Both can put meals on the calendar. The difference is whether you select a framework or the week keeps adapting to your body and life.
Lifesum
Tracker and nutrition programmes
Eat Like This
Adaptive meal plan
Lifesum website, 2026 [2]What Lifesum says about itself
“Meal Plans are tailored to your individual preferences and goals, guiding you on what and how much to eat.”
Start here
We would rather you end up with the right app than just end up with ours. Here is the honest version, up front.
Pick Lifesum if…
Pick Lifesum if you want a polished tracker with more structure than a blank food diary. Its named programmes, meal plans, grocery lists, flexible logging, and weekly Life Score give motivated users a clear framework to follow.
Pick Eat Like This if…
Pick Eat Like This if you want the framework to keep changing with you. We plan the week from your needs, preferences, and progress rather than asking you to manage a programme and diary yourself.
The honest difference
Lifesum
The selected programme
Choose
Follow
Track
Select a framework, follow its meals, and use the diary for feedback.
Eat Like This
The adaptive week
Check in
Plan
Adapt
Your changing context shapes the meals and portions that come next.
Lifesum is more than a basic calorie counter. It offers one- to three-week meal plans, structured programmes, more than 1,000 recipes, shopping lists, AI logging, and personalised recommendations based on goals, dietary preferences, allergies, and activity. That is a substantial and useful product, especially for someone who wants a clear framework.
The distinction is how the framework changes. In Lifesum, you choose or switch the programme, adjust targets, and keep the diary current. Exercise calories can update the daily allowance automatically, and the Life Score turns nutrition, water, and activity into weekly feedback. The meal plan itself is not rebuilt from a holistic weekly check-in about mood, sleep, cravings, measurements, hormones, and progress.
Eat Like This is narrower as a tracker and broader as a planning service. The app decides the meals and portions for the week, then changes them as your check-ins and real life change. Lifesum is stronger when you want options and a framework to operate; Eat Like This is stronger when you want fewer decisions to manage.
“Lifesum makes a chosen nutrition programme easier to follow. Eat Like This makes the programme itself responsive to you.”
Real life
Same situations. Two different days. Features tell you what an app has; this tells you how it behaves when the week does not go to plan.
Lifesum
Photograph, describe, scan, or quick-track the meal. Your diary updates, while the selected meal plan stays in place.
Eat Like This
Snap a photo and carry on. The plan keeps going and adjusts around what happened.
Lifesum
Review your weight and body measurements , then change the goal, calorie target, or programme yourself.
Eat Like This
Your weekly check-in flags the stall and the next meal plan adjusts around it.
Lifesum
Premium meal plans and shopping lists provide structure. You choose replacements and keep the diary aligned.
Eat Like This
Your meals are already planned. Swap what does not fit and the grocery list updates with you.
Lifesum
Life Score and progress views summarise nutrition, water, exercise, weight, and measurements for you to interpret.
Eat Like This
Check-ins bring weight, mood, sleep, activity, measurements, cravings, and hormonal factors together.
Lifesum
Imported exercise calories increase the daily allowance by default , unless you switch that behaviour off.
Eat Like This
Activity and recovery feed into the check-in , so the next plan can change with the training block.
Lifesum
Choose another programme meal or recipe and adjust the serving. Your diary totals show where the day lands.
Eat Like This
Tap swap or personalise the recipe. The replacement still fits the plan.
Lifesum
Change recipe servings and share the shopping list. There are no household profiles with coordinated individual portions.
Eat Like This
Cook together, scale each person’s portion , and combine the grocery list automatically.
Lifesum
The diary has gaps and tracking-based feedback becomes less complete; Life Score can still draw on tests and habit trackers.
Eat Like This
There is no streak to break. Your next check-in picks up where you left off.
Feature comparison
For readers who want to check the details after understanding the philosophy. Lifesum pricing and features were verified in August 2026.
