Best App for a Fasting Timer and Food Log in 2026 โ
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TL;DR - Best App for a Fasting Timer and Food Log 2026
- Default pick: NutriScan - the fasting timer is free, and the food log reads cooked and mixed meals from a photo
- Cheapest full combo: YAZIO - built-in fasting plans plus a proper calorie tracker, about $47.90 a year list, with a $23.90 12-month SKU live on the same store page
- Fasting-first habit builder: Fastic - free timer, free photo food scanner, with the Academy and challenges on Plus. Fastic publishes no annual price: its Plus SKUs run $12.99 to $79.99 on one listing and only two carry a duration
- Timer behind a paywall: MyFitnessPal (Premium) and Cronometer (Gold), even though both have excellent food logs
- Hidden trap: one small number quietly cancels a clean 16 hour fast, and no timer on this list can see it. Scroll to the reveal near the end
Which app should you actually open when the timer runs out? Everyone shops for the countdown clock. The thing that decides your result is the meal you log ninety seconds after it hits zero.
A 2025 network meta-analysis in The BMJ pooled 99 randomized clinical trials covering 6,582 adults and found that every intermittent fasting pattern reduced body weight compared with eating freely, and that most fasting styles worked about as well as plain daily calorie restriction (Semnani-Azad et al., 2025). As a NutriScan nutritionist, I read that as a quiet reminder. The fasting window is a structure. The food you eat when the window opens is what actually moves the number.
That is why a fasting app that only runs a timer is doing half the job. The apps worth your money in 2026 do both in one place: a real fasting timer and a food log that sit next to each other.
IMPORTANT
Your fasting app plan at a glance.
Covering 4 things so you can pick with confidence in about 6 minutes.
โฑ๏ธ Progress 0/4 - ~0 minutes in - Keep going
โณ The three jobs a fasting and tracking app must do
โณ Five apps ranked, timer by timer
โณ Pricing and what each free tier really gives you
๐ The one small number that quietly cancels a clean 16 hour fast (revealed near the end)
Below I compare the five apps people actually shortlist for this: NutriScan, YAZIO, Fastic, MyFitnessPal and Cronometer. I rank them by how well each does the job, not by how loud the marketing is. Prices are standard US prices as of mid 2026 and can change or vary by region, so check the store page before you pay.
Short answer: NutriScan runs the timer free and reads your real cooked meals from a photo. YAZIO is the cheapest app that does both competently. Fastic is the best pure fasting coach. MyFitnessPal and Cronometer have the better food databases but charge you for the timer.
What a Fasting Timer and Food Log App Must Do ๐ฏ โ
Hour 14 of a 16:8 fast. This is the part every app gets right. The next two hours are where they separate.
A combined fasting and tracking app has three jobs, and most apps are strong at one and weak at the others.
Job 1: run a real fasting timer you can schedule and edit. That means picking a protocol like 16:8, 18:6 or 20:4, starting and stopping on demand, seeing exactly where you are in the window, and editing the time when you started late. A timer bolted on with no protocol presets and no easy edits is a stopwatch, not a fasting tool.
Job 2: keep the timer and the food log in the same app. The whole point of tracking both is seeing your eating window and your meals side by side. If your timer lives in one app and your calories in another, you will eventually stop opening one of them. One screen, both numbers, is the feature that keeps people consistent.
Job 3: log food fast during the eating window. Time-restricted eating squeezes your meals into fewer hours, so logging has to be quick or it gets skipped. Photo scans, barcode scans, saved meals and copy-yesterday shortcuts all matter more here than in an all-day tracker, because you are logging in bursts.
Pro Tip
Before you pay for anything, run the free NutriScan Macro Calculator so you know the numbers your eating window has to hit. Choosing an app before you know your target is shopping without a list.
