Each New Year, you hear countless people make resolutions and they usually revolve around health and lifestyle.
I’ve curated a selection of a few of my favourite and highly rated health and lifestyle apps that may help with your own 2014 New Year resolutions. If you still haven’t made one, I’ve shared a few resolutions that may sound a tiny bit too familiar but might be solved with one of the apps below.
“I need to lose the 5kgs worth of triple cream brie cheese and sauv blanc hanging off my waist.”
MyFitnessPal
The perfect weight-loss companion. I’m sure you’re already besties with this app, but if not, this is why you should be. MyFitness Pal is an easy to use calorie counter that makes sure you stay on the road to weight-loss success. The app has a database of over 1.5 million foods, over 350 exercise activities and a breakdown of nutritional information. All these features allow you to track your daily calorie consumption and how many calories you burnt exercising.
Best of all, MyFitnessPal understands that we might need the support of our friends for encouragement and to be accountable for our weight loss. You can add other friends using the app, view each other’s food journals and share your journey on social media.
Price: Free
Platform: iPhone, Android
“I want to channel my inner Miranda Kerr and become a yoga goddess.”
Yoga Studio
Save your hard-earned cash and do yoga wherever you take your phone with the app that features ready-made classes, individual yoga poses and the ability to build your own classes.
The readymade studio classes with full teacher audio and music options cater to beginners, intermediate, and advanced yoga gurus. Yoga Studio has ranges in ability, duration and focus and can be tailored to suit your personal needs. The app has a calendar feature that lets users schedule lessons and set reminders that can be synced to their calendar apps on Apple devices.
The Yoga Studio website offers free 15 minute beginners lessons if you’re unsure about the style of classes offered in this app. But why would you doubt an app that could help achieve the body of an angel?
Price: $2.99
Platform: iPhone, Android
“Smoking a pack a day is killing my lungs and my bank balance, 2014 is the year I quit smoking for good.”
QuitNow!
QuitNow! offers you real-time status, anytime to help cope with the anxiety of trying to quit smoking. It tells you the indicators of the time since your last cigarette, how many cigarettes you have avoided and the time as well as money you have saved.
The app provides the UN’s World Health Organization indicators on your health improvement process on your achievement list as you unlock each goal one by one.
QuitNow! is social with a built-in community, as well as Facebook and Twitter integration. The tax on smokes will rise by 12.5% each year from December 1, so download QuitNow! to start saving your health and funds.
Price: Free
Platform: iPhone, Android
“I want to shake up my work out routine.”
Zombies, Run!
I wouldn’t call hitting the treadmill an exciting part of my workout, but why not spice up your monotonous slog with Zombies, Run! The app weaves exercise in a zombie-based story that has you completing missions as you run to escape from the game’s undead.
This app keeps exercise fun and fresh with 23 missions and the option to add more via in-app purchases. The app records your distance, time, pace and calories burned on each mission and plays audio notifications as you run. If running from brain-eating zombies doesn’t get your pulse running, I’m not sure what will…
Price: Originally $7.99 but at the moment $2.99 for the New Year
Platform: iPhone, Android
“I’m not going to stay awake until 3am pinning pictures of throw cushions on Pinterest this year, I want a good night’s sleep.”
Sleep Cycle
This app acts as a bio- alarm clock that uses motion sensors in your phone to track your movements when you’re asleep and is able to estimate what stage of sleep you’re in. You program the alarm for the time you would like to wake up and the app will wake you up at the optimal time during your lightest sleep cycle. In the morning, the app provides a graph of your nightly movements and “Sleepy Quality” percentage so you can track your personal sleeping habits.
Sleep Cycle also has the option to make notes of your sleeping patterns to identify whether factors such as coffee and exercise have affected the quality of sleep. Quite impressively the app will spend a few nights learning about your sleeping habits and over time will become increasingly accurate and tailored over time.
I’d like to think of Sleep Cycle as your own personal sleeping coach, just remember to keep your phone on charge at night. If this doesn’t help, you can always revert back to having a big glass of red wine before bed.
Price: $0.99
Platform: iPhone, Android
“I made a cooking resolution this year: to expand my repertoire and cook different meals – my husband’s sick of spaghetti bolognaise.”
It’s easy to get stuck into the routine of making the same meals week in, week out. Taste has brought out this expansive, easy to follow recipe app with over 27 000 recipes from various titles such as Australian Good Taste and MasterChef magazine. Get inspired in the kitchen with features such as an interactive shopping list, a favourites folder, and a recipe of the day function.
Price: free
Platform: iPhone, iPad and Android
What’s next in the world of apps?
Well, Microsoft has developed a bra for women that will stop the wearer from comfort eating and a French company is now making ‘smart’ shirts that will monitor the wearer’s health condition. In a few years, we might not need smartphones or tablets to use smart apps, but for now, good luck using apps to help keep on top of your New Year resolutions.
Fi Bendall is the managing director of Bendalls Group, a team of highly trained digital specialists, i-media subject matter experts and developers.
Fi Bendall is chief executive of The Female Social Network and a Westpac-AFR 2015 100 Women of Influence, who was described by CEO Magazine as “The CEO’s secret weapon”. An expert and pioneer in digital strategy, she has over 23 years’ experience in the digital and tech sectors.
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