. Fix it or give us back the old app please!

by Cathy3cockers

well... i guess it’s better than nothing. they got the intuitive part close anyway...a) in the process of figuring it out i input the same item several times so it comes up several times when i do a search. silly me. b) it’s cumbersome to input data, the foods you scan in do not match what comes up in the list ( ex. the label on the pkg says xx calories & Atkins item has a different calorie count), & there’s no way to change it. c) trying to type in your food item gives you “not found” unless you happen to input what its “intuiting.” d) it’s difficult to “revise”; the only way to do that is to delete the item & start over - if you dont delete it or add it, you’re stuck on that “page.” you get to guess how to get to the “revise” page. e) there doesnt appear to be any order to the food list when it comes up thereby necessitating scrolling thru everything. f) the clincher for me was paying the price,then spending more time than i wanted figuring it out! there were NO instructions or guidelines!

i dont usually write reviews but this one bothers me enough to do it. i apologize for the length of it & hope it will be helpful.

to the developer: could you fix these problems pls? i think the concept is good & in the end would be very useful but as is, is frustrating. many thanks.

by Motmot99

Looks like they took a perfectly good app and even though it looks pretty slick, it is basically useless now. First of all, when you search for an item, there are sometimes hundreds of items that show up on the list but there are no units of measure listed so you have to click on a lot of entries to find what you want. Even if you search using a brand name it often doesn’t show up. Then there are no increments in which to adjust your food amount. If you only use 1/4 of an avocado you can’t do it anymore. Previously if you scanned in a barcode for an unlisted food there was an option to add that to your list. That is now gone. I really was looking forward to using Atkins but so far have not been able to even log a full day’s use since it is so very time consuming to search for everything I use to make a meal and not be able to find half of it. This is so disappointing. I hope at least some of the problems with this new app can be corrected.

by Revrobdav

I had been using Atkins for about 2 to 2 and 1/2 months. I would have given Atkins a solid 4, it did what I needed and helped me track to the point I had lost 18lbs. Then it quit. Could not log in to Atkins for 10 or so days due to apparently a big new update. Annoying, but ok.

After I finally regained access, all weigh ins, all food logs…everything - gone. My beginning weight is the only thing that carried over. The UI looks nicer, but stops there. Scanning the barcode on food rarely pulls up the item (in truth it wasn’t really proficient before the update either), gone is the graph showing your progress in weight loss, and it just isn’t good.

I’ve switched to Carb Manager (it’s not perfect but it’s significantly better) and am still dropping the pounds through this app eating. It’s unfortunate that an app for a company this successful has taken such a turn to be such a poor representation for what this eating lifestyle has to offer.

by Jacy65

I’ve been using Atkins faithfully since January and have lost 40 pounds. Since the update, ALL of my saved information has completely vanished; all of my favorites are gone, all of my custom recipes are gone, all of my recent food items are gone. Further, when I go to log in my food, I am unable to put in fractional servings (ex. I only had 2 oz. of milk this morning which is a quarter of a serving, not a whole serving). I also found that in spite of logging in certain foods that I know have calories, the calorie count is not increasing at all (ex. breakfast total was 219 calories this morning, then I added a serving of butter but the calorie count remained at 219 - how is this possible??). I relied quite heavily on Atkins for my progress and success on this program over the last several months and now I can’t trust that any of the info is correct. This latest update is horrible and I’m absolutely frustrated! Please fix this!

by Denise-S

I like the fact that Atkins tracks net carb. However, I don’t like the process to add a food. You have to type the entire name of the food and you will see a message that there are no foods if there is a typo. It should be if you start typing a word, then options should start popping up as you type. Also, the database is limited in foods and when you need to delete a food, you have to go into the food, then delete it, why not swipe left and delete pops up. Once you find the food and want to add it, you only have one option such as tbls or cup... more options should be under each food such as oz, tbls, cup... so you can choose the measurement to use. Lastly, I keep getting an error if I try to click favorites, my favorites are gone, the error keeps popping up even as entering a food name.