At a Glance: Five Apps, Five Answers ๐ โ
| Factor | NutriScan | YAZIO | Fastic | MyFitnessPal | Cronometer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fasting timer | Built in, 14:10 / 16:8 / 18:6 / 20:4 / custom | Built in, 16:8 / 5:2 / 6:1 | Built in, fasting first | Built in tracker, 12 / 14 / 16 h | Built in timer |
| Timer cost | Free | Tracker free, plan library on PRO | Free | Premium only | Gold only |
| Retroactive edits | Yes, within 7 days | Yes | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| Food log style | Photo scan, voice, manual | Manual, barcode, AI photo (photo on PRO) | Manual plus photo scanner (advanced scanner on Plus) | Manual, barcode, meal scan, voice (scan and voice on Premium) | Manual, barcode, photo, voice (photo and voice on Gold) |
| Cooked and mixed meals | Oil level and cooking method prompts | No oil or method prompt | No oil or method prompt | No oil or method prompt | No oil or method prompt |
| Database strength | Large, plus photo estimation | Good, recipe led, 4M+ items | Not published | One of the largest, 20M+ foods, heavily user-uploaded | 1M+ lab-analyzed or verified, plus community and branded feeds |
| Streaks and history | Weekly chart, streak, month log | Yes | Streaks free, Academy and challenges on Plus | Progress bars | Fasting correlations |
| Health sync | Apple Health and Google Fit | Yes, third-party devices on PRO | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Yearly price | ~$59.99 | ~$47.90 list | No annual price listed | ~$79.99 | ~$59.99 |
Two things jump out. The apps with the best food databases, MyFitnessPal and Cronometer, are the two that charge you for the clock. And the cheapest way to get both halves working is not the most famous name on the list.
IMPORTANT
Checkpoint: you know what to judge these apps on.
Quick status update so you always know the next best move.
โฑ๏ธ Progress 1/4 - ~1 minute in - Keep going
โ The three jobs a fasting app must do (done)
๐ Five apps ranked, timer by timer (you're here)
โณ Pricing and free tiers
๐งฉ The number that cancels a clean fast (coming soon)
1. NutriScan: Free Fasting Timer Plus a Photo Food Log ๐ฅ โ
I will be direct about why our own app leads this list, because the reason is specific and checkable. A free timer plus a photo food log is not unique here, Fastic ships both on its free tier too (Fastic on Google Play). What NutriScan adds is the confirm step: it is the only app here that pairs a free fasting timer with a photo log that makes you set the cooking method, 11 options, and the oil level, 4 levels, before it commits a number.
What NutriScan does well โ
The timer is free and flexible. Open the Fasting tab on Home, pick 14:10, 16:8, 18:6, 20:4 or a custom window anywhere from 1 to 23 hours, and you get a ring countdown with the exact time remaining. Start and end a fast manually, or let the smart suggestion nudge you. You can edit a start or end time retroactively for up to 7 days, which is the feature people need most, because real life makes you break a fast in the car and remember to log it that evening.
The timer follows you around the app. While a fast is active, a sticky bar sits on your Meals tab showing the time left. You can change your plan mid-fast. A weekly bar chart shows fasting hours for each day, a streak counts any day you hit at least 80% of your target, and the month history log marks each fast with a status icon.
The food log is built for the meal that breaks the fast. Photograph the plate, and NutriScan asks you to confirm two things a database cannot know: the cooking method, from a list of 11 including deep fried, air fried and stir fried, and the oil level, on a slider from No Oil to High Oil. For a curry, a rice bowl, a street food plate or a restaurant meal where no barcode exists, that flow is faster and more honest than hunting through search results. Voice logging and manual entry are there when your hands are busy.
Everything joins up. Fasting data flows into a dedicated Fasting tab in Insights, correlates with your NutriScore inside NutriBites, syncs sessions to Apple Health and Google Fit, and exports to CSV if you want your own copy.
NutriScan Limitations for Fasters
- The free plan caps meal scanning at 5 scans per week, which covers a proper test of the flow, not daily logging. See the subscription guide for the split.
- No fasting course library and no daily lesson drip. Fastic is genuinely better if you want to be taught.
- No large recipe catalogue like YAZIO's. NutriScan tells you what you ate, it does not hand you a menu.
- Micronutrient depth is good, not Cronometer-deep. If you want to audit up to 95 nutrients on Gold, or 84 on Cronometer's free tier, Cronometer wins (Cronometer Gold).
- Fasting rolls out through a remote flag, so if you do not see the tab yet, update the app.
Pick NutriScan if you want the timer free and your eating window is full of cooked, mixed or restaurant food. Skip it if you want fasting courses, a recipe library, or unlimited scans without paying.
