As you’re probably aware, if you’re looking to track something – there’s probably and App for that.  When it comes to tracking food and fitness, especially if you have some particular goals you’re trying to achieve – you will probably want to choose an App that offers convenience and ease of use – but also enough accurate detail to be truly useful. 

Food and Fitness tracking Apps are convenient, generally easy to use and can save time if you’re interested in tracking data.

The benefits of using an App to track your progress are simple.  They can provide: 

• Awareness raising – help you to ‘see’ what you’ve consumed or accomplished
• Accountability – a little like having a coach or teammates
• Assistance with decision making – about food choices or your next activity
• Help determining a particular food’s health value
• A way to log and keep track of the details of your training or exercise.

The downside to using Apps to track these things is that we can fall prey to obsessiveness.  A word of caution might include paying attention to your feelings and attitudes toward the data you are collecting.  If you’re becoming obsessive or are using the information to be negative or judgmental about yourself – it’s time to take a break from logging. 

Here are some questions that you may ask yourself as you search for the right App for you.

• When setting it up, how much personal data does it request from you?  Is it thorough (height, weight, age, activity level, goals)?
• Is it intuitive and easy to navigate?
• Does it link with your particular ‘wearable’ or other data Apps – watches, other Apps like Garmin or Strava?
• Does it have a large database of foods and activities?
• Does it ask about food intolerance or allergies if this is important to you?
• Does it have a bar code scanning option for packaged foods or image-recognition to estimate portion sizes?
• Does it provide recipes, meal suggestions or training tips?
• Does it have an internal forum or blog that you might find helpful to keep you motivated?
• Does it provide nutrient balance scoring or some kind of grading for nutrition?
• What does the “premium” version provide that you won’t get with the “basic” version?

As you begin tracking, you may also want to consider what you’re paying the most attention to.  In my experience, clients can sometimes get hung-up on the calories-in or calories-out or the balance of carbs, protein and fats forgetting that these are only part of the picture.   An App that provides data and can produce a report on a large selection of micro-nutrients (vitamins and minerals) as well as the carbohydrate, protein and fat is more telling than one that focuses attention on a small selection of the micro-nutrients. 

It’s easy when you’re trying to gain or lose weight – to limit yourself in your food selection – so paying attention to how you’re doing on a daily, weekly or monthly basis with your micro-nutrients can help you to keep things in better balance.  It’s important to eat a wide variety of foods and choose a variety of activities to help you to round-out your healthy eating and physical activity.  Choosing an App that will help you to do this can be the first step toward making solid changes – for good.

LiveSplendidly!