How to switch from Lose It to GreaseFit

Moving trackers is annoying mostly because of the history. Years of logged meals, weights and workouts feel like something you would be throwing away. So GreaseFit has an importer for Lose It exports, and this is how the whole move actually goes, including the parts that need your attention afterwards.

One thing to get straight before anything else: the import runs on the GreaseFit website, not inside the app. If you go looking for an import button on your phone you will not find one.

Before you start

You need three things.

• A GreaseFit account. It is free, and signing up takes a minute. There is no guest mode, so the account comes first.
• A browser. The import lives on the website.
• Your Lose It export, as a zip file.

Nothing here costs money. The importer is not a paid feature.

Step 1: Export your data from Lose It

Sign in to your Lose It account and look for the data export option in your account or data settings. I am deliberately not quoting exact menu labels, because apps move their settings around and a stale screenshot is worse than none. Look under your account settings for anything about exporting or downloading your data.

What you get back is a zip archive containing CSV files: your food log, your custom foods, your weights, your profile, and so on.

Three rules for handling that file:

• Do not unzip it.
• Do not rename anything inside it.
• Do not upload individual CSVs.

The importer recognises a Lose It export by the shape of the archive. It looks for the food log CSV plus at least one of the weights, custom foods or profile files. Take the zip exactly as it arrived and hand it over untouched.

Step 2: Upload it at greasefit.com

Sign in on the website, open your account page, and find the import section. Choose the zip, start the import, and wait. Large exports take a moment. The page shows the file size limit, and it will tell you before uploading if your archive is too big or is not a zip.

When it finishes you get a summary of what was created, plus a notes section. Read the notes. That is where anything the importer had to skip or assume gets reported.

If you have imported a Lose It export before, a confirmation appears first. It tells you the date of the previous import and how many records it created, then offers two choices: replace the previous import, or import anyway and keep both. Replace is almost always what you want. Keeping both is for the rare case where you have two different exports covering different data. Otherwise it just makes duplicates.

What actually comes across

Precisely this, and nothing beyond it:

• Custom foods, with name, brand, serving, calories, fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrates, sugars, fibre, cholesterol and sodium.
• Food log entries, deduplicated into foods so you are not left with thousands of one-off entries, and timed by the Meal column from the export rather than an exact clock time.
• Weights, which are assumed to be in kilograms. More on that in a second.
• Steps.
• Exercise logs, with name, type, quantity and calories burned.
• Water intake.
• Profile fields: birthday, gender and height. These are merged only into fields you have not already filled in yourself. Anything you already set stays as you set it.

Rows marked as deleted in the export are skipped rather than resurrected.

What to check once it lands

Five minutes here saves you confusion later.

Your weights. This is the one that catches people. The importer assumes kilograms. If you tracked in pounds, your weight history will read low and your chart will look strange. Open your weight log, look at the most recent entry, and confirm it matches reality before you set a goal weight on top of it.

A few days of food log. Pick a recent week you remember and compare it against Lose It. Check that meals landed in the right slot and that the days line up.

Your custom foods. The fields listed above are what Lose It exports, so that is what arrives. GreaseFit tracks a lot more than that: potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, vitamins A, C, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12 and folate, plus the individual fat types and caffeine. None of that was in the export, so those fields will be empty on imported foods. For the ten or fifteen foods you eat constantly, open each one and fill in the micronutrient editor from the label. The rest can stay as it is.

Your exercise entries. Calories burned came across as the numbers Lose It recorded. They were not recalculated, so treat them as history rather than gospel.

What to set up by hand

The importer moves data. It does not move settings, because Lose It does not export them. Budget ten minutes for this.

• Macro targets. Pick a preset, Balanced, High protein, Low carb or Keto, or set your own split. The built-in TDEE calculator gives you a starting calorie number if you want one.
• A reference standard. GreaseFit measures micronutrients against EU, US, UK or WHO reference intakes, adjusted for age and sex. Pick one and stay on it, because they disagree with each other and switching makes your history unreadable.
• Reminders. Water, meal logging and daily weight reminders are all configurable. If Lose It was nagging you into consistency, set the equivalent up here or you will feel the gap in week two.
• Language and appearance, if the defaults are not what you want.

Then start using the barcode scanner as you shop. It checks your own food registry, so an unknown barcode prompts you to create the food once, then stays attached to it. A couple of weeks of normal shopping and your regular basket is one scan each.

The honest caveats

Lose It is currently the only importer. If you are coming from MyFitnessPal or anything else, there is no import path today and I would rather say that plainly than let you find out after exporting.

The import is web only and one-directional. It does not sync or keep watching Lose It for changes. It is a one-time move, so do it when you are actually ready to switch.

Steps come across from the export regardless of your phone, but ongoing step counting only works on Android.

The order I would do it in

1. Create your GreaseFit account.
2. Request the export from Lose It and wait for the zip.
3. Log a normal day in GreaseFit by hand first, so you know your way around.
4. Upload the zip on the website and read the notes on the result screen.
5. Check your weights, especially the units.
6. Set macro targets, a reference standard and reminders.
7. Keep Lose It installed for a week. Not because you will need it, but because knowing you can go back makes the switch easier.

There is a fuller comparison on the Lose It alternatives page, and the FAQ covers most of what comes up afterwards. If an import goes sideways, the notes on the result screen are the first place to look.