Calorie tracking is an important part of health and fitness for many people. Being able to easily see your calorie intake for the day right on your Apple Watch would be very convenient. In this article, we’ll look at whether any of the Apple Watch faces have an option to display total calories consumed for the day.
Apple’s Default Watch Faces
Apple provides several pre-installed watch face options on the Apple Watch, but none of them have a total calorie counter as one of the complications. The complications available are things like date, weather, activity rings, battery level, etc. But there is no complication to show your total calorie intake for the day.
The watch faces that come pre-installed on Apple Watch include:
– Analog
– Digital
– Solar Dial
– California
– Gradient
– Numerals
– Stripes
– Color
– Modular
– Modular Compact
– Utility
– Chronograph
– Typograph
– Artist
– Motion
– Liquid Metal
– Vapor
– Kaleidoscope
None of these have an option for total calories as a complication. The Modular face probably comes closest, since you can customize which complications appear, but total calories is still not one of the options.
Downloading Third Party Apps
Since Apple’s built-in watch faces don’t include a total calorie counter, the next option to look into is third party apps. There are many apps in the App Store that provide alternative watch faces for Apple Watch. A few of them do include a total calorie complication.
Some examples:
– **Pacer**: This app focuses on tracking steps and calories. One of their watch faces includes total calories as one of the complications.
– **MyFitnessPal**: This popular calorie counting app has an Apple Watch app. One of their watch faces shows calories remaining for the day.
– **Lifesum**: Similar to MyFitnessPal, this diet tracking app shows total calories consumed on one of their customizable watch faces.
– **Lose It!**: Again, this calorie counter app has an Apple Watch face that can display total calories for the day as a complication.
So if you use one of those apps to track your food intake and calories, their Apple Watch apps provide watch faces that utilize your calorie data and can display it right on your watch screen at all times.
Using Modular Face with a Calorie Counting App
Another option is to use one of the more customizable built-in watch faces like Modular, and then add the complication from your calorie counting app.
For example, you could use the MyFitnessPal app to track your calories. Then build a Modular watch face and add the MyFitnessPal complication to it. This will show your calories remaining for the day right on the Modular watch face, along with any other complications you want like date, weather, activity rings, etc.
The advantage to this method is you can create a customized watch face using Apple’s own Modular design, rather than being limited to the watch faces provided by the third party calorie apps.
Using a Health Stats App
In addition to apps dedicated specifically to calorie tracking, there are also several general health stats apps that can provide Apple Watch complications. Some examples:
– **Cardiogram**: This heart rate monitoring app can display daily calorie burn as one of many available complications.
– **HeartWatch**: Focused on heart health, this app includes total active calories burned as a complication option.
– **HealthFace**: Offers 100+ complications including calories, calories resting, and calories active.
– **HealthStats**: Displays calories, fat, protein, etc on customizable watch faces.
So if you are already using one of these apps to track your health data, you may be able to add total calories as a complication as well.
Apple’s Activity App
While not a watch face, we should also mention that Apple’s own Activity app does show your total calories burned for the day.
The Activity app is automatically installed on Apple Watch. It tracks your movement using the accelerometer and heart rate sensor. Then it displays your total calories burned based on your movement and other stats like age, height, weight etc.
So while this isn’t a separate watch face, you can easily swipe over to the Activity app to see your total calorie burn for the day.
This gives you a similar functionality to having it as a watch face complication. The downside is you have to change apps rather than having it visible at all times on your watch face.
Do Any Third Party Watch Bands Show Calories?
In addition to third party software options on the Apple Watch itself, some companies make alternative watch bands that have extra functionality built in.
For example, the ActionSleeve is an Apple Watch band that has a small display integrated into the band itself. This auxiliary display shows stats like calories burned, steps taken, distance, and more.
So if you really want calorie info visible at all times, even when you’re not actively looking at your Apple Watch screen, the ActionSleeve band could accomplish this by putting the info right on your wrist.
Of course, the downside is you have to buy a separate accessory and change out the band on your Apple Watch. But it’s an option for those who really want constant calorie stats readily available.
Should Apple Include a Calorie Watch Face?
While Apple Watch doesn’t natively support a total calorie watch face, clearly there are third party options available to display this data for those who want it.
But some users feel Apple should include a first party calorie tracking watch face or complication. The Apple Watch already tracks active calories burned using its sensors. Having an option to display total calories consumed could provide a more complete health/fitness picture.
However, Apple may not have included it since active calories burned is more accurate than calories consumed. The Watch can’t actually detect how many calories you’ve eaten – it relies on third party apps to input that data. So Apple may not have wanted to display a less accurate total calorie number by default.
But for users focused on calorie counting, having the option for a watch face that combines active burn via the Watch and consumption inputted to a paired iPhone app could be beneficial. Hopefully Apple will consider adding more health-focused watch faces in future updates.
Top 5 Third Party Apple Watch Faces With Calorie Tracking
Based on our research, these seem to be some of the best Apple Watch apps for including total calories as a watch face complication:
| App | Notable Features |
| Pacer | – Total calories complication |
| MyFitnessPal | – Calories remaining complication |
| Lifesum | – Total calories complication |
| Lose It! | – Total calories complication |
| Cardiogram | – Daily calorie burn complication |
These provide the easiest options for putting your calorie info directly on an Apple Watch face for constant viewing.
Conclusion
While Apple doesn’t offer a first party watch face with calorie tracking, there are many third party options available to display total calories consumed on the Apple Watch. Apps like Pacer, MyFitnessPal, Lifesum, Lose It!, and Cardiogram allow complications showing calorie data. Or a customizable face like Modular can be used to add a calorie tracking complication from your preferred diet app. If you want constant calorie info available on your wrist, getting one of these alternative Apple Watch apps is your best option. An Apple Watch band like ActionSleeve can show the data too. Hopefully Apple themselves will add more health stats faces soon.
