Fitness? Sure, there’s an app for that. I have tried a lot of them but none can compare to the two apps put out by the DailyBurn. The DailyBurn site allows you to create an account and keep track of all your health and fitness needs. You can keep an online food journal that keep track of your daily calories (if you join as a pro member at $5.99 a month you’ll get a breakdown of all nutrients). You can also monitor your weight and keep track of your workouts.
What I love most about the DailyBurn, however, is their two iPhone apps. These are the two apps that I use on a daily basis. I think they are fantastic. Sure, like most iPhone apps, they could be better. Overall, though, they are by far the best fitness-related apps I have used.
This app is just amazing! This is near perfect for tracking your daily meals. You can search for food in the search box, or, the truly amazing feature is you can click the lightning icon and scan a UPC code of a food item and it will find the name and nutritional information of almost any food. In the two months I have been using this app, there have only been a handful of foods that it hasn’t found. That’s where it gets even better. You can add your own foods and link them to the UPC code. If the food is in the database but the UPC isn’t associated with it, you can do that too. The app also syncs with the website to keep your food journal up to date.
Another nice feature is that you can separate your meals. The meals provided by the app is Breakfast, Morning Snack, Lunch, Afternoon Snack, Dinner and Late-Night Snack. One of the improvements I’d like to see in future releases is you can’t edit the food once you add it. If you need to change the amount or the meal you have to delete the item and re-enter it correctly.
Another much needed improvement is the ability to sync your favorite foods with the web site. Currently the favorites are completely different lists for your iPhone and the web site. Also, it seems to take a lot of clicks to add a food entry. You pick the food, pick the amount of the serving, the meal and the date. There is a quick add button but it defaults to a single serving.
I would also really like to see a calendar with clickable days. The only day navigation currently is next and previous and it is rather slow.
The benefits of keeping a daily food journal is invaluable to your health, especially when you are losing weight (not trying, doing…you’re staying positive, right?). It’s amazing how if you have to keep track of food that’s nutritionally challenged you feel less inclined to eat it because you don’t want to admit it to your journal that you gave in to an indulgence. This app is hands down the best one for this task that I’ve used.
DailyBurn App
This app is a mobile version of the DailyBurn site. You can keep track of your weight, your workouts and your nutrition. I use the FoodScanner app for entering food so I don’t use this app for that, but it syncs with the web site as well so the food journal is synced automatically.
I’ll admit, this app took me a little time to figure out. I am currently doing the P90X program from Beachbody. To enter your workouts you have to add the workout programs to your profile. Then when you’re ready to do one of those workouts you select it and either select the first workout listed or the start workout button at the bottom of the list to start tracking your workout. Now, this is where I got stuck. After you have finished each exercise in your workout program, you have to Submit Your Progress for each exercise. After the last one is submitted the workout is recorded. You can also add workouts without selecting a program, but the same steps are involved.
I like this app and I use it every day. There is room for improvement on it. The process of entering workouts could be much better. Also, when you start a workout that you have done in the past it is supposed to pull up the weight and reps from the last time you performed the exercise. This does not work for me at all. It pulls up the settings for the very first time I did it, not the last. This is a little frustrating but to avoid it I usually print out the last workout and use those settings. I think this app could also use a calendar so you can go back and see your previous workouts.
There you have it. These are my two very favorite iPhone apps for fitness. Are there any apps you use regularly to maintain your health and fitness goals?
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
