12 Best Apps for Tracking Your Health and Fitness

How many times have you promised yourself you would start exercising more often? How often have you tried to make healthier life choices only to slip back into your old ways? This year you can stick to your endeavors with some help from the 12 best apps for tracking your health.

What Are Fitness Apps?

Just like there are smartphone applications to track your calendar, email and social media, there are apps to help you monitor and advance your overall fitness. These apps encourage you to train and better yourself so you can finally stick to your new year’s resolution to lead a healthier lifestyle.

No matter your workout preferences and style, there’s an app for you. From dieting and weight loss to cardio and strength training, you’ll be able to track your progress and stay inspired. Don’t forget to establish your baseline or starting point so you can see exactly how much you improve!

How Do Health Apps Work?

One way these applications motivate you to stick to your goals (and raise them) is through social networking. By connecting your activity to friends and other users, fitness apps drive competition and communication. Staying focused can be difficult, so the social networking capability is especially important for those who exercise by themselves.

Naturally, fitness apps offer tracking abilities. With regard to food intake and dieting, applications can count calories and explain nutritional value and information. Your smartphone also has the capacity to record your reps, weights, distance and routes.

Use smartphone applications in conjunction with wearables, such as smartwatches, to get a more accurate report of your activity, including heart rate, movement and steps. A lot of these functionalities can be used without a WiFi connection allowing you to keep your eye on the end result even when you’re offline.

Weight Loss Apps

An example of an excellent dieting app is Fooducate. It is rated 4.7 stars out of 5 on the App Store and is recommended for anyone. That is, you can use this app whether you’re just starting out or an experienced dietician.

In addition to rating food products and giving them nutritional scores, Fooducate offers healthy alternatives to replace unhealthy ingredients. These features allow you to make healthier choices at every meal so you can reach your dietary goals.

Running and Cycling Apps

The Nike+ Run Club app is great for beginner and intermediate runners. Its in-app challenges and incentives are attractive to Apple and Android users. This application even extends an additional helping hand to new runners with guided runs.

Follow other runners for inspiration while you build up your own following. Friends and family who follow you will be notified when you run so they can offer words of encouragement. Not only does this app track your cardio, but it promotes support within your social network.

Strength Training Apps

Personal trainers are extremely helpful in maintaining scheduled, targeted workouts, but they’re often costly or require an expensive gym membership. That’s why Aaptiv offers over 2,500 tailored workouts and can even connect you with professional trainers. Made for any level of fitness, there are audio instructions and music to accompany and enhance workouts.

With this app, you’ll be able to exercise using workouts made just for you for a fraction of the cost. Just $15 per month will provide you with the same services you get at the gym from the comfort of your home.

Competitive and Gamification Apps

Apps like Zombies, Run! motivate you to get active by turning exercise into a thrilling adventure. If you struggle with finding the inspiration to be physically active, this app is for you. Adjust your speed to your running level and push your limits to outrun the zombies!

For more fitness apps you can start using today, check out this infographic from Bestow.

Author Bio: Karlie Kramer writes on behalf of Bestow with an interest in topics like health, wellness, and tech. Specifically, she is interested in covering how these topics intersect, and how tech can be utilized to help us live happier, healthier lives. Her most recent guide covers the best health-related apps, helping people live their healthiest lives.