While we’re a few months past the time of year people usually make resolutions to lose weight and be healthier overall, there are a few apps out there to help re-inspire your resolutions.
MyFitnessPal has a great website and mobile app that allow you to track what you eat and see the calories, sodium, carbs, etc. that you’re consuming each day. This is helpful if you’re curious how many calories you do consume or if you need to track sodium to try and control your blood pressure. The app even has a barcode scanner so you can easily scan packaged foods and find the caloric content. You can input your current height, weight, age, gender, and other info, and it’ll give you a suggestion goal to reach. Or you can manually set your goal weight, and it’ll give you a daily calorie goal. The app keeps track of your daily calorie input in what they call a food diary. You can look back through your history and see what goals you’ve achieved and get an idea of what foods to continue to eat and which to avoid.
The app can also sync with some other exercise apps, such as MapMyWalk, MapMyRun, or MapMyFitness. It can also pair with the FitBit, which is a wearable step counter. I personally only have experience with MapMyWalk, and this was great when I was focused on exercising after having my daughter. I could log that I had a walk, see how many miles I’d walked and how many calories I’d burned, and also add that I carried my daughter in her baby sling as a more intense walk/workout.
While these apps are wonderful in helping you reach your goals, it is also one more activity you must keep track of on a daily basis. Despite that, the apps have attempted to be as user-friendly as possible, with the ability to scan packaging barcodes on MyFitnessPal and just pressing “start” and “stop” on MapMyWalk when you go for a walk or run. The apps do all the calculations and tracking for you after a little input from you. With a little motivation, you’ll be on the way to reaching your goals.
