With 2021 just around the corner, it is time to take stock of our health. Here we highlight five of the best health and fitness apps, to ensure that we are ready for 2021.
If I had a penny for every time someone said, “I can’t wait for 2020 to be over…”, by now I would be able to buy a hefty slice of chocolate cake! However, with more of us working from home, and not socialising or being as active as we had been before the pandemic, the pounds (or kilos) have been piling up. We get bored sitting at our desks all day in a spate of online meetings, and to break the monotony, it is so easy to go rummaging in the kitchen…
As we anticipate closing the chapter on 2020, and trying to put our best foot forward in 2021, first, we ought to take stock of our health. In addition to working longer hours, not getting enough exercise, eating too much, 2020 has been a stressful year. Hence, a focus on our health may require us to, among other things, improve diet, get more exercise, find ways to manage stress, or a combination of the above. Below, we highlight five apps to help you improve your health in time for 2021.
1. MyFitnessPal
Generally, it is always good to start with the end in mind. With MyFitnessPal, you can choose a goal, such as weight loss, weight gain, and weight maintenance, and the app will help you learn more about nutrition, what you are putting into your body, and how to build healthy habits to reach your goal.
MyFitnessPal has excellent food tracking functionality, including an extensive food database that offers nutrition information for thousands of foods and pre-packaged meals. It also supports barcode scanning, calorie counting, and other food insights, to name a few.
Finally, with MyFitnessPal, you can also log your exercise and steps, thus allowing you to not only track the calories you consume, but also what has been expended throughout the day. Users can also get support and encouragement from the community forum.
Availability: iPhone; Android
Price: Free; paid subscription
2. Johnson & Johnson 7 Minute Workout
The 7-minute workout come to prominence several years ago based on research done circuit training workouts, such as the currently popular high intensity interval training. Its premise is that one can get a comprehensive workout in just seven minutes
This 7-minute workout – excluding warm up and cool down – features 12 different 30-second exercises, with five seconds of rest in between. The Johnson & Johnson version includes the workout library has 22 pre-workout routines that can be customised to create thousands of variations.
Availability: iOS and Android
Price: Free; paid subscription
3. Map My Run
In addition to tracking and mapping all your runs, Map My Run can be used to log more than 600 activities, including cycling, walking, gym workouts, cross training, yoga, to name just a few.
In tracking your runs, in particular, you can get real-time audio coaching for common stats – like pace, distance, and duration on your runs – and view your weekly progress. routines. The Map My Run app integrates readily with the hundreds of apps and wearables, such as Google Fit, Android Wear, Garmin, Fitbit, Suunto, thus allowing all of your data to be centralised and analysed.
Availability: iPhone; Android
Price: Free; Paid membership
4. JEFIT Workout Planner
For those of us who cannot afford a personal trainer, or prefer to work out on our own, we still could benefit from having a workout planner, and an app that helps us track our training. The JEFIT Workout Planner is among the best on the market.
The JEFIT Workout Planner has thousands of pre-established workout plans, from which to choose, and over 1,300 exercises, if instead you want to create your own fitness plans and routines specific to your goals. It also provides benchmarking, tracking and analysis data, to help you monitor your progress and stay motivated.
Availability: iOS and Android
Price: Free: paid subscription
5. Down Dog
In addition to being physically challenging, which depend on the type performed, yoga can facilitate deep relaxation and restore some semblance of balance and mindfulness in our chaotic lives. To that end, Down Dog is among the most popular yoga apps on the market.
Down Dog has over 60,000 different configurations, and over 300,000 different workouts. It can be used by novices – who have never done a yoga practice before – through to advanced practitioners, who want to build their own practice, and offers a range of features and customisations to ensure you will never get bored during your workout.
Availability: iOS and Android
Price: Free; paid subscription
Image credits: Steve Buissinne (Pixabay); Google Play
