Two Fitness Apps You Simply Must Have

Note: I may earn money or products from the companies, products, or links mentioned in this post.

As many of you know I have been on a journey to to be more healthy and fit. I want to exercise more, eat better, and lose a little bit more weight in the process. Thanks to good friend’s recommendations, I have found two fitness apps that have seriously changed my life. They help me keep control and keep track of of my eating, calorie intake, and my exercise and fitness.

These apps have been so helpful that I just had to write about them and share a little about them with you. From the comments I have been getting on several of my other posts on eating healthy, getting fit, and losing weight, it sounds like I am not alone in this journey and that others would definitely benefit from using these apps.

As a stay-at-home mom or even as a busy mom these apps make my life SO much easier. I am able to incorporate a lot of the healthy eating habits and exercises I want without even leaving my home. So without further ado here is a little bit about these two apps.

MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is pretty popular. You might have heard about it or even used it once or twice. But do you know about everything that it does? This app is seriously AWESOME!

Here are some pictures of what the app looks like and what it does (and no these aren’t of my progress). When you first get the app, before you even use it, it asks you several questions and sets you up on a calorie diet. For instance, it will ask you how active you are each day, how much weight you are looking to lose, how any times a week you will exercise, how soon you want to lose the weight by, and then puts all that together and tells you how many calories you need to eat to accomplish your goals and to achieve a healthy diet and eating habits.

As you can see in the first picture on the left, it will tell you your total calories, how many calories you have eaten in food already for that day, how many calories you have burned during exercise that day, and your balance (what you have left) in the green. During your day you just fill in what you eat and the exercise or calories you have been burning.

For example, in the second picture, you see it says “Breakfast.” So if you are drinking orange juice for breakfast then you type that it your search bar and it will come up with all the different types of oranges juices and the brands, amounts, etc. You just find the kind you are drinking and look for the serving size. You either can measure up with their serving size and make sure that’s what you stick with or if you drink more then that, then you just edit it to show how much you drank so that your calorie intake amount will be correct.

The third picture shows a food diary for the day. It shows what you have eaten at each meal, how many calories for each food, and how many calories per meal. It also shows how much exercise you have done that day. Another cool thing is that you can keep track of your water intake. I love this because I could never remember how much I was drinking and I knew it wasn’t enough.

In the fourth picture, it shows how to enter your food intake. The example given is a subway sub (and yes they have almost every food imaginable, every brand, and almost every restaurant). It shows how many calories that sub is and it gives you the option of a 6 inch or a 12 inch. If for some reason you cannot find your food you can type it in manually. You can add your own recipes and meals and save the foods that you eat regularly so you don’t have to keep punching it in.

My Absolutely favorite thing about this app which the pictures above do not show is the scanner. Yes, this app SCANS! If you can’t find your food, brand, etc. in their database, then you hit the scan button and you can scan the bar code on the box or packaging you are eating. You have no idea how easy this makes things. If you scan your foods it automatically comes up with all the calorie and fat info and gives you your serving suggestions. I love it!

One last thing that is not pictured above is the “progress” bar. Here you can record and keep track of your weight. You can even track up to 3 months back.

At the end of the day when you are finished plugging in all your food intake and exercise into your diary, you hit the button that completes it for the day, and it will tell you based on today’s diet and exercise, an estimate of how much you will weigh by a certain date. For example, at the end of one of my days it told me that if every day was like today, then I would lose _x_ amount of pounds or weigh _x_ amount by March 5th. Pretty cool! And it definitely makes me more motivated to keep on track and keep on going the next day and every day too!

One last feature that I love about this app, is that you can add and follow all your friends’ progress too. You can get their updates, see their food and exercise diaries (unless they set it to private) and see how much weight they have lost so far. It really helps with the motivation, and it’s fun to comment and see their progress too!

Interested in getting this app?
Download it for the iphone
Download it for Android
MyFitnessPal on Facebook
MyFitnessPal on Twitter
On MyFitnessPal? Add me: KathrynAnn24

Don’t have a smart phone? You can use all the same features online on their website: MyFitnessPal.com

Photo 1# credit, Photo 2# credit, Photo 3# credit

 

Nike Training Club (NTC)

I just recently started using this app when a friend told me about it, and let me tell you, this app WORKS! The first day I used it, I was so sore I seriously could barely get up and down the stairs. The more I use it the more I’ve been able to get in shape, learn about new workouts, and figure out what kind of workouts are good for me.

The pictures here pretty much explain how it works. Each time you want to work out you choose what kind you want to do or what you want to focus on that day. Once you click on one of those it comes up with timed workouts (times vary from 15 to 60 minutes) for you to choose from (see example below). Then in the third picture it shows you what you the kinds of exercises you will be doing during that workout and for how many minutes at a time.

The second picture above shows the timer once you have started your workout. The best thing about this app? Each exercise they tell you to do has a video showing how to do it (that is something I definitely need)! It also will have a voice telling you what to do as you do it, how many minutes you have left,  and when to switch sides, etc.

Another awesome feature is that you can play the music you have on your phone during your workout. It doesn’t interfere with the videos or the any of the other features which I absolutely LOVE!

The app also keeps track of what workouts you have done, and how many minutes total you have worked out since using the app. The more minutes you add on, the more rewards and bonus features you get, including bonus workouts, healthy recipes and more!

Here is a quick video about the app:

You can find more NTC videos (including workouts) on the Nike Women YouTube Channel.

Interested in getting this app?
Download NTC for the iphone
NTC on Facebook
NTC online

Photo 1# credit, Photo 2# credit, Photo 3# credit

 

I just wanted to end quickly with that I did not get paid or asked to write this. I wrote this because I love these apps and I think everyone should know about them! I hope this has been helpful to you, let me know if you have any questions.