After several years on hiatus, and having used almost every high-end android phone on the market, it was time to move back to the iPhone 6S Plus. Not because I despise Android or Google but because after buying a new MacBook Pro, I just needed an ecosystem that worked fluidly. The issue at hand was finding apps to use once I switched back – particularly for health and fitness tracking.
The following list of apps are the winners in my book – the ones that after many months are still on my phone and used constantly.
- Myfitnesspal – A true classic for tracking food intake. It’s better on the iPhone (clearly the priority of their development team) and features have only improved since they were bought by Under Armour. The feature list is huge and they have an Apple Watch app too.
- Waterlogged – this app helps you track your liquid intake. It’s a fairly good design (and the best of all the other water intake trackers) and it integrates with Myfitnesspal and Apple Health plus there’s an Apple Watch app too.
- MapMyRun – another solid app powered by the Under Armour brand. If you need a map of your route, challenges, shoe wearing tracker, and a variety of other features, this is it. Plus there’s an Apple Watch app as well.
- Withings – for weight tracking, I use a Withings WiFi enabled scale and this is their app that tracks my weight trend. It integrates with Apple Health and also tracks BMI, air quality, and tells me the daily forecast.
- Beddit – when I switched from a Fitbit to an Apple Watch, I wanted something to track my sleep and this is the perfect answer. It has a bed sensor that’s almost like tape and goes across your bed under your sheet and tracks everything (heartbeat, movement, etc.) via Bluetooth from your phone. It integrates with Apple Health and even has an Apple Watch app for afternoon siestas away from your bed.
- JEFIT – this is a great app that lets you set up your own workout (or select ready made workouts) and takes you through them. I love using this app for a dumbbell workout at home. Good interface and fairly easy to use.
- Health / Activity – since I switched to an Apple Watch, these two apps have become a mainstay. Health is the central point of all data from all the apps above, so it’s easy and convenient to review everything at once. Activity is the app on the watch that challenges you to burn calories, exercise, and stand up for certain periods. Activity (and Exercise on the watch) are basic (i.e. not as feature rich as a MapMyFitness) but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.
While these are my favorite apps, I challenge you to try as many apps as possible to find what fits for you. In the end, it’s not about the technology itself, but how the technology helps you accomplish your goals and makes your tasks easier and more enjoyable. For me, these are the apps that do just that. They make my weeks of TRX, spin, running, and yoga (plus healthy eating and drinking) highly manageable and successful (both for feeling good and losing weight).