by CM Smith |
Losing weight and getting healthy is a huge commitment and if you don’t take the time and energy to track your progress and your goals, the chances of you falling off the “health bandwagon” are great.
Rather than fail at your weight loss goals, why not use a tool to track those goals that’s at your disposal 24/7? With the capabilities of the iPhone, use these top 10 iPhone apps to lose weight and get in shape.
1. Fitocracy (Free)
Some people don’t like the idea of “gamifying” applications, but having some fun goals to accomplish when it comes to losing weight and getting healthy can really push you to succeed.
Fitocracy is basically an RPG for getting in shape where you can unlock achievements and earn points by accomplishing workout plans and reaching your fitness goals. It’s built around being social interaction with groups as well as challenging others.
2. RunKeeper (Free)
If you have an iPhone and you want to lose weight by running, instead of buying an expensive GPS watch, just download RunKeeper instead. RunKeeper is a great tool for tracking your runs and activity by using the GPS capabilities on your iPhone. You can also keep track of your progress on runkeeper.com, share your results with friends, integrate your iPod music with the app, geo-tag photos while on your run, and more.
Something else that is nice is you can manually enter data, so if you are caught inside on a treadmill one day, you won’t lose your activity tracking for the day.
3. Lose It! (Free)
Lose It! is a great free iPhone app that allows you to track your daily calorie intake as well as the calories you burn during your workouts. You can track your weight and set up daily calorie in/out goals to challenge yourself.
With Lose It! you can also use the camera on your iPhone to scan barcodes on foods and they will automatically be entered into your diary. Lose It! has a great food database, so if you need a good app for tracking food as well as activity, Lost It! is it.
4. SparkPeople (Free)
SparkPeople is the best way to interface with the popular SparkPeople online fitness community. You can track your food intake as well as your workouts, your weight, and even your calorie differential. Another nice touch is the added exercise demos that show you how to do popular exercises that are in your scheduled SparkPeople workouts.
5. Gain Fitness (Free)
Gain Fitness wants to be known as your own “digital personal trainer”. The app can basically build you a custom workout on your available time and the equipment that you have at your disposal.
After your workout is built, Gain can keep track of your progress and create you a custom “Gain Plan” calendar to keep you working out regularly. It sounds like magic, because it sort of is.
6. Nike+ GPS ($1.99)
The Nike+ GPS apps uses the iPhone’s GPS to track your runs, sort of like RunKeeper, but is much more focused on running. You can see your runs on a map, share them socially when you are completed, keep track of your calories burned, and get voice feedback during your run.
One of my favorite features is that you can share on Path 🙂
7. Fitbit Activity and Calorie Counter (Free)
The Fitbit app requires a Fitbit to really get the most out of, but if you are serious about losing weight, a Fitbit is a great $100 investment just for the shear fact of seeing how much you are active during a day.
With the Fitbit app you can track your food intake and see your current steps taken (as long as your Fitbit has recently been synced). You can also track your weight, water intake, and added activity (that wasn’t tracked by the Fitbit).
8. Nexercise (Free)
Now, if you want to truly “gamify” your fitness experience, then Nexercise is the app to do it (it even has Game Center integration!). Nexercise allows you to gain “XP” (‘experience’ for all you non-RPGing playing nerds), earn rewards, defeat challenges, and interact with a the Nexercise community.
Nexercise doesn’t track food intake, just activity, but it supports 90+ different activities. Also, you can use your Fitbit, Fuel Band, and Jawbone Up to integrate your activity.
9. Weightbot ($1.99)
Weightbot tracks your weight in a beautiful way. If you want the best app for tracking your weight on the iPhone, then this is the app. Seriously, look nowhere else.
Input your weight for the day, view your BMI, view your weight over a timeline, and also view your weight goals. Simple, easy, and a beautiful way to track your weight loss.
10. Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker (Free)
Calorie Counter is another reliable app for tracking your calorie intake and your weight. You can track what foods you have eaten and at what times. According to MyFitnessPal (the makers of the app) Calorie Counter and Diet Tracker has the largest food database of any iOS app out there. The app also has a barcode scanner for scanning in nutrition labels from popular foods.
[via LifeHack.org]
