It can be time-consuming work keeping tabs on your body when trying to lose weight. There are so many different aspects of your life that need to be altered or monitored to ensure the best possible result for weight loss without trying to work out calories in, macros ticked, energy expended, weigh-ins, measurements …
This is where fitness apps come in – your best fitness buddy.
There are different apps for different goals. Most apps will count your calories for you by searching for the food you enter and telling you how many calories you’ve taken in. This means no more looking up your meal, ingredient by ingredient, trying to get an accurate count. Some will also calculate your exercise and daily burned calories to ensure that you are losing weight healthily and meeting your goals. And some do a little more. Here’s a roundup of some of the value-add versions.
MyFitnessPal (Under Armour)
This app is great for those who just want to keep an eye on their general health and fitness. Initially, you can enter your height, age, weight and how much weight you want to lose in a particular time frame. You then enter your activity range, how active you are on an average day, and the app will suggest a daily calorie intake depending on how fast you want to shed those extra kilos. Once you get started, you will keep a daily food diary, with calorie count, as well as logging daily workouts and you’ll receive a regular reminder to weigh yourself. As far as tracking results go, MyFitnessPal will track your weight loss on a handy little scale, showing how much you have lost and how far until you reach your goal. A great little app with lots of handy features, a great way to track your eating and your fitness.
Samsung Health
Now, this app is only for Samsung users only. With Samsung Health you start with the same basics: height, weight, age, goal etc. The thing I like the most about this app is it doesn’t just tell you how many calories you can eat in a day; there is a lot that is problematic about this simplistic system, primarily that we don’t burn the same amount of calories every day. Sometimes we need to eat less on a sedentary day or more on a super active day. This app counts your steps, takes into account your resting calories burned and monitors your workouts to let you know exactly how many calories you should be eating that day. It also allows you to track your sleep, water intake and food with useful information about your nutrient intake. Again this app will track your weight input, but will also let you know how active you have been during the week. This can be a great wake up call, and having the target of at least 6000 steps a day really makes me realise how much I sit still. Now I have an easy goal I can reach by going for a wander around the park or popping to the shops!
JEFIT Workout Tracker
This is an app for the gym bunnies out there. This app makes it easy to track your workouts while also providing you with tips and tools to really maximise your exercise. This app will log your weights and reps, help you to discover new exercises and provides you with custom programs. This means you can focus on your goals, be it fat loss, powerlifting, cardio, bodybuilding or … whatever you like really! The app tracks your progress and gives you a clear and comprehensive idea of just how far you’re coming in your chosen area. The best thing about this app is that it works for all levels. If you are just starting out at the gym it can make things a little less daunting, but if you’ve been doing this for years, it becomes a valuable tracker.
Map My Fitness
This one is specifically for tracking your results, which can be extremely helpful when you are working towards a goal. It tracks your steps, sleep and workouts to show you how well you’re doing. With more than 600 types of workouts tracked via GPS (plus the option to load up your workout details yourself) you’ll receive detailed information about your workout and how you can improve. This app doesn’t focus as much on food intake, but you can easily sync it up to any other fitness apps to make sure you are totally covered.
Author’s notes:
Many smart scales on the market now have their own app, or tap into other major apps such as smartphone FitBit app, measuring body composition in one go from body weight to BMI, body fat, body water, skeletal muscle, muscle mass, bone mass, protein, BMR and metabolic age.
Keep an eye out for the Studio Pilates 30 Day Challenge app being released in 2019 to help clients power through their goals.
About the Author – Natasha Porritt is a Studio Pilates Instructor.
