8 Best Fitness and Diet Smart Phone Apps

There's no longer an excuse to sabotage your diet when away from home: Smart phones go with you everywhere, and can even be used to encourage, educate, and hold you accountable to your fitness goals. So what tools are worth the hype? We share the eight downloads you'll want to check out before you start pursuing those ambitious diet objectives.

1. Lose It!
   Compatiblity: iPhone and iTouch
   Cost: Free

Perhaps one of the most simple and easy-to-maintain applications, Lose It! is a basic calorie counter, fitness tracker, and food diary with few bells and whistles. While it contains a wide array of commonly consumed foods, those who use their own recipes or buy new items at the packaged food market will want to add those into their favorites list for easy future reference. Daily exercises include common tasks like yard work, yoga, and walking, and the app gives you the ability to adjust your intensity level to more accurately reflect how many calories you actually burned.

2. Go Pedometer
    Compatibility: iPhone and iTouch
    Cost $1.99

Forget about the clip-on pocket pedometer. This handy app allows your smart phone to track your every step (literally). Placed in your pocket, on a belt, or in your hand, Go Pedometer automatically stops counting when you stop, measures distance, and calculates calories burned.

3. SparkPeople Food and Fitness Tracker
    Compatibility: iPhone and iTouch
    Cost: Free

Having received rave reviews from members for years now, the SparkPeople online community is becoming an effective (and supportive) way to meet any weight loss or fitness goal. This corresponding free diet and food tracker gives you just a little more of that group goal-setting while in the car or at work, and it seamlessly syncs with a user online account. (No need to enter your info when you get home!)

4. Pandora
    Compatibility: Android, Blackberry, iPhone, iTouch, Palm, Windows Mobile
    Cost: Free

Not necessarily new to the market (most people have been using Pandora in some form for years), this custom jukebox-to-go can be a fantastic motivational tool for anyone looking to shape up or slim down. If you're tired of being in the "zone" only to have your workout interrupted by a less-than-peppy tune, just set your custom Pandora channel to something upbeat (techno, maybe?) and let your body move to the music.

5. Eat This, Not That
    Compatibility: iPhone and iTouch
    Cost: $4.99

One of the more pricey apps on our list of favorites, this program is based on the best-selling book by the same name. When counting calories isn't enough, you can depend on Eat This, Not That to give you the ugly truth about the foods you encounter every day--and offer you a guilt-free alternative to help you feel full (not deprived.) In addition to giving a grade for almost every product available at your grocery store, there are fun quizzes which test you on your knowledge of 13,000 popular items at chains like Chili's, Whataburger, Hooters, and more!

6. Coach Hacker Traveler Workout
    Compatibility: iPhone and iTouch
    Cost: $.99

 

 

Business travelers are notorious for skipping workouts when on the road, but it doesn't have to be that way! The Traveler Workout app from the Coach Hacker series is an affordable series of workout videos that downloads one time to your phone, where you'll always have access to them--even with no wireless connection! Using just the furniture and tools available in a typical hotel room (in this case, a chair), the 6 exercises are a great alternative to skipping the expensive hotel gym and ordering a pizza. (Coach Hacker has several other $.99 apps, including Kettlebell workouts, Core exercises, BOSU workouts, and Office workouts.)

7. GoodFoodNearYou
    Compatibility: Blackberry, iPhone, iTouch
    Cost: Free

Nothing's more frustrating than being in a strange city and having nowhere near you to eat healthy. Before you stroll up and down the street, narrowly avoiding the burgers-and-fries chains that seem to be everywhere, download this quick (and free) app designed to help you find healthy food within walking or driving distance of your location. Choose to sort results by distance or lowest fat and find menu items from popular chains you may never knew existed! (Some of the healthiest choices may surprise you.)

8. Gym Buddy
    Compatibility: iPhone and iTouch
    Cost: $2.99

While we couldn't find an app that would spot you during lifts, there is one that comes pretty close to holding you accountable for every press and squat. This workout log gets very detailed, offering countdown timers to monitor rest periods, customization of plans, and the ability to email your history to your home or work. In addition to the workout log, this app provides performance graphs and a workout calendar to help you do better as time goes on.

Like most high-tech fitness solutions, there's no one tool that will work for everyone. Feel free to play around with free apps to get a feel for what you can't (and can) live without, and be sure to read the user reviews to help you in your purchase.

Have you used any of these apps? Comment with your experiences and suggestions for others just starting out!

========================================================================= Linsey Knerl is the Community Manager for Wise Bread, a community dedicated to helping folks live large on a small budget. She loves savvy tech solutions that help her share the world with her children.