We’re living in a world where 45% of the global population is trying to lose weight, but our busy lifestyles certainly do not make it easy to keep track of the foods we eat. Fortunately, innovations in technology have brought us swaths of intuitive nutritional apps to help us log our foods and improve our diets. Personal trainers show us which ones have the most to offer and why.
There is just no escaping technology. It continues to permeate every nook and cranny of our lives. In fact, if you talk to the personal trainers around London, they’ll tell you that technology is playing an increasingly vital role in their jobs. One of the premier advancements that they’ve seen in technology are the myriad nutritional apps now available to anyone with a smartphone.
What are Nutritional Apps?
Like other apps designed for your smartphone, nutritional apps can best be described as downloadable software programs with the distinction that these apps are designed to help us lose weight. They achieve this by giving us easy-to-access tools for tracking and analyzing the foods in our diet.
Remember, smartphones have become ubiquitous in modern society. Englanders check their smartphone, on average, every 12 minutes. (Don’t feel bad -- Americas check their smartphones over 350 times a day!) The point is that nutritional apps are constantly within reach on our smartphones, and all we need to do is make a consistent effort to use them.
Why are Nutrition Apps So Popular?
Frankly, personal trainers told us that the simple act of using an app to track what you’re eating is enough by itself to help us make progress towards our weight loss goals, so long as the act of using the app is cultivated into a habit.
“Weight loss and fitness are long-term deals. Any efforts that aren’t sustainable in your lifestyle are sure to lead to disappointing results. The beauty of nutritional apps is that they make it so easy to track what we eat, and that’s a great habit to develop if weight loss is your goal,” said one fitness professional in Canary Wharf (London, UK).
The growing popularity of nutritional apps is fueled by the fact that they offer a swath of useful features for people who want to lose weight, and they go much further than being simple calorie counters. From meal planning to goal setting, to subtle reminders throughout the day to drink more water, personal trainers around London are encouraging clients to explore these apps because they simply lead to better eating habits.
The fact is that health-related apps like these have already garnered over 200 million downloads which suggests that there’s a wide variety to choose from – below we review the most highly-recommended nutritional apps by the personal trainers and fitness professionals in England.
MyFitnessPal
If there’s one thing that personal trainers can agree on when it comes to weight loss, it’s that we need to establish a calorie-deficit to be successful. One of the most popular apps for calorie counting is MyFitnessPal. The key distinction of this app, and what makes it the first choice amongst personal trainers when working with new clients, is how easy the app interface can be navigated by newbies.
With a catalog of over 11 million types of foods, including dishes you’d buy at popular fast-food joints, it’s super easy with MyFitnessPal to quickly document what you eat and then create a log that can be evaluated to assess nutritional value. And in a world of carb-sensitivity, many people will find the app’s ability to break out the three main macronutrients (carbohydrates, fat, and protein) into a pie-chart to be an appealing feature. MyFitnessPal is free but offers a premium tier that includes innovative components like a bar code scanner ($19.99 per month).
LoseIt!
The LoseIt! app offers a wide array of tools for people who want to focus strictly on burning unwanted fat; its primary advantage is its effectiveness in helping you count the calories you consume. What makes the LoseIt! app especially popular with first-time users is its database of over 30 million foods, including popular restaurants as well as foods that aren’t terribly common.
A first choice of many personal trainers working with clients focusing exclusively on weight loss, the LoseIt! app takes users through a series of lifestyle questions to determine daily calorie needs and offers timelines for setting weight loss goals. A key distinction of this nutritional app is the appealing “Snap It” feature; a component of the app that allows you to take pictures of your meals to assess portion sizes.
There is no charge for the core version of the Lose It! app, but the premium tier is available for $39.99 per year at the time of this writing.
No list of nutritional apps would be complete without mentioning Noom. An app that comes very highly recommended by personal trainers, especially amongst the fitness professionals in the Canary Wharf area of London – a bustling hotbed of the city’s most advanced physical training activities.
The allure of Noom is the level emphasis that it puts on building healthy eating habits by helping you better understand your relationship with food. In other words, Noom applies psychology to an extensive degree to help us look at how we think about food. With this psychological approach to weight loss, Noom helps us make incremental changes in our behavior that increases the likelihood of having consistent weight loss success.
While exceedingly popular, the pricing of Noom can be its weakness. There is a free trial period, but there are also different tiers of a subscription-based plan, typically starting at about $60.00 per month.
The popularity of nutritional apps is driven by the fact that they make improving our diet simpler. However, anyone will tell you that it’s not exactly an engaging process remembering to log each meal. That was before the YAZIO nutritional app was introduced. While other nutritional apps we’ve mentioned allow you to track your caloric intake, the advantage of YAZIO is that it offers an interface that makes the process dynamic, engaging, and informative. In other words, personal trainers love the YAZIO app because it’s engineered to be an enjoyable experience.
YAZIO employs the use of a brief series of questions to do an assessment of your lifestyle and then creates a personalized nutrition plan based on your answers. This is another app that includes a nifty barcode scanner feature that simplifies the process of adding foods to your daily log.
The core version of YAZIO is offered at no charge, and the “Pro” version of the software requires a membership of $19.99 for three months or $39.99 for 12 months at the time of this writing.
Connect with a Personal Trainer
With people increasingly taking more accountability for their own health, personal trainers are finding themselves in great demand today. These fitness professionals are extensively trained (and often certified) in helping clients achieve their fitness goals, and they have the expertise to help them do it in the safest and shortest amount of time. A simple online search of “PT near me” can be a great place to start.
Personal trainers have an in-depth understanding of the latest fitness technology available, and they can be a remarkable guide in helping you choose the right nutritional app for your goals.