2. YAZIO: Cheapest Combined Fasting Timer and Food Log ๐ฐ โ
YAZIO treats fasting and food tracking as one product rather than two features, and it is the cheapest app here that does both properly.
For the timer, YAZIO ships built-in fasting plans like 16:8, 5:2 and 6:1, with a clear countdown and easy edits when you start or break a fast off schedule (YAZIO). Read the gating carefully though: the free app carries a fasting tracker, but access to the full plan set, 16:8, 12:12, 5:2, 1:1 and the rest, is a PRO feature (YAZIO Pro). For the food log, you get a calorie and macro tracker, barcode scanning and AI photo tracking, with the photo path also on PRO, so the meal you eat when the window opens gets logged in the same place you watch the clock. Job 1 and Job 2, handled together, cleanly.
On price, YAZIO PRO lists at $47.90 a year, about $3.99 a month (App Store). Apple also shows a $11.90 YAZIO PRO tier sold as the monthly option, though the listing states no duration on it. Treat $47.90 as list rather than settled: YAZIO runs ten SKUs on the same page and a $23.90 12-month price is live there as of August 2026 (YAZIO Pricing 2026). YAZIO also publishes a 7-day PRO trial, offered occasionally and only through yazio.com, never in-app (YAZIO 7-day trial). PRO adds the full recipe catalogue, over 3,000 recipes, future meal planning and detailed nutrient breakdowns.
The caveat is depth. YAZIO's food database is good but not the biggest, YAZIO puts it at over 4 million items, a rare packaged product may be missing, and its coaching is lighter than a dedicated program. For most people fasting to lose weight, that trade is fine.
Pick YAZIO if you want one affordable app that does the fast and the food log equally well. Skip it if you need the largest possible database or hands-on coaching.
IMPORTANT
Checkpoint: midway through the app breakdown.
You are halfway, and the decisions get easier from here.
โฑ๏ธ Progress 2/4 - ~3 minutes in - Keep going
โ The three jobs a fasting app must do (done)
โ NutriScan and YAZIO reviewed (done)
๐ Fastic, MyFitnessPal and Cronometer (current)
โณ The number that cancels a clean fast (next)
3. Fastic: Best Fasting-First App for Habit Building ๐ฅ โ
Fastic builds everything around the fast, which makes it the natural pick if the timer is the main event and food logging is secondary.
The fasting experience is the strongest part. The free version already covers the core workflow: start a timer, track when you eat, log water and see where your body is in the window (Fastic Pricing 2026). A food and calorie tracker is included free, and so is the Fastic Food Scanner, which reads a meal from a photo, so you can log meals, snacks and drinks alongside the fast (Fastic on Google Play). The teaching layer people associate with Fastic, the in-house Academy and the daily and weekly challenges, sits on Plus, not on the free tier. Free gives you the timer and the streaks.
The catch is price and food depth. Fastic never publishes an annual price. Its App Store listing runs ten concurrent Fastic Plus SKUs from $12.99 to $79.99, and only two carry a duration, 1 month at $14.99 and 3 months at $27.99 (App Store). Take $79.99 as the ceiling of any single purchase, not as a year. On food, our read is that a fasting-first app lags a dedicated tracker on database depth, and Fastic publishes no database size either way. If you want serious macro detail, you will feel it.
Pick Fastic if fasting is your priority and you want a polished free timer, with the option to pay for the Academy and challenges. Skip it if you want the deepest food log or a price you can predict. Our Fastic alternatives roundup covers the closest swaps.
4. MyFitnessPal: Biggest Food Database, Timer Behind Premium ๐ฑ โ
MyFitnessPal is the mirror image of Fastic. The food log is the star, and the fasting timer is a newer paid add-on.
On food, MyFitnessPal is hard to beat for breadth and speed. It carries one of the largest databases in the category, over 20 million foods by MFP's own count (MyFitnessPal), fast barcode scanning, and saved and recent meals that make repeat logging quick, which matters when you eat in a tight window. The Intermittent Fasting Tracker lets you track fast duration in your diary with progress bars, choose 12, 14 or 16 hour patterns, and start or stop on demand right alongside meals and water (MyFitnessPal).
