Use Your Android Phone to Lose Weight
Remember the days when a phone was just a phone and it had a cord tethering you to it like a leash on a dog?
Those days are long gone and phones these days do so much more than just make calls.
In fact your phone can help you lose weight.
I did a little checking on my Motorola Droid and found 7 cool little apps that can help you lose weight, stay healthy, and get in shape.
The bonus is these apps are all free so you’ll have more money to put towards those new smaller clothes you’re going to need soon.
Calorie Counter – Provides nutritional value on fast food, restaurant chains, popular supermarket foods, and has a bar code scanner that instantly brings up the nutritional info for that product.
Plus you can track your daily calorie intake in the food diary, track your exercise and track your weight.
And you can sync the data to fatsecret.com and have the info you enter available on both your phone and your computer.
My favorite part of this app is the food diary. It’s way easier than lugging around my paper notebook weight loss dairy (which I tend to leave on the kitchen counter) whereas my trusty Droid is nearly anatomically attached to me and is always with me (except when I shower but if it ever becomes waterproof……..).
My Tracks – It monitors your performance when you go biking, hiking, walking or running. You can track your route, see how fast and far you went, and watch that data live (but please use the “watch live” feature carefully because it wouldn’t be cool if you ran into a pole while you were looking at your data instead of watching where you’re going).
The data or “tracks” can be shared once they’re recorded (start a competition with your best bud if even if he or she is thousands of miles away to help push both of you to go faster and farther and get fitter).
Ultimate Stopwatch – A great app that does exactly what it sounds like – works as a stopwatch.
Healthy Recipes – Browse thousands of healthy recipes anywhere. Then when you’re at the store and can’t think of something healthy to make for dinner and are 2 seconds away from tossing a couple of frozen pizzas and a package of cupcakes in your grocery cart, you can quickly find a healthy recipe instead, grab the ingredients, and stay on track with healthy eating.
CardioTrainer – It’s your free training partner for outdoor running, cycling, and walking. My favorite function is the pedometer. The downside is that the weight loss trainer and race against yourself functions on it aren’t free.
Rockon – Let’s face it, exercise is more fun with music and android’s built in music player is about as useful as a using your seat cushion as a floatation device in the event of a water landing.
With Rockon you can create playlists of your favorite “pump you up” music to help make your workout more effective. Yes, music helps with your workout. A study in 2005 showed that listening to music boosted workouts, leading to a greater reduction in weight and body fat compared to the participants who weren’t rocking out to tunes (done by researcher Christopher Capuano, PhD.). The music also helped participants stick with their exercise program, probably because the music took their mind off the difficulty of the exercise and helped time seem like it was going by faster.
If you get sick of your own music and want to try out some new tunes, give the Pandora (my fave), Last.fm, or Slacker apps a try.
WWdiary – If you’re a Weight Watchers follower, this app is for you. You can set what day your new “points” week starts, decide whether to use the extra weekly allowance of points or activity points first when you go over your daily allowance, and also use it to track your weight. It’s a great alternative to the “pen and paper” trackers from Weight Watchers.
Those are my favorite “freebie” apps, but if you have a couple extra bucks in your pocket (or better yet can find $2.99 in change in your sofa cushions – moving those cushions around and digging for the change counts as exercise, right?), then check out FitSynch. It has 1600+ exercises, videos, 500 workouts, and 60 fitness plans. Plus you get to “try before your buy” with a 15 day free trial.
You don’t feel like taking the time to download apps? No problem. Your android smartphone can still do lots to help you with your weight loss.
Use the browser to quickly access your favorite calorie counter websites; send a text to a friend when you’re in need of moral support to help you resist walking into the ice cream shop and buying a triple scoop fudge ripple cone; or my favorite technique when it’s a super busy time crunched day – use the camera to take pictures of everything you eat during the day and then browse those pictures later in the day when you have time to fill in your food diary (the one on your phone, on your computer, or your “old school” pen and paper). The camera will help your faulty memory remember everything you ate, including that latte you grabbed at Starbucks for a much needed afternoon pickup.
What about iPhone users? Well, I don’t personally have or use one, but you can read about similar apps for the iPhone here, here and here.
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