by SkyeCat108

I LOVED Atkins in the old version. I preferred it to other tracking apps and regularly recommended it to others. Since the update, I find it difficult to use and don’t even want to track anymore because it’s so cumbersome. The old version remembered the servings of my favorite foods. I eat eggs for breakfast. Every day I could track eggs, and it would automatically remember the last serving size I tracked. Now I have to change the default (cups - who measures eggs in cups?!) to ounces or egg size and pick the number. Every. Single. Time. Same thing with cream for my coffee. Foods are hard to find in search. And when adding a custom food it changes the amount of net carbs after you enter them to equal fat. I do appreciate the addition of the history. I am however still not sure how to change or set a goal weight. The goal weight is still in there from when I entered it before the new release, but I don’t know how to edit it. So so disappointed. I really liked this tracker. I hope y’all can further improve it.

by DAB890

I seriously hope Atkins developers read this and all of the other pleas below. I used Atkins for 3 years and lost 60 lbs with diet and exercise…this new “upgrade” has so many bugs and is horrific. You can’t access the favorites that have been saved over the years, which is one of the reasons I preferred Atkins, I could track 3 years of progress and food faves. Now, everytime I click on “track meal”, Atkins literally closes. I have deleted and re downloaded and it still won’t work. This is POINTLESS if I can’t even track anything. And even if I could, the servings are messed up and so are my settings. My settings say I am expected to consume -4 carbs per day??
I am so sad and disheartened and really really hope this is fixed. I would really prefer if things went back to the way they used to be, even if they aren’t as modern looking etc. Atkins is rendered unusable. 😞

by I Am The Real Lacey

Before switching to this app 40 and using Atkins, I used Cronometer. It gives you more information than just net carbs when you pull up a food, it gives you protein and fat and the option to see full nutrition information. I think this would be beneficial on the this app app as well. Also, would help to show net carbs, fats and protein for each meal and snack at the bottom of each section and not just accumulated for the whole day as you enter. this app website shows you where they want you to be in terms of numbers for the day, app just fills in the circle and gives you the number you have consumed and I have to go back to the website to see what the range is . Both would help you learn how to plan each meal better. I suggest taking at look at Cronometer this app. Your app is good, but you could make it great.

by GettingSkinnyInSTL

Atkins is really hit or miss. It has some very usable features and it really lacks functionality in other areas. It’s great to be able to track a day’s intake, it’s a pain not having the ability to copy a previous day’s meal or create multi-item meals. It takes several minutes to look up every food being tracked, versus copying a previous meal or creating a bulk meal of you eat the same thing frequently. It’s great having a database of existing foods to source from, it’s frustrating that the items aren’t always accurate (not the developer’s fault but nonetheless a pain). The recipes are slick and may be my favorite feature, however it doesn’t adjust the recipe steps based on servings selected - the ingredients do adjust but any callouts in the recipe steps don't.

I could keep it or leave and it’s better than other apps but what’s frustrating about it is really frustrating and isn’t necessarily negated by the positive features.

by Drl621

I am in several online keto groups. I asked for recs for a good carb tracking app, and this one seem to be the most highly recommended. However, I have found it to be challenging to use. What I do not like about it is it’s very difficult to search for items in the this app database. If you try to type in a description, unless it’s 100% identical, it’s almost impossible to find what you’re looking for. Also, I do like that you can scan in an item, but I have scanned in many items that do not show up. And it’s very difficult to then try to find something comparable for some items. Also, I would like to adjust what my target carb/net carb goal is, but that does not appear to be adjustable. And I’ve wanted to write to customer service, but Atkins includes no way to contact anyone. I don’t know if there are other carb tracking apps that are better, but I only find this one to be adequate.