Two things hold it back for fasting specifically. First, that fasting tracker is a Premium feature, so the combined loop sits behind a paywall (MyFitnessPal Intermittent Fasting FAQ). Premium runs about $19.99 per month or $79.99 per year (MyFitnessPal Premium), with a 7-day free trial if you have never had one, and Premium+ sits above it at $99.99 a year. Second, much of the database is user uploaded, and a 2025 validation study in 43 endurance athletes found MyFitnessPal showed poor validity for total energy, carbohydrates, protein, cholesterol, sugar and fibre, while Cronometer showed good to excellent inter-rater reliability across all nutrients and good validity for everything except fibre and vitamins A and D (Morello et al., 2025). The paper traces MyFitnessPal's gaps to gender, energy, carbs and sugar driven by the women in the sample and protein by the men, not to user-uploaded entries. Blaming the crowd is our read, not the study's.
The Accuracy Problem With Crowdsourced Entries
A wrong calorie number quietly cancels a clean fast. If you use MyFitnessPal, prefer verified entries, and build your own custom entry once for the meals you repeat rather than picking a different stranger's version every day.
Pick MyFitnessPal if your food log matters more than your fast and you want one of the biggest databases going. Skip it if you want the timer for free, or database accuracy by default. Worth knowing before you install: the free tier has ads, and it also has no barcode scan, no meal scan and no voice log, all three are Premium.
5. Cronometer: Best for Linking Your Fasting Window to Nutrients ๐ฌ โ
Cronometer is the pick for people who want to see not just whether they fasted, but what fasting is doing to their nutrition.
Cronometer's Fasting Timer lets you track fasts and look for correlations with specific nutrients (Cronometer). Paired with its food log, that is a genuinely different angle: you can watch whether a shorter eating window is quietly dropping your protein, fibre or key minerals. The food data is the real strength here, up to 95 nutrients on Gold from a database Cronometer describes as over 1 million lab-analyzed or verified foods (Cronometer Gold). Read "or verified" literally: the same database also carries the CRDB community entries and branded barcode feeds from Nutritionix and USDA, so check the source tag on an entry before you trust it. Gold also ships Photo Log and Voice Log, so the photo path exists here too, it just does not ask you anything about oil or cooking method.
The limitation is that the Fasting Timer is a Gold feature. Gold is $4.99 per month billed annually at $59.99, or $10.99 per month if you pay monthly, and Cronometer publishes no consumer free trial, only the free Basic tier (Cronometer Gold). Basic gives you the food log, the barcode scanner, custom targets and 84 nutrients, but not the timer, and it caps reports and charts to a 7-day window. Cronometer is also more detail-heavy than a beginner wants, so it rewards people who like data.
Pick Cronometer if you want a trustworthy food log and want to see how fasting affects your nutrients. Skip it if you want a simple experience or a free fasting timer.
Real Fasters, Real Choices ๐ โ
The meal that opens the window. Every app on this list can time the fast. Only some of them can see the oil bottle.
Three composite examples from people I advise, with the pick I would make for each.
Ravi, 34, does 16:8 and eats home-cooked dinners. His window opens at 1pm and closes at 9pm, and almost everything he eats is a mixed dish his family cooked, with no barcode and no fixed recipe. NutriScan fits best: the timer is free, and the oil and cooking method prompts catch the part of a curry that a database entry silently guesses wrong.
Anna, 29, wants the cheapest app that does both. She eats mostly packaged food and simple recipes, and she is price-sensitive. YAZIO fits best at about $47.90 a year list, with a fasting tracker on the free app so she can trial the loop before paying at all. She should know the full plan library needs PRO, and that the $23.90 12-month SKU on the same store page is worth checking before she buys.
Tom, 41, keeps quitting in week three. He has started 16:8 four times and stopped each time. His problem is not data, it is habit. Fastic fits best: the free timer, the streaks and the photo scanner cost nothing, so he can rebuild the habit first, then decide whether the Academy and the challenges on Plus are worth buying.
If you want the two-app head to head rather than the full field, we break it down in YAZIO vs Fastic 2026 and in the YAZIO alternatives roundup.
IMPORTANT
Checkpoint: final stretch before the reveal.
One last nudge, the number that cancels a clean fast is next.