Lifesum
Supported: Yes, with adjustable targets on Premium
Eat Like This
Supported: Calculated behind your meal plan
Lifesum
Supported: Premium one- to three-week plans, selected and changed by you
Eat Like This
Supported: A new week shaped by your latest check-in
Lifesum
Supported: Filtered by goals, diet, allergies, and preferences
Eat Like This
Supported: Portioned to your exact nutritional needs
Lifesum
Supported: Broad library including Mediterranean, keto, fasting, and high-protein
Eat Like This
Limited or paid: No fixed programmes; dietary needs combine in one personal plan
Lifesum
Limited or paid: Hormonal Balance meal plan; no cycle, pregnancy, or breastfeeding adaptation
Eat Like This
Supported: Adapts for menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and breastfeeding
Lifesum
Supported: Photo, voice, text, barcode, and quick tracking on Premium
Eat Like This
Supported: Photo logging for meals outside your plan
Lifesum
Supported: Yes, within its meal-planning experience
Eat Like This
Supported: Yes, while keeping the personalised week aligned
Lifesum
Supported: Included with Meal Plans and shareable
Eat Like This
Supported: Built from the whole week and updated with swaps
Lifesum
Not available: No plan-adjusting check-in
Eat Like This
Supported: Weight, mood, sleep, activity, cravings, measurements, and hormonal factors
Lifesum
Supported: Life Score uses 16 nutrition and exercise measures
Eat Like This
Not available: No single health score
Lifesum
Limited or paid: Adjustable recipe servings and a shareable shopping list
Eat Like This
Supported: Individual portions coordinated in one household plan
Lifesum
Supported: Create and edit your own recipes; Lifesum recipes are fixed
Eat Like This
Supported: Personalise recipes with nutritionist-informed guardrails
Lifesum
Supported: Apple Health, Health Connect, Samsung Health, and connected devices
Eat Like This
Limited or paid: Limited for now
Lifesum
Supported: Adds imported burn to your allowance by default; can be disabled
Eat Like This
Supported: Activity is considered through the weekly plan and check-in
Lifesum
Limited or paid: Limited free version; meal plans, AI, and recipes require Premium
Eat Like This
Supported: Three-day trial with full feature access
Feature information is based on Lifesum documentation and the independent reviews listed in the references below.
Who we actually are
A comparison page that only flatters itself is not worth much. Here is where Lifesum is ahead, and where our product deliberately works differently.
Lifesum offers Mediterranean, keto, fasting, paleo, vegan, high-protein, Hormonal Balance, and other frameworks. If choosing a named approach is motivating, their range is a real advantage. We do not offer a catalogue of fixed programmes.
Lifesum Premium includes one- to three-week meal plans, recipe suggestions, swaps, and shopping lists. We should not describe it as only a food diary. Our difference is the ongoing check-in that reshapes the next week, not the mere existence of planned meals.
Lifesum turns 16 nutrition and exercise measures into one weekly score with areas to improve. Some people want exactly that concise signal. We show several trends through check-ins instead of rolling them into one grade.
Lifesum connects through Apple Health, Health Connect, Samsung Health, Apple Watch, and Wear OS, which can bring in data from many other devices. Our health integrations are still limited.
Deliberate choices
These are product choices or current limitations, not hidden footnotes.
Named frameworks can make starting easier. We choose to combine dietary needs, exclusions, preferences, training, and progress into one plan instead of asking someone to identify with a preset programme.
Evidence [4]
Life Score is a clear and motivating idea. We do not collapse nutrition, hydration, and activity into one number because a falling score can obscure why the week felt difficult. Our check-in keeps the signals separate and uses them to change the plan.
Evidence [8]
Lifesum is much broader as a general food tracker. We use a smaller curated recipe system because our central job is to recommend and portion the meals, not catalogue everything someone might enter in a diary.
Evidence [2]
Tracking can be helpful, particularly when it is health-motivated. It can also be associated with food anxiety and disordered-eating symptoms for some weight- or shape-motivated users. We keep those calculations behind the meals instead of making them the daily task.
Evidence [11]
By the numbers
These figures describe the products and studies behind this comparison. They are not claims that every user will have the same experience.
16
The score combines nutrition, hydration, and exercise measures and provides weekly feedback on what went well and what to improve.
Source [8]
1,000+
The recipe and programme library is one of Lifesum’s clearest advantages for someone who values breadth and inspiration.
65M
This is a company-reported reach figure, included as a measure of product scale rather than active subscribers.
Source [1]
What people say about Lifesum
A summary of the themes that recur in long-time user reviews and independent coverage.
Lifesum succeeds when a beautiful interface, structured programme, and visible score make healthy eating feel easier to organise. People who drift away often wanted either the older tracking workflow or a plan that responded more actively to their changing week.
The verdict
Both products can be the right answer. The deciding factor is whether you want to manage your nutrition or have a plan manage the week for you.
Choose Lifesum if…
Choose Lifesum if you want a polished nutrition hub with flexible tracking, named programmes, planned meals, a large recipe library, a weekly Life Score, and strong health-platform connections. If you enjoy operating a structured system, it is a capable and unusually approachable one.
Choose Eat Like This if…
Choose Eat Like This if you want the system to operate more of the week for you. It is built for people who want meals and portions shaped by ongoing check-ins, who have struggled with daily logging, or who need one plan to coordinate several people at the table.
Lifesum helps you follow a programme. We build the programme around you.
References
All sources were last checked in August 2026. Features and prices can change; use the linked product pages for the latest details.
Apple App Store
Lifesum
Lifesum Helpdesk
Lifesum Helpdesk
Lifesum Helpdesk
Lifesum Helpdesk
Lifesum Helpdesk
Lifesum Helpdesk
Lifesum Helpdesk
Lifesum Helpdesk
Eating Behaviors / PubMed
Lifesum Helpdesk