by CosmoEye

I like the scan feature, favorites and featured recipes but wish there was a way to add homemade recipes. Also when searching foods, the list populates with the worst chain restaurant meals and prepackaged foods. Wish it was more user friendly for those of us that cook from real ingredients. I made chicken stock last night using only foundational vegetables after poaching a chicken for chicken salad, etc. Now am making chicken soup with stock, zucchini slices & chicken. When I just type in chicken soup homemade I get 9 net carbs. I don’t know what that version is made with to get that. Apps like Lose It! Let you repeat meals and is much better for recording foods, minus the net carb feature. Maybe the developers want to take a look at it for ideas for updates to this one. I find Atkins really time consuming compared to others.

by JessCline

***Update***
So I love it now! They added back your weight loss graph and you can see your progress for a week, month and a year! I also love the custom foods being added back. Great update!
I am a little concerned about the carb count however. When I scan an this app meal ( Chicken Margarita) the BOX says 7 net carbs, Atkins states its 5 carbs. So, I thought ok, maybe it has gone down, however, there isn’t new packaging to reflect Atkins count. Just be cautious if your strict with your carb count.

This new update is no good. I loved how when I tracked my weight, I could see the progression on a chart. I also liked making my own recipes and putting in the information...can’t do that now. You can’t even add your own food,unless I’m missing it where to add it (which I’m pretty sure I’m not). Please update Atkins to bring back the chart and create your own foods/recipes. Also, instead of tracking steps, what about tracking work outs? Maybe a calendar where you can check it off your list? Water intake? Make a progression bar for that too. I love using Atkins for all my fitness and diet intake but it’s missing a lot.

by Maas25

I started this diet using Atkins religiously on May 10th. It is now August 29th and I'm down 44 pounds. I've had 6 full on cheat days but other than that, only one day did I go over my 42 net carbs. I will continue to be on this diet, err, more like stay in this lifestyle but..

but but but...

A couple days ago I went to log my breakfast and just opening Atkins it says page not found, followed by an add for sparkpeople... If I navigate away from the homepage it looks like Atkins always did. But.. when I try to search for food or anything it has an error message that says "the server with the specified hostname could not be found." Now I'm no app expert but I think you could say there's an issue that needs to be resolved.

I am not sure at this point if I'll even need Atkins because I know approximately how many carbs are in pretty much everything that I now eat. I am 1 pound from my goal weight that I never thought I'd see again. I really didn't think it would work.

I am planning on moving (slowly, over the course of 2 weeks) to the this app 100. Since Atkins doesn't work I'll just try to keep track on my head and avoid obvious high carb foods. I think I will be able to maintain this lifestyle without Atkins , but it wouldn't hurt to have it working again.

by Puzzlesolver8193

Great but favorite foods don’t work right, maybe I’m doing something wrong but there should be a feature to look up all foods you have favorited. When I search a word under favorite foods it says no search results are available. Weird the old app did that, and this makes it difficult to add the same foods every day. When if it worked it would make life simpler. The good is that this has a scan upc feature and is like a mobile version of the carb lookup book, and has much more than the book. Atkins also saves on writing and rewriting lists for keeping track of your carbs and calories and fats and proteins for the day, calculating and letting you figure out a plan of attack for doing the numbers and eating good.

Update: According to the developer Favorite foods will be returning. When? Well they said patience is appreciated, but it will return. I say this is glorious news!!!
I’m updating my stars to 5 for this news.

by JLCK_1983

I have always favored the this app app over other tracking apps but it seems with the new look update the add custom foods doesn’t work properly. Each time I fill in the info and hit add custom food it automatically changes the numbers I input to something completely different. It doesn’t change the name, only the number of net carbs. For instance I tried to add a cheese I couldn’t scan so I input all the nutrition info. The net carbs I entered is 1 but after I hit add custom food it changes to 10 net carbs. I tried it several times so I know it wasn’t me accidentally inputting 10. Hope it gets fixed soon because it is truly the best carb counting app out there!

by JoJoTv2

The meal tracking app and this app plan had been an excellent tool in achieving my health goals. It's very easy to use. I wish you could see calories per item and carbs instead of just the overall calories but I suppose calories are not the focus anyway.

