Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Can an Apple a day keep the doctor away?

You have probably heard the saying, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away".  I  know a few individuals who eat their daily apple and they seem to be very healthy and generally pretty fit.  So maybe there is a little truth to this.  :)


After many years of ridiculing my teenaged daughter about her cult-like fascination with everything "i", I finally bit the electronic apple and purchased an iPhone.  As a proud owner of a four-year old Razor phone, my leap to a smartphone was HUGE. Since taking the leap into the 21 century, I have found a lot of "apps" to be time consuming and some like angry birds to be addictive, but there are some apps that can help tech-no-saurs like me who need to lose weight.  You might find these three weight related apps interesting:

  • MealSnap -- Pictures don't lie and this app lets you track what you eat by taking a picture of your meal.  Somehow this app is able to magically determine what you eat and the estimated amount of calories.  This is a great app for people like me who absolutely HATE writing down what I eat.  The app is not 100% accurate, but it has helped me do a better job of tracking what I put in my mouth.
  • Healthy Habits- This application allows me to chose which specific behavior I want to work on.  This application makes the changes needed to create a new habit more manageable by breaking down helpful tips in a concise way one specific habit at a time.
  • FoodScanner -- This application is more accurate than MealSnap and does not rely on a picture of the food to determine the number of calories.  You scan the food item, it registers the food and its nutritional information.  If you don't have a UPC code, you can search the database to find the food and then it tells you the nutritional value.  

Smartphones are wonderful gadgets.  Why not let your smartphone help you with your weight loss journey?  Apps like the ones above make it easier to track the calories going in.  If you have other weight related apps that you are using, send a comment and share your knowledge.  Until next week, take care.



Nancy Johnson

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are also apps to track fitness activities, an essential part of any successful weight loss program.