โฑ๏ธ Progress 3/4 - ~4 minutes in - Keep going
โ The three jobs a fasting app must do
โ All five apps reviewed
โ Real faster scenarios
โจ The small number that quietly cancels a clean 16 hour fast (about to reveal)
Pricing: What a Fasting Timer and Food Log Costs Per Year ๐ต โ
Figure 1: YAZIO PRO is the cheapest annual plan at $47.90 list, Cronometer Gold and NutriScan Premium tie at $59.99, and MyFitnessPal Premium is the most expensive at $79.99 (Cronometer Gold, MyFitnessPal Premium). Fastic is not plotted, because it publishes no annual price to plot.
Prices are standard US prices as of mid 2026 and change by region.
| Plan | NutriScan | YAZIO | Fastic | MyFitnessPal | Cronometer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | Yes | ~$11.90, no duration label | ~$14.99 | ~$19.99 | ~$10.99 |
| Yearly | ~$59.99 | ~$47.90 list, $23.90 SKU also live | None listed, SKUs $12.99 to $79.99 | ~$79.99 | ~$59.99 |
| Free trial | 7 days Premium | 7 days, yazio.com only | Trial marked on Fastic Plus, store-dependent | 7 days | None, free tier only |
| Fasting timer on free tier | Yes, full timer | Tracker yes, plan library on PRO | Yes | No, Premium | No, Gold |
| Food logging on free tier | Yes, 5 scans per week | Yes, basic | Yes, with photo scanner | Yes, with ads, no barcode, scan or voice | Yes, 84 nutrients, 7-day reports |
Three practical notes. First, the sticker price is not the real price, because what the free tier includes decides how long you can test before committing. Second, paying $79.99 for MyFitnessPal Premium buys you a fasting tracker that NutriScan and Fastic hand over for nothing, and that YAZIO gives you in stripped-down form. Third, YAZIO and Fastic both run several prices at once on the same store listing, so what you see may not be what someone else sees.
What the Research Says About Fasting Apps ๐ฌ โ
Figure 2: Among the three apps with a free timer, YAZIO wins on price and NutriScan wins on logging speed and cooked meal accuracy. Fastic trades food depth for the teaching layer it sells on Plus.
The evidence behind fasting apps rests on three findings, and they all point the same direction.
The window is a structure, not the result. In the 2025 BMJ network meta-analysis of 99 trials, all intermittent fasting patterns and plain daily calorie restriction reduced body weight compared with unrestricted eating, and most fasting styles performed similarly to each other (Semnani-Azad et al., 2025). The specific protocol matters less than sticking to it and eating sensibly inside it.
Consistency beats power. Self-monitoring adherence, meaning how consistently you keep logging your diet, activity and weight, is consistently associated with greater odds of hitting 5% weight loss (Burke et al., 2025). Digital programs also tend to lose their edge past about six months, mostly because people disengage (Pujia et al., 2025). An app that stays easy beats an app that is powerful but tiring.
The number has to be real. If the database is unreliable, your logged calories will not match your intake, which is what the 2025 athlete validation study found for MyFitnessPal across six measures, against good validity for Cronometer on all but fibre and vitamins A and D (Morello et al., 2025). Portions are the other half. A 2025 evaluation of ChatGPT's nutrient estimates from meal photographs found it underestimated meal weight in 76% of photos (O'Hara et al., 2025). That paper tested an AI reading a photo unassisted; our claim, not the paper's, is that asking the user to confirm the portion is what closes the gap.
Research Caveat
No study has compared these five apps head to head on fasting outcomes. The research supports the categories, meaning consistent self-monitoring, verified food data and confirmed portions. It does not support any brand claim, including ours.
How to Choose Your Fasting App in 5 Steps ๐งญ โ
- Decide what leads, the fast or the food. Countdown first, look at Fastic or NutriScan. Food numbers first, look at Cronometer or MyFitnessPal. Both weighted equally, look at NutriScan or YAZIO.
- Check whether the timer is free. NutriScan and Fastic give you a timer without paying, and YAZIO gives you a tracker free with the plan library on PRO. On MyFitnessPal it needs Premium, on Cronometer it needs Gold.
- Log your eating window for one week. Seven days, every meal. If it feels slow by day three, the app is wrong for you no matter how good it looks, because adherence is the active ingredient.
