I Time to get fit and appy
T’S THAT time of year again – it all started so well, but by now the very idea of New Year’s resolutions seems ridiculous and the trainers are back in the wardrobe.
But we can do better. Assuming you have a smartphone, you can get a helping hand from the apps below… without splashing too much cash.
They will teach you how to eat better, move more and feel calmer. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for?
EAT WELL
LIFESUM (IOS AND ANDROID, FREE WITH IN-APP PURCHASES) LIFESUM, aims to track the sum of our daily intake of food and drink.
It’s an all-in-one food app that will help you find the right diet, offer recipes to help you stick to it, and allow you to track everything you eat so you can make informed choices about your daily habits.
It’s free to try but costs £6.99 a month for the full service.
WATERMINDER (iOS
– £4.99 with in-app purchases, and
Android – free with in-app purchases) WATERMINDER allows you to track your water intake throughout the day (you tell it when you drink anything and it works out when you’ve had enough).
It’ll also remind you when you haven’t drunk enough water, nudging when it’s time to top up.
Not drinking enough fluids can make us feel lousy, less productive, and more prone to feeling down – WaterMinder could make all the difference. MOVE MORE
Fitbit ZIP (£49.99) OF COURSE, you can track activity on your smartphone without any external device, but, really, if you want to know just how much exercise you are doing on any given day, a discrete standalone gizmo that measures activity is a must – if only to save your phone’s battery.
The best in the business is Fitbit – if you’re not in the mood to shell out upwards of £400 for a smart watch. And the cheapest tracker Fitbit makes is the Zip.
And its simplicity is refreshing – you just attach it to your clothing somewhere (with the handy clip) and it will monitor the number of steps you take, the distance you cover, and the calories you burn.
Armed with that knowledge you can set goals and feel good about yourself when you hit them.
It syncs with the Fitbit app on your phone or computer. The free app does all sorts of other things – such as track food intake – but you’ll never know how far away you are from leading that almostmythical active life if you don’t track the basics of how much you move each day.
ZOVA
(iOS, free with in-app purchases) MANY of us don’t have time to get to the gym, and find it hard to fit getting some proper exercise into our daily routine.
Lucky for us, then, that Zova exists – because fitting short targeted routines into our lives is what it’s all about.
You’ll have to pay the monthly subscription fee of £8.40 to get all the features – but that’s cheaper than a gym membership, for a service that’s more likely to stick.
SEVEN – the 7-minute workout
(iOS and Android, free with in-app purchases)
IF YOU like your exercise even faster, then the sevenminute workout is perhaps the least you can do for the most benefit.
It’s high-intensity interval training at its most intense, and it seems to have the science to back up its claims – that you can get fit in just seven minutes a day. Surely we can all manage that?
STAY CALM
10% Happier (iOS and Android, free with in-app purchases)
DAN HARRIS is a mega-famous US TV news anchor... who suffered the rare misfortune of having a panic attack while reading the news on Good Morning America.
Out of that experience – and a long analysis of what went wrong – came the realisation that meditation can help calm the voices in our heads.
Dan wrote a book, hosted a podcast, and eventually helped to create this guided meditation app.
You’re not likely to have a panic attack on TV, of course, but who would not like to be 10% happier?
SLEEP CYCLE ALARM CLOCK
THE secret to a good day, as we all know, is a good night.
A proper sleep and we’re up for anything, a night of demons and we might as well give up before we even start.
So, like most of these wellbeing solutions, the key to getting started is tracking what’s going on right now so we can see where things are going awry – hopefully giving us a chance to put things right. Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock does just a couple of things really well – it tracks your sleep patterns so you can see what’s going on, but it also uses this information to wake you when (during a 30 minute window you define) you are in the lightest phase of sleep, thus waking you up at just the right moment to avoid the worst possible start to the stay.
Best of all, perhaps, is that it does this without any special equipment – just your smartphone microphone.