Spring Into Shape: 5 Top Fitness Apps for Your Smartphone
Five apps to help you lose weight, tone up and eat healthy.
March 25, 2011— -- With the cold weather behind us and warm weather on its way, wouldn't it be nice to get in shape in time for summer?
Sure, you could an enlist a trainer to help you out. But first, you might want to turn to the one in your pocket: your smartphone. It's the one thing you have with you all the time and, considering all the fitness apps that can help you lose weight, tone up and eat healthier, you might as well make good use of it.
Below, take a look at five of the top fitness apps for your smartphone.
Like a digital diary of calories eaten and calories burned, Lose It! helps you create a diet plan and then stick to it. You just enter your weight, height, age and sex and then let the app know your goal weight. The app sets up a daily budget to help you reach your goal at a rate you decide.
As you eat and exercise each day, you tell the app the calories in and the calories out and the app monitors your progress to help you stay on track. You even can create recipes and share you information with friends.
Lost It! is available for free for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, and it's coming soon to Android.
Available only for Android users, CardioTrainer takes full advantage Android phones' beautiful screens and GPS technology. It's one of the most popular free fitness apps in the Android Market and it's easy to set up.
After you enter your weight, height and other key information (so that it can figure out your calories burned), you just start your workouts.
Like several of the fitness apps, it uses your phone's GPS to map where you've been, but it also has a pedometer to record your progress is case you lose your GPS signal.
In addition to running, you can use CardioTrainer for biking, walking, rollerblading, and a bunch of other activities.
The app uses a built-in music player, so you have access to all your playlists while you're exercising, and it includes a free calorie counter to help you keep track of your daily food intake.
If you want a cheerleader, the app even provides verbal encouragement as you work out. When you're done with a session, you get a calorie count of how much you've burned, as well as a food example of how much that is.
For example, after a morning walk, it might tell you that you've walked off two strawberries.
The app also wants you to share information with Facebook friends, so if you're not interested you'll want to disable it pronto.
