Oli vs MyFitnessPal: cycle-aware nutrition vs generic calorie tracking
MyFitnessPal counts calories. Oli counts calories AND adjusts them to your menstrual cycle. A side-by-side comparison for women tracking their period.
What MyFitnessPal does well
MyFitnessPal has one of the largest food databases in the world, with over six million entries. It's fast to log, widely integrated, and genuinely useful for anyone who needs to count calories. The barcode scanner is excellent. The community recipes database is deep. For straightforward calorie counting, it's a mature, reliable tool.
If you're a man, or a woman who doesn't track her cycle, MyFitnessPal covers the basics well. The problem starts when you are a woman who notices that her hunger, energy, and calorie needs change across her cycle, because MyFitnessPal has no concept that this happens.
What it misses
Your calorie target on day 1 of your period is identical to your calorie target on day 14, even though your basal metabolic rate, hunger hormones, and nutrient needs are measurably different. MyFitnessPal gives you one static number and expects you to hit it regardless of where you are in your cycle.
It doesn't read menstrual cycle data from Apple Health, so the target it hands you on day 2 of your period is the target it hands you on day 20. Research on the luteal phase describes resting metabolic rate rising by roughly 100 to 300 kcal a day, and a flat tracker can only read the extra hunger that comes with it as you going over. For women tracking around a cycle, it's a tool built for someone else.
Feature comparison
A calorie tracker that actually knows your cycle
Your phase, your targets, adjusted automatically every day via Apple Health.
iOS · Free to try · No card required