If you have a health, diet or fitness app that you love, please leave a comment about it. I'm always looking for more tools to use in the pursuit of healthier living.
All screen caps are from the iTunes website, so none of the weights, foods, etc. are actually my entries.
LOSE IT!
Lose It! is the one I use most. It's a versatile, well-made app and it's free (so far). The food log is really similar to Calorie Counter's, but I like the interface of this one even better. You can also add recipes, track your exercise, track your weight, set goals and keep up with friends' progress. The friends feature is one I've been paying more attention to recently. It's starting to motivate me a bit because now I know people will know if I've lost weight or if I've gone over budget on my calorie consumption. Even at 32, peer pressure is effective!
BANG BANG
This app is based on the Steve Ward diet. This approach to weight loss is so simple that it's easily tracked on a single sheet of graph paper. Since I didn't have any graph paper in the house, I found this app for $1.99 and bought it.
The basic idea here is that you plot your starting weight and date, plot a goal weight and date and draw a line between the two points. Each day plot your weight. If the point is above the line, you need to eat as light as possible. If it's on or below, you can relax a bit. While I do track my weight with Lose It!, I like the graph on this one better. And since I vary my calorie intake between 1200 and 1600, this app helps me decide if I want to aim low or high each day. If it says "eat light," I aim for 1200. "Eat normal" means I can edge closer to my max. I find that on the "eat light" days I do a better job of avoiding calories from beverages and add-ons like butter or mayo.
NIKE TRAINING CLUB
This one is targeted at women, which is silly since these exercises are great for anyone. This app is intended to fill the role of a personal trainer. Since this app is free and personal trainers are hundreds of dollars, I'm trying this app first.
I like that you can set up different exercise programs, some of which are targeted to specific sports like running or soccer while others are more general strength training programs. Especially handy is that you can skew each workout to core, strength or cardio depending on your preference. I get plenty of cardio on the elliptical machine and strength on the weight machines, but find I avoid ab work, so I skew these workouts to core.
Once you set up a program, you have 10 or so exercises to complete. You work through them one at a time, first watching a 30 second how-to video and then completing the exercise in the alloted time. The exercises are great. By great I mean they make tears well up in your eyes, sweat bead on your brow and cuss words pour from your mouth.
I really like this app except for two gripes. One is that some require specific equipment like medicine balls but you don't know it until you watch the how-to video. The other is that you can't work out alongside the videos which means, if you have a terrible memory like me, that you'll find yourself halfway through the workout time forgetting what the other move was. Small complaints though since this app is free.
COUCH TO 5K by Felt Tip Inc.
(There are other Couch to 5K apps, but I'm not familiar with them.)
I've never been a runner. And by never, I mean not even when we were supposed to run the mile during fitness testing in school. I could run in short bursts, like during a relay race during field day, or in a game of tag in the neighborhood. But if I had to sustain a run for more than 3 minutes, I was done for. I'd get a stitch in my side and then walk the rest of the way around the field bent over at the waist. I never thought of myself as unfit, though in retrospect that can't be normal.
As an adult I sometimes think I'd like to be able to run more than half a block without hoping a tree falls on me and puts me out of my misery. Enter the Couch to 5K program. This program
is designed to get a predominantly sedentary person (which I am striving NOT to be anymore) and get them to the point that they can run a 5K. It alternated walking and running at intervals, gradually increasing the running and decreasing the walking.
I actually started this program a few of years ago and was doing well until I developed a case of bronchitis that hung on tight for about a month. By then my motivation had moved onto other things, like eating pastries and watching the entire Gilmore Girls series for the eighth time. Did I mention that was a few years ago? Oops. Well with my redeveloping healthy attitude comes a renewed desire to be able to run a little here and there.
This program can easily be accessed and followed for free, but I ponied up $2.99 to purchase the iPhone app. My problem when I was following Couch to 5K off of a form I'd printed out and taped to the fridge was that I found myself staring at my watch as I ran. Nothing is as demotivating to keep one's legs movings as the way a second can stretch out during a workout. Two minutes felt like two hours. This app lets you play music as you run, with a voice interjecting from time to time to tell you to walk or jog. I find my fortitude improves when I don't have a clock to stare at. It's the same principle as throwing your gym towel over the clock on the elliptical machine.
I will admit I haven't used this app yet, but I think this might be the week. I'll probably start on the treadmill at the gym since it's supposed to be over 100 degrees for at least a week. But once temps dip below 80 again in the evenings, I'll probably give this a go outside.
PRANAYAMA
This one isn't about food or exercise, but about breathing. As someone who has both asthma and occasional bouts of anxiety, I've been reading into ways that improving one's breathing technique alleviates some asthma and anxiety symptoms. It turns out that I'm in the bad habit of breathing with my stomach sucked in, puffing my rib cage in and out. That's really bad for your cardiovascular system.
At $4.99, this is the second most expensive app I've ever bought. (The NBA one is my priciest purchase if you're wondering.) Luckily, all four hundred and ninety nine cents have been worth it. I've noticed that my endurance during cardio exercise increases if I practice Pranayama just beforehand. I've also been using it when I feel stressed or freaked out and it totally calms me down. An unintended but welcome side effect has also been improved posture. My increased focus on breathing correctly has led me to sit and stand up straight. It's hard to really use your diaphragm fully when you're slumped over. Standing up straight makes you look thinner - there's another perk!
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