THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT
January is the time we think about getting fit and healthy, but by February many of us have forgotten those lofty goals. How to avoid the February fall-off? A study by the American Psychological Association has found that monitoring your progress and shar
Goals in Google Calendar
This week Google announced a new feature for its calendar Goals, a connection for Google Fit and Apple Health that makes it even more useful. You can click to set a goal as easily as you set a reminder or event. Click on one of the suggested activities or write in your own. Add the frequency and timing and your digital coach is ready to remind you. Connect to Google Fit or Apple Health and you won’t have to remember to record that you’ve completed the activity.
Weight Watchers App
If you want to drop those extra holiday pounds, tracking what you eat will help. The Weight Watchers app lets you be as public or as private as you like — you can share your healthy eating and weight-loss goals, successes and setbacks or you can treat it as a personal diary. Plus connected recipes and other advice makes it easy to come up with ideas for eating well and it tracks your activities through FitPoints with a weekly goal.
Runkeeper
Runkeeper has been the go-to activity tracking apps for more than 40 million users for a number of years. Most recently it has been updated to work with the Apple Watch Series 2 and Apple Watch Nike+ GPS tracking. This means if you have the wearable you don’t have to take along your phone when you’re running, cycling or doing one of the other activities Runkeeper monitors. (You don’t have to be a runner to use it. It’s also for walking and cycling.) It integrates with your music app — iTunes and Spotify on iOS or with Android devices.
Samsung Gear and Under Armour Apps
Another announcement this week brings the integration of Under Armour Fitness apps to Samsung’s range of Gear wearables. In 2015 Under Armour bought both Endomondo and MyFitness Pal to add to its fitness apps. The latest announcement will see Under Armour’s suite of apps made available on Samsung devices, with the exact timing of the release dependent on the device.
Strava
This is the app for you if you’re into serious training. A social media app for athletes, along with following friends or training buddies, it lets you follow professional athletes. Track your own training and follow the pros. In last summer’s Olympic Games, gold medal-winning cyclist Greg Van Avermaet uploaded his Rio race and got 14,000 kudos, among the 1.3 million kudos bestowed through the app over the year. It’s Strava’s version of getting a like. There’s a free version and a premium version with extra features including live feedback and customized-training programs. It works with iPhones and Android phones as well as a number of apps and wearables. In its latest news, Strava, along with Google and Intel, has teamed up with New Balance in a new smartwatch called RunIQ.