iPhone Health & Fitness Apps 2018

With my recent revival of a weight loss regiment, I thought it timely to review the health and fitness apps I use on my iPhone X. These are not the only apps in the app store – obvious – but after trying literally hundreds of apps in various categories (food tracking, weight training, water monitoring, etc.), these are the ones that rose to the top because they were logical, meaningful, beneficial, and most of all reliable.

Here are my favorite apps, in no particular order:

• MyFitnessPal – This app has been with me for years – and it works reliably. If there’s a downside, it’s the ever increasing food inventory that every variation of food known to man – and that you will still have to tweak to match the variation and quantity you’re consuming.
• WaterMinder – This is a great app you can use to track how much water you consume in a day. It shows historic trends, syncs with Apple Health, and comes with an easy to use Apple Watch app.
• RunKeeper – I switched to RunKeeper last year and have no looked back. It’s interface is crazy simple. Even though it tracks only a handful of workouts (namely aerobic workouts like running and walking), I find it reliably connects to my heart rate monitor and synchronizes to its Apple Watch app without issue – a must have when standing on the starting line of a race.
• Fitbod Strength Training – The concept of this weight training app is great – it has a huge library of weight lifting workouts which you can customize based on the equipment you have and the amount of time and number of days you have to work out. Even better is it tracks your muscle recovery and automatically suggests the next set of workouts based on that tracking. And with an Apple Watch app, it’s simple to track reps, weights, and sets without going back to your phone. It also logs your workout and estimated calorie burn to Apple Health. I like this app so much, it’s one of the few apps I have that I pay for on an annual basis.
• Health Mate – I’ve had my Withings (now Nokia Health) Body Cardio Wi-Fi scale since it was released and absolutely love it. I weigh in every morning prior to eating or drinking (this is actually recommended because it ensures weight loss is top of mind) and the Health Mate app is the companion app that receives those measurements and syncs it with Apple Health. I also have a Nokia Health blood pressure cuff that also syncs with this app and works surprisingly well.
• Eight Sleep – A new addition to the family, Eight Sleep is a company that makes smart covers for your bed (like a fitted sheet) that tracks your sleep overnight. I switched to this after my Beddit sleep tracker died and was no longer (that I could find) supported by Apple. It works well, tracking sleep level, toss and turning, temperature and respiration – plus it logs your sleep in Apple Health.
• 10K Runner Couch to 10K – There are countless run training apps in the app store but I find 10K runner (and it’s younger sibling 5K runner) the simplest and most straight-forward app to use. It costs a few dollars to purchase, but it provides straight-forward run sprint coaching.
• Meditate (Watch) – This was a recent find that I’m really excited about. It’s a simple Apple Watch app that will time your meditations OR functions as a stopwatch so you can meditate as long as you like (e.g. if you’re following someone else’s guided meditation). It’s simply, easy to use, and syncs with Apple Health.
• Apple Watch & Apple Health – One of the best features of the Apple Watch is the activity tracking built it – it tracks steps and also ensures you’re standing, working out, and burning calories via the activity rings plus you can track exercises as well. While not feature rich in its tracking (like RunKeeper for instance),  I do find it effective and efficient to use on a moment’s notice. Also, with all the apps above syncing their data, Apple Health has become my go-to source for all the data collected about my activity, exercise, eating, sleep, etc.

That’s it – those are the apps I use, and I love every one. I should also mention that I get nothing out of endorsing these apps – these are simply the ones I’ve used and that I’ve found helpful along my weight loss path.