Buying a smartphone is truly an investment. With the help of these eight apps, you can say goodbye to that monthly gym membership fee and train yourself to your desired body and weight with little to no cost at all (of course, after the data plan you need to download all of these). If you’ve got the motivation, the following apps will get you working out and eating well just in time to finally crack into that New Year Resolution.
Run keeper (Free )
To lose overall body fat and maintain a steady cardiovascular exercise, running is your best and cheapest option. Runkeeper will keep track of your running speed, distance, calories lost, heart rate, and running time just like you would find on a treadmill. Updates to the app also include an Autopause function that recognises when you stop moving (in case you come across a traffic light). If you recently bought the Pebble off Kickstarter, the app is also integrated directly with the smartwatch.
Jefit (Free | Pro : US$5)
Jefit helps you select any target muscle you want to work out and gives you a particular exercise along with suggested reps and sets under an interval timer. You can also create a Jefit profile and take pictures of yourself to keep a visual progress. The range of more than 500+ exercises lets you determine your own customised routine to a body, building your way to your preferred perfection. It will also autocalculate your Body Mass Index to make sure all’s well and healthy.
Workout Trainer (Free )
Like Jefit, Workout Trainer gives you a comprehensive list of exercises to perform depending on the areas you want to work on. The exercises are great for those who want to work out at home without the use of gym equipment, and provides a graphic instructional video to show examples of routines. Workout Trainer provides recommended programs as well as the ability the share your workout progress so you and your friends can encourage each other to keep things fit.
Calorie Counter MyFitness Pal (Free )
Exercise isn’t just about how much you work out but also about the food you consume. With Calorie Counter, you can input your height, weight, and gender before selecting a goal weight, whether it’s to maintain, gain, or lose. The app will continue to record you daily weight and food consumption to see where you should increase or decrease caloric intake to match your weight goal. You can also use the barcode scanner to directly detect food calories when you’re out shopping in the supermarket.
Lose It! (Free )
Set your own food schedule with Lose It! by planning a meal regime that fits with your caloric needs. The app lets you divide meals by breakfast, lunch, and dinner along with the exercise you plan to do to burn those calories. The whole thing works in a budget system: How much will you allow yourself to eat today and how much of it will you burn? Get friends to join so you can keep a whole community of people looking for healthful living.
Fooducate (Free )
Like the bar code scanner in Calorie Counter, Fooducate focuses primarily on scanning product bar codes for calorie information. Fooducate also takes things a step further by showing you the good and bad of a certain food item, and recommendations for substitutes if you choose to not buy that particular product. Each food item also has a rating as well as a calories per serving comparison to the average product in its category to help you make the healthiest food choices.
Instant Heart Rate (Free |Pro : US$2)
You can run for a mile then stop to manually measure your heart rate by placing your fingers on your neck or wrist and count the pulses, or let your smartphone do the work. Instant Heart Rate measures your pulses by allowing you to place your finger in front of your phone’s camera and track the color changes on your fingertip to determine heart rate. Sounds crazy, but it sure beats counting your own numbers and doing the math after a big workout.
Daily Yoga
If you’re more of a relaxed, yoga type of exerciser, Daily Yoga will allow you to look up poses to match the body areas you wish to target. The app is best for those who have specific muscles they prefer working out as the apps for each section come separately, but each app comes with instructional photos and timer to keep track of your exercise. A voice narration also speaks aloud to let you focus on working out rather than staring at the phone.
Be the first to comment