I've been the plan for two months and am down 25 pounds. Inflammation greatly reduced, more energy, less gastrointestinal issues. The recipes are easy and this app produo are a welcome treat and alternative when I feel I need a little something. They have been part of why I've been successful. With this app as and education on Keto and Low carb eating my attitude towards food has transformed.

Low carb is now my lifestyle. There's no turning back. Life is balance Eat well... Lots of salad and veggies, enjoy protein with the fat in healthy portions, avoid sugary foods when possible this app treats can help!, exercise at least a little, drink water, replace electrolytes magnesium and potassium. You won't regret it!

by Nolaville3

Love Atkins , but... it is not easy to find the foods I want to add. One example is Marie’s chunky blue cheese dressing. The whole name will not find the item but ‘blue cheese’ gives a list that you have to go down, way down to find the item. Passing other Marie’s blue cheese dressing like the Light. No order whatsoever. Could they not be alphabetized or grouped in some meaningful way? It would be helpful remember what my last entry was and put that on top. Create a pattern. But that is not a deal breaker. Then there are exact items with different carb counts. The change/delete could be easier. Creating favorites to make my own list doesn’t seem to work the way I thought it would and alas, there are no instructions on creating and using a favorites list. That would really rectify the two earlier problems. Customizing a food to add is ok but we should be able to create a customized list from the existing list also.

by HurleyGirlie11

Atkins works fine for me, except I think there are ways to make it easier for the user. My suggestions - available on other apps like WeightWatchers - would be an option to:

- Create recipes from foods available on Atkins or previously entered so you can enter the serving rather than entering all the individual ingredients. This also means that when you next make that recipe, it’s available in your Favorites to select again.
- Once you enter a few items, it would be super nice if you can save those as a meal, so again, you don’t have to enter each of those items individually. For example, if you have coffee w/half & half and sugar free syrup each day, you could save that and call it “Morning Coffee” rather than searching all items separately every day.

by Longhunter57

Update
The custom foods are back. I still would like to see what fat and calories a food item has prior to adding it (or even after). The daily total is nice, but seeing how potential food choices would impact that was a great feature that has not (yet?) surfaced in the new app.
I gave up, and found another far more user friendly tracking app (shame, because I really liked the old one!)

The new app has a fresher look, and is simple to use. One thing missing from the old version is the ability to see the calories, protein, and fat (in addition to carbs) for individual food items before you “add” them. The current version only shows the totals. I know this app focuses on carbs, but watching how different food choices affected the “sliders” on the old one was a really good feature.

by ImMarilynMunster

So, I do love the recipe part. And that you can see your progress. The look is nice. And it’s free.
However, I don’t like the fact that when you enter a food item it does not give you the complete nutritional info (carbs, calories, fiber, fats, sugars, sugar alcohols). And some items only show in grams with no option to change it to oz or per serving or slice, etc. I also notice that on some items it’s not taking away carbs for sugar alcohols or fiber - only showing original carbs, which them messes with your daily net carbs. Also the “scan” item is not reliable and doesn’t always have what I’m scanning or shows incorrect info.
So I use it as a guideline. I wish it was as accurate as My Fitness Pal (which the only reason I don’t use for carb counting is that you have to pay to upgrade to the carb tracker, and I was hoping the Atkin’s app would be better for that.)
Also, the original version of Atkins used to show the different phases, gave acceptable food for each phase, and let you choose you phase. It also showed if the food you entered was acceptable for the phase you were in. Atkins no longer has that feature.
And I agree with the other review about adding a workout log, not just steps.

by Ladybug T

I had the Sleeve surgery last May. By following the this app program with Atkins, I have lost 130 lbs. Atkins counts my protein, carbs and fats and make me accountable by entering every morsel that passes my lips. I record even the poor choices I make. Atkins enforces mindful eating. You can also track your weight loss and measurements.
This is one of the easiest apps to use. Many items are already pre-loaded. It not only includes non-brand foods, it includes many brand names too. Many restaurants are included along with big-box items from stores such as Costco.