Smartphone Apps Can Improve Your Health

How Health and Fitness Apps Can Help You

For those of us who have smart phones, we use them for just about everything, and we should be taking advantage of the plethora of health apps available to us. Below are a few apps that can help you stay on track with whatever health goals you have.

CalorieKing iOS Food Search

Cost: Free

Available on iOS and the Web

This app allows you to search for the nutrition facts label for foods, drinks, and even chain restaurant meals. It even allows for you to change the serving size to update the information.

Want to know how many calories, carbohydrates, and fat are in a large order of French fries from McDonald’s? It will give you all of the nutritional information…and maybe make you reconsider and order a side salad instead!

Lose It!

Cost: Free; Premium Version available for $39.99/year

Available on Android, iOS, Nook, Kindle, and the Web

Lose It! is designed to help you achieve your weight loss goals. Once you input information like weight, height, rate of weight loss, and total weight loss goal, Lose It! will recommend how many calories per day to eat. It then allows for you to log your daily intake by searching for foods or scanning the barcode. Lose It! also features the ability to automatically track the number of steps you take each day, and it allows for you to record exercise. Need motivation? You can add friends for encouragement, earn badges, and participate in challenges.

FitBit

Cost: Free; Premium Membership available for $49.99/year

Syncs with FitBit Wireless Activity Trackers – available for prices ranging from $59.95-$249.95

Available on Android, iOS, and Windows

If you own a FitBit activity tracker, the app is the dashboard to see all of the specifics. From tracking the number of steps you take to the hours of restful sleep you get, this app can give you the lo-down on your health habits. If you do not own an activity tracker, the app gives you the ability to use your phone as a mobile tracker. In addition to estimating the number of steps you take, it will estimate the distance in miles you have walked, the amount of calories burned, and has the ability to record the amount of water you drink and number of calories you eat! It also evokes some healthy competition between your friends who are using FitBit by showing who has the most steps in a week.

7-Minute Workout

Cost: Free

Available on Android and iOS

Do you find that limited time, resources, and space get in the way of your exercise goals? You can’t use those excuses with this app! The 7-Minute Workout is a high-intensity interval training exercise that takes a total of just 7 minutes and requires a floor, a chair, a wall, and you!

The app instructs you to do different exercises for 30-second intervals with 10 seconds of rest in between. The exercises will work different parts of your body- for instance, it includes push ups, lunges, and sit ups to tone arms, legs, and the abdomen. It’s like having a personal trainer in your pocket!

Katie Schlemer, RD, LDN, is a Registered Dietitian and a Diabetes Educator in the Touro Diabetes Center. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics from Saint Louis University and completed her Dietetic Internship at Tulane University. Katie has been counseling individuals with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, and gestational diabetes for the past 3 years. Her goal is to help individuals learn how to maintain a healthy lifestyle in order to live well with diabetes.