The New Year means resolutions which, for most people, will include losing weight. Following the gluttony of the holiday season, many are motivated to get in shape for the new year, but few follow their new-found fitness through February. Weight loss apps are like handheld personal trainers or dieticians, great tools to keep you on track to reach your goal weight in 2012. And since the market for apps continues to grow, The Daily Beast has narrowed down the best apps that will get you eating better and shedding pounds.
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One of the keys—perhaps the key—to weight loss is calorie consumption, but who has the time or the mental math skills to keep track? Dieters swear by the Lose It! app because it takes care of calculating just how many calories are in that cocktail or cupcake and how much exercise you have to do to burn them off. Also, enter your goal weight, current weight, height and age and Lose It! will tell you exactly how many calories you should consume each day to get to where you want to be.
This app is great for the lazy dieter. While it may be a bit awkward to pull out your iPhone and start snapping photos of your food instead of your friends at the dinner table, you’ll be glad you did when you get a full analysis of your dietary habits from Thin-site’s in house health experts and personalized advice on how to lose weight.
Losing weight with Weight Watchers is possible, but it’s a lot of work. There are points involved and it can get a bit confusing trying to figure out how many points are allotted for every food. The Weight Watchers Mobile app provides a food point guide as well as thousands of easy-to-follow, low-fat recipes. One of the unique things about Weight Watchers is, unlike other diets, you don’t have to do it alone. If you ever want to commiserate with fellow Weight Watchers, just type in your zip code to find nearby meeting spots. The app is free but you must be a Weight Watchers subscriber to use it; however, prospective subscribers are allowed to sample the app’s features before committing to a membership.
Dieting doesn’t need to be a house arrest sentence. Those with a soft spot for fast food will love the Restaurant Nutrition app by Foundation HealthCare Network, which offers nutritional information—calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates, etc.—for restaurant menus, and a running profile to keep track of what users eat. With 250 restaurant options, the free app still may be a little limiting for weight-conscious diners who like to eat out but not necessarily at national chains.
How often do we actually follow the dieting guidelines laid out by the food pyramid? Several diets recommend narrowing down the five food groups to three macronutrient categories: carbohydrates, protein, and fat—and consuming 40 percent, 30 percent and 30 percent of each. The 40:30:30 app allows you to track these percentages for every meal to make sure you’re consuming the correct percentage of each. It’s handy and free.
Yoga is great exercise but, unless you’re a trained yogi, almost impossible to do correctly on your own. Instead of paying for pricey yoga classes and being limited to instructors’ schedules, why not get the Pret-a-Yoga app for 99 cents and do yoga at home whenever you want? Follow along with instructor Kathleen Kastner, as she guides you through the poses, breathing sequences and the meditation of yoga.
The Diet Point app for Android is a fast, easy, and free way to calculate calories and weight watchers points for any food. The app also compiles a grocery list for a variety of diet plans and includes a BMI, BMR and daily energy expenditure calculator as well as several weight-loss tips.