- Test your ten most common meals. Packaged food favours a big database. Cooked and mixed dishes favour photo logging with an oil and portion prompt.
- Price the plan against what you will really use. Do not pay for courses or recipe libraries you will not open, and re-check your targets about monthly so a fading program gets a refresh instead of a quiet abandonment.
The Number That Quietly Cancels a Clean 16 Hour Fast ๐งฉ โ
Here it is: one tablespoon of cooking oil is roughly 120 calories (USDA FoodData Central), and it is invisible.
A home-cooked curry, a stir fry or a dal tempered at the end routinely carries two or three tablespoons across the pan. Nobody logs them, because nobody sees them. The plate looks like chicken, vegetables and rice, so that is what gets logged. The 240 to 360 calories of oil that made it taste good never enters the app.
Now do the arithmetic on a 16:8 fast. A careful eating window might sit at a 400 calorie daily deficit. One under-logged dinner with three unseen tablespoons of oil, about 360 calories, nearly erases it, and a second one puts you in a clear surplus. You did the hard part, you held the window for sixteen hours, and the number on the scale did not move. So you conclude fasting does not work for you, when what actually happened is that a spoon beat a clock.
Portion size is the same problem with a different shape. When researchers put 114 meal photographs in front of ChatGPT in 2025, it underestimated the weight of the meal in 76% of them (O'Hara et al., 2025). Our own view, which that study did not test, is that the fix is a prompt asking you to confirm the portion. No fasting timer on this list can see either variable. A timer measures hours. Oil and portions are grams.
What to actually do about it:
Photograph the plate before you eat and confirm two fields: how it was cooked, and how much oil went in. In NutriScan that is the Meal Scan flow: Home > Camera Icon > Click Picture > Crop Picture, then set cooking method from 11 options and drag the oil slider from No Oil to High Oil. It takes about fifteen seconds.
Photograph the plate โก๏ธ confirm cooking method โก๏ธ set the oil level โก๏ธ log it and reopen your window tomorrow with a real number.
Do it for two weeks and you learn your own systematic error, which is the actual prize. You find out you were logging your dinner 250 calories light every single day. After that, even a rough log is honest, and any timer you like will finally line up with the scale.
Why This Closes the Loop
The fast controls when you eat. The oil and portion prompt controls whether the number you logged is true. You need both, and the second one is the half almost everyone skips.
The window opens, the meal gets logged honestly, and the fast finally does what you hoped it would.
App Screenshots: Fasting Timer and Meal Log in One Place ๐ธ โ
NutriScan Home. The Fasting tab sits in the top tabs next to Overview and Club, so the timer and your meals live one tap apart. Path: Home > Top Tab "Fasting".
Meal Scan. Crop the plate, tag the food type and cooking method, then set the oil level. Path: Home > Camera Icon > Click Picture > Crop Picture.
Insights Calendar. Fasting days draw an orange ring around the existing NutriScore day cells, so you can see the window and the food quality on one grid. Path: Home > Insights Widget > Calendar.
Tips to Make Fasting and Logging Actually Stick ๐ก โ
- Pick one protocol and hold it for two weeks. Start at 16:8 before trying anything harder. A repeatable window is easier to log than an ambitious one you keep breaking.
- Log the window meal before you eat it. Logging the plan takes seconds and kills the after-meal guesswork that makes people quit.
- Confirm oil and portions on every cooked meal. This is the single highest-value habit in this whole article. Confirm, do not guess.
- Save and reuse your repeat meals. If you break your fast with a similar plate most days, save it once. Fast logging is what keeps you consistent.
- Do not chase a perfect log. A rough entry you record beats a precise one you skip. Consistency, not perfection, predicts results.
- Read the weekly trend, not the daily number. Weight moves day to day. Look at the week so one high day does not derail you.
- Refresh your targets monthly. Programs fade past six months as people disengage, so a small change, a new protocol or an updated goal, keeps the habit alive.
- Use the fasting history as evidence. A month view with status icons tells you honestly whether you fasted 24 days or 9. Memory will tell you 24.
IMPORTANT
Recap: everything you covered this round.
You finished the full comparison, so save this for the moment you are ready to pick.
