My Top 5 Healthy Apps
Sleep Cycle:
I first bought this app about 5 years ago and even now the technology in the app astounds me. Basically, it works by detecting movement during your sleep. You turn the app on and place your phone face down on a corner or spare section of your mattress. The phone is able to detect and graph your sleep cycles (there are 4 stages of sleep, the most important being REM which is rapid eye movement or dream sleep. Not only does it detect and graph your sleep cycle, it also gives valuable information such as your total sleep time and average sleep time. But that’s not the coolest part. This app is able to detect what phase of sleep you are in and then wake you at the most suitable time that is close to your waking time but also during your lightest phase of sleep. This ensures that you wake in the most appropriate way. Simply brilliant.
Calorific:
If you struggle to recognise appropriate portion sizes for different foods and can’t work out where your calories are coming from then this app is for you. Calorific is quite simple. It provides a series of pictures of foods on a plate. Each plate is worth 200 calories. It allows you to easily compare different food types and the amount of calories in that food. Should I have half a blueberry muffin or a whole plate of blueberries? You make the comparison and choose the foods to match 200 calories.
FoodSwitch:
To use this app you simply take it with you whilst you are grocery shopping, scan the barcode of a product that you have selected and the app provides you with a list of healthier alternatives. You can choose to switch for overall health reasons, to decrease salt or to avoid gluten, depending on your preferences. It’s not only fun and easy to use, it gets you think about making healthier choices all the time, not just when you are using the app.
Tabata Timer:
There are many versions of tabata timers in the app store and I am not going to endorse a particular one because there are so many. I do however, endorse that you purchase one. You can easily spice up your training by using the app to set your own intervals and rest times so that you are pushed along in your training sessions. The better apps also allow you to play music whilst the timer is running. Great for short workouts when you have a time schedule and motivation is a little low.
EasyDietDiary:
This app is particularly good to track your food intake. The app provides a wide range of foods for you to select from and best of all it is Australian so you don’t have to worry about converting calories to kilojoules or trying to find Australian products. This is a common complaint for many food diary apps. EasyDietDiary also provides a breakdown of your macronutrients so you know that you are eating to meet your health requirements as well as your energy requirements.
I hope you enjoy trialling this list. Please share this blog with your friends on social media by clicking the icons below and let me know how the apps work for you and if you have any new ones to share with me.