Our Favourite Health and Fitness Apps

Oh ‘appy days! Technology has come so far. These days, there’s an app for pretty much everything. With such a huge range out there, it’s difficult to know exactly what apps are worth downloading, so we have tried to make it easier for you by shortlisting some of our favourite health and fitness apps for you to use both inside and outside the gym.

My Fitness Pal

What it’s good for

My Fitness Pal is great for counting your calories, measuring your macros, keeping an eye on your nutrients and syncing with your workouts. The majority of people use it for weight loss, but there’s a cause for it no matter what your goals are.

Why we love it

It’s accurate. My Fitness Pal has a food database of over 300,000,000 items (!) and this number increases every day. Simply type in what you’re consuming, or to be even more precise, scan the barcode on the packet. This will then bring up the exact calories, protein, vitamins etc. the item contains. Just make sure that you get your quantities correct. To be as accurate as possible, it’s good to measure your portion sizes.

It can sync with Samsung Health, MapMyRun, Fitbit and more. This means it can accurately track the amount of calories you’re burning in a workout. Nice!

It gives you alerts when you’re about to go over something, and gives you a thumbs up when you’ve hit a goal! Trying to lower your carbohydrate intake and up your protein intake? No drama. My Fitness Pal will alert you when you’re nearing your macro goal and congratulate you when you’ve reached another. Truly the motivation we all need!

But the best part? All of the above is COMPLETELY FREE. If you get the paid version, you’ll unlock a whole load of other benefits, but for now, we suggest downloading the free version and letting that blow you away.

Map My Run

What it’s good for

This app does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. This app allows you to see the route you’ve taken as you walk or run. It’s great for anyone who has the tendency to get lost in unfamiliar (or familiar) areas. It also gives you an idea of your elapsed time, distance, pace, speed, elevation, and how many calories you’ve burned. Thanks to GPS, it can even work out what speed you were going.

Why we love it

It’s a great way to find new places and new routes to explore on your walks or runs. It also has a fantastic community on there so you can meet like minded people and even set challenges for one another.

The dashboard is a great way of easily seeing your progress, too. It gives you a weekly and monthly breakdown of kilometers travelled, calories burned and total duration.

If you’re seriously into your running, you can even purchase the Under Armour Smart Shoes that will tell you some seriously granular stuff, from the length of your strides to your average steps per minute.

Headspace

What it’s good for

Headspace app is great for anyone wanting to learn the power of mindful meditation to improve their mental well-being and ability to handle stress. It teaches you various methods of meditation such as breathing focus and body scanning.

Why we love it

Looking after your mind is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. In the busy world we live in, it can be all too easy to neglect our mental health. Mindspace recognises this, which is why they’ve created guided meditation sessions, from as short at 3 minutes to 10 minutes long. Headspace teaches that there is no such thing as good or bad meditation. Instead, they teach that there is simply awareness and non-awareness.  The app teaches you to realise the moment your mind wanders, and teaches you to bring your mind back to focus, which is usually on your breathing. The techniques are simple but incredibly effective.

The first few sessions are free, which teach you the basics of meditation. Sign up and let us know how you get on!

Deliciously Ella

What it’s good for

This app, from the inspirational Ella Woodward, is perfect for vegans or those trying to live a healthy plant-based lifestyle. The app contains hundreds of Deliciously Ella recipes that prove that a vegan diet can be far from bland and boring.

Why we love it

Lets face it – plant based diets have many different benefits. It’s kinder to the environment, to animals and to our bodies. Finding inspiration for plant based recipes can be tricky, especially if you’re new to it. That is why we love this app. There are over 400 recipes on there with new content coming every single day. Try it out yourself and make sure you put the results on Instagram, tagging @reynoldsretreatofficial and @deliciouslyella!

What health and fitness apps have helped you in your fitness journey? We would love to hear about them, so let us know in the comments. 🙂