โฑ๏ธ Progress 4/4 - ~6 minutes in - Nicely done
โ The three jobs a fasting and tracking app must do
โ NutriScan, YAZIO, Fastic, MyFitnessPal and Cronometer reviewed
โ Pricing and what each free tier really gives you
โ The tablespoon of oil that cancels a clean fast (revealed)
The Verdict ๐ โ
Use NutriScan if your eating window is full of real cooked food. The fasting timer is free, it covers 14:10 through 20:4 plus custom windows, it edits retroactively for a week, and the food log asks about cooking method and oil level instead of guessing. The free plan gives you 5 scans a week, enough to test the scanner on your hardest meals rather than log every day, and Premium runs about $59.99 a year.
Use YAZIO if price leads. About $47.90 a year list for a competent timer and a proper calorie tracker with a big recipe library is the cheapest annual plan on this list, and the free app lets you test the loop first, with the plan library and the photo log waiting on PRO. Check the store page before you buy: a $23.90 12-month SKU is live there too.
Use Fastic if you keep quitting. The Academy and the challenges are what you are buying, and they work on people who need to be taught rather than measured. Just know Fastic never quotes a year, so read the SKU you are actually tapping.
Use MyFitnessPal or Cronometer only if the food log leads. Both have better databases than the fasting-first apps, MyFitnessPal for breadth at over 20 million foods and Cronometer for nutrient depth at up to 95, and both charge you for the clock.
Whichever timer you choose, remember what the research keeps showing. The window is a structure, and the meal is the result. If your window is full of curries, bowls and restaurant plates, log those with the NutriScan Meal Scan so the number reflects what you actually ate. Get both halves right and the fast finally pays you back.
Curious what a longer fast actually feels like before you commit to a protocol? Read our 36-hour water fast experience for an honest hour-by-hour log.
None of this is medical advice. If you take medication, are pregnant, have diabetes, or have a history of disordered eating, talk to a doctor before starting intermittent fasting.
FAQ โ
Which app has a free fasting timer and a food log? NutriScan, YAZIO and Fastic all put a fasting timer on their free tier alongside food tracking. NutriScan gives you the full timer free, including 14:10, 16:8, 18:6, 20:4 and custom windows, and pairs it with photo meal logging. YAZIO's free app runs a fasting tracker, but the full plan library sits on PRO. MyFitnessPal and Cronometer keep their fasting timers behind Premium and Gold.
Do I need a separate fasting app and a food logging app? No. NutriScan, YAZIO, Fastic, MyFitnessPal Premium and Cronometer Gold all combine a fasting timer with a food log in one app. Two apps works, but people usually stop opening one of them, so a single app tends to last longer.
Does MyFitnessPal have an intermittent fasting tracker? Yes, but it is a Premium feature. It tracks fast duration in your diary with progress bars, offers 12, 14 and 16 hour patterns, and lets you start or stop on demand next to your meals and water.
Does Cronometer have a fasting timer? Yes. Cronometer's Fasting Timer is a Gold feature, so it needs the paid tier. Its distinctive strength is letting you look for correlations between your fasting window and specific nutrients, which no other app on this list does as well.
Does the fasting window matter more than what I eat? The research points the other way. In a 2025 BMJ network meta-analysis of 99 randomized trials, different fasting patterns produced similar weight loss and tracked closely with plain daily calorie restriction. The window helps you eat less, but what you eat inside it drives the outcome, which is why the food log matters.
How much does a fasting timer plus food log app cost per year? Standard US yearly prices in mid 2026: YAZIO PRO about $47.90 list, Cronometer Gold about $59.99, NutriScan Premium about $59.99 and MyFitnessPal Premium about $79.99. Fastic publishes no annual price at all. Its Fastic Plus SKUs run $12.99 to $79.99 on one store listing and only two carry a duration, 1 month at $14.99 and 3 months at $27.99. NutriScan and Fastic run the timer itself on the free tier, and YAZIO runs a free fasting tracker with the plan library on PRO. Prices are standard US prices as of mid 2026 and change by region.
Is intermittent fasting safe for everyone? No. Intermittent fasting is not recommended without medical guidance if you are pregnant, take medication that must be paired with food, have diabetes, or have a history of disordered eating. Talk to a doctor before you start.