Health and fitness apps for mobile devices are placing the ability to take better control of our health at our fingertips. But with so many apps on the market, how do you choose one that's right for you? Our expert Dietitians have trialled numerous smartphone applications and compiled a list of recommended health apps for you to try! Take a look.
| Easy Diet Diary | - Makes calorie tracking simple and easy.
- Scan the barcode or search the foods database. Then track your energy intake (in kilojoules or calories), major nutrients, the energy you burn in exercise, and your weight.
- Produced by Xyris software – the same company that developed food works; program software used and trusted by Australian dietitians and other health professionals.
- Requires no membership or registration.
- Iphone compatible only. Not suitable for Android.
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| My Fitness Pal | - Similar to Easy Diet Diary in that it gets you to either scan the barcode or search the extensive foods database to track your calories and monitor your weight and exercise.
- My fitness pal’s food catalogue is synced to the USA, UK and Canadian food databases. May require converting between metric and imperial system.
- Requires that you set up a personal account.
- Suitable for both Iphone and Android.
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| Control My Weight | - Food and exercise tracker.
- The extensive database of foods sourced from the Australian CalorieKing means you'll rarely have to manually enter a food.
- Saves favorites to improve ease of use for customers.
- In the rare case that you cannot locate a particular food, the "Create Food" button also enables you to add new foods to the database.
- You can also create recipes by entering all the ingredients into a list. Saving the recipe allows you to recall it whenever you want.
- Suitable for Iphone only.
- Apple will charge you $6.99 to purchase this app.
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| Food Switch | - Scan barcodes of packaged foods with a supported Smartphone or tablet camera for easy-to-interpret nutritional information for up to 90 percent of packaged products in Australia.
- Traffic light-style colour-coded ratings for 4 key food components; total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt.
- Also combined with SaltSwitch and a GlutenSwitch tool. SaltSwitch offers healthier choices with a lower amount of salt. GlutenSwitch can tell you if packaged food products contain gluten, and help you find similar foods that are gluten-free. The app lists any gluten-free alternatives in order of healthiest to lease healthy.
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| Happify | - Developed by leading psychologist and scientists.
- Happify recommends daily activities that deliver the best results for you based on your goals.
- You'll learn valuable skills to find more peace of mind and feel more engaged, motivated and excited about your future.
- App costs $16.99 to purchase.
- Requires that you set up a personal account.
- Only suitable for Iphone not Android.
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| Mindful Eating Tracker | - Helps you to better distinguish between physical and emotional hunger, as well as monitor how your body responds to particular foods.
- The calendar function will give you a brief overview of how ‘mindfully’ you are eating each day.
- Alarms can be set for meal times to remind yourself to become more mindful whilst you are eating.
- App costs $6.49 to purchase.
- Requires iOS 7.1 or later. Compatible with Iphone, iPad, and iPod touch.
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| Nike Training Club | - Nike+ Training Club is a training app with more than 100 full-body portable workouts (developed by a professional trainer) for you to complete any time, anywhere.
- Each workout is made up of carefully considered drills and aimed at helping you get lean, toned or strong.
- These workouts can be completed in 15, 30 or 45 minutes, and each will tell you the approximate calories you have burnt throughout the session.
- Functional training - a type of exercise that trains the whole body to perform better. It works to develop better muscular balance and joint stability and reinforces the body's ability to move freely during any activity.
- This app aims to strengthen everything from your core to your back, upper body and lower body. The app also offers some gym, high-intensity and studio-based workouts such as yoga.
- App is free to download but uses your mobile data.
- Requires that you set up a personal account.
- Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
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| MapMyFitness | - Track your running, walking, cycling and over 600 different activities using this app.
- This app breaks down every aspect of your fitness regimen and keeps you on track, using your Smartphone’s GPS.
- This all-in-one fitness tracker will collect, log and record your workout, calories burned, distance completed, speed, duration and pace.
- This app can connect to certain social media, such as Facebook, which enables you to share your progress. In addition, you can join fitness groups or events and be connected instantly to like-minded fitness friends.
- App is free to download but uses your mobile data.
- Requires that you set up a personal account.
- Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
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Health & Fitness Age
Calculator | - The Health & Fitness Age app has been developed by Queensland Health as part of the Healthier. Happier. Campaign to help people of all shapes and sizes do simple, everyday things to improve both their health and the way they look and feel.
- You’ll get reminders, tips and facts about the areas you need to focus on. Plus you can track your progress as part of the 4 Week Health & Fitness Age Challenge.
- Requires that you set up a personal account.
- Requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
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