Baritastic - Bariatric Tracker

Review by eFreeware

Bariatric surgery comes with its own rulebook, and most calorie counters were never written with it in mind. Baritastic is a free Android app from BariApps that sets out to be that rulebook in app form, covering the stages before an operation and the years after it. With more than 500,000 installs and a 4.6 average across 27,104 ratings, it has clearly found an audience among people on this path.

The app is aimed at anyone dealing with weight loss surgery, whether that is gastric bypass, gastric sleeve, lap band, gastric balloon or duodenal switch. It handles the everyday tracking that clinics ask patients to keep, and it also keeps the pre-surgery to-do list in one place. If you are working through a program or weighing whether to start one, the scope here matches the questions you are likely to have.

Tracking food, water and the pace of a meal

The core of the app is nutrition and water tracking, which works the way you would expect: you log what you eat and drink and keep an eye on where you stand. What sets it apart from a general diet app is the bite timer. It is built to pace how quickly you eat, which matters when a meal has to last a set number of minutes rather than finish whenever you are done.

There is also a dedicated water timer, so hydration gets its own rhythm instead of being folded into a general log. Taken together, these tools reflect the habits bariatric programs tend to emphasize: small amounts, chewed slowly, spread across the day. Someone newly out of surgery is likely to lean on them most, though the same structure holds up as portions and routines settle.

I would expect the timers to be the part that takes adjusting to, simply because they ask you to change how a meal unfolds rather than just record it afterward. That is the point of them, but it does mean the app asks for attention while you eat rather than only at the end of the day.

Reminders, journal and the newbie checklist

Reminders cover the recurring items in a bariatric routine: vitamins, water, protein shakes, meals and anything else you want to schedule. For supplements that have to be taken on a set cadence, having them in the same app as the food log saves juggling two tools. The patient journal adds another layer, letting you write down thoughts, attach pictures and rate your hunger and your happiness, which gives a record of how you felt alongside what you ate.

The newbie checklist is the pre-surgery side of the app. It keeps the tasks leading up to an operation visible so nothing slips while you work through appointments and requirements. It is a straightforward idea, and it fits the reality that the months before surgery involve as much admin as the months after.

Beyond tracking, there are recipes written for bariatric eating and a set of resources on the subject. There is also a social support group inside the app, which gives the whole thing a community layer rather than leaving you alone with your numbers. For anyone who finds the tracking itself easy but the day-to-day motivation harder, that combination is probably the most useful part of the package.

What it asks of you, and what it costs

Baritastic is free to download, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases, so nothing here is gated behind a payment. That is unusual for a tracker with this much in it, and it removes the usual question of whether the useful parts sit behind a subscription.

The program connection is a notable feature. If your bariatric clinic hands you a code, you can link the app to your program and see your discharge instructions, your support group calendar, your diet guidelines and your key contacts in the same place. It is worth asking your clinic whether they participate before you count on it.

The tracking itself, the reminders, the journal and the checklist are there from the start. What the connection adds is the paperwork and schedules that come from your own care team, which is the part no general tracker could supply anyway.

Getting the most from it

The app rewards being set up properly on day one. Set your vitamin, water and protein shake reminders ahead of time, so the alert reaches you when it still helps instead of after a dose is already missed. The same goes for the checklist: working through it early gives you a clearer view of what is still outstanding.

The journal is easy to treat as optional and then abandon. Rating hunger and happiness alongside your notes is what makes the record worth returning to later, because it captures how a meal felt, not just what it contained. A short entry most days will tell you more than an occasional long one.

If your clinic is on board, get the code and connect early, since the diet guidelines and contacts are the kind of thing you want to find quickly rather than hunt for. The most recent update concerned the app's encryption method. Released in September 2014, it has been in use long enough to have settled into its shape.

A tracker that speaks the language of bariatric care

For anyone preparing for or living with weight loss surgery, Baritastic covers the ground that matters without charging for it. The bite and water timers, the reminder set and the journal are all shaped around bariatric routines rather than adapted from general dieting, and the checklist and program connection handle the clinical side that most trackers ignore entirely. The 4.6 average across more than 27,000 ratings suggests it does this well enough to keep people using it.

The caveat is the program connection, so the value of that feature depends on your provider. The rest of the app stands on its own regardless.

I would point anyone on a bariatric path toward it, particularly people in the months before surgery or the first year after, when the timers, reminders and checklist do the most work. If you already track diligently and have a clinic that supplies its own materials, this is still a tidier way to keep it all in one place.

What's new in version 5.1.2

Streamlining the encryption method.