Losing weight is not an overnight success – it requires your time and commitment as well as a lot of motivation and support around you. Instead of thinking that weight loss is more about the numbers on your scale, you have to know that it’s all about maintaining a healthy lifestyle and making positive, long-lasting changes to your overall health choice. If you need some help on staying motivated and keeping track of changes, one of the most convenient and easiest ways to do so is through weight loss apps (1).
Weight loss apps are programs that allow an easy and quick way to track your lifestyle habits such as calorie intake and exercise. Some of them come with extra features like support forums, barcode scanners, and the ability to sync with other health and fitness apps or devices. The best part is, these are all available to download on your mobile device (2).
That said, your smartphone is a great tool for staying in shape. You won’t need to pay a high price for a personal trainer, and using a calorie-counter up is as easy as sending a text (3).
Apart from their ease of use, the benefits of weight loss apps are supported by scientific evidence. A lot of studies have shown that self-monitoring may promote weight loss by increasing one’s awareness of your habits and progress (2).
Many of these also provide specific support for those who prefer to follow keto, paleo, and vegan diets. They are also on-demand at-home workouts from the best trainers. To ensure that you stay on top of your goals, weight loss apps can also connect you with dietitians, doctors, and trainers to help you navigate everything from what ingredients to buy at the grocery store to choosing a healthy dish at the restaurant. If you are looking for a great source of support, weight loss apps connect you to an active online community (1).
So, if you are ready to embark on the road to fitness the right way, here are some of the best 2021 weight loss apps that can help you shed unwanted pounds (2).
Noom App
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars (4)
Android rating: 4.3 stars (4)
Price: Free (with in-app purchases) (4)
Noom uses a psychology-based approach in identifying your deeply-held thoughts and beliefs about exercise and nutrition (4). It reveals your weight loss obstacles and offers adjustments to enable better progress – making a terrific tool for personalized attention (1). From there, it sets up a customized approach to help you create healthy habits. This app helps you track your weight, food, exercise, blood sugar, blood pressure all at once (4). If you have medical conditions like heart disease and diabetes, the app will tailor the program accordingly (1).
Noom also assigns a daily calorie budget based on your answers to certain health-related questions as well as your current weight, heights, sex, and weight loss goals. When it comes to tracking food intake, the app uses a database that has more than 3.5 million foods (2).
This app has three main functions to help you make healthier choices (3):
- It helps you set your weight loss goals and track your progress (3).
- It tracks your food intake to keep you accountable (3).
- It logs your exercise – including from your daily activities (3).
Noom also offers personalized virtual health coaching during work hours and teaches users helpful tools like mindful eating practices and provides motivational reading and quizzes that are meant to be completed on a daily basis. The said tools aim to promote a healthier relationship between activity and food. To make things more interesting, the app also encourages the consumption of nutrient-dense foods using a color-coded system (2).
Using the science of behavior change, Noom helps you make lasting lifestyle changes rather than temporary fixes – making it one of the best weight loss apps out there (3). Plus, you’ll be happy to know that it also has community groups and live chats that offer the best support on your weight loss journey (2).
MyFitnessPal
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars (4)
Android rating: 4.4 stars (4)
Price: Free (with in-app purchases) (4)
MyFitnessPal encourages users to think about what they eat while simultaneously helping them to become more active. While several diet and weight loss apps focus mainly on just eating healthy, boosting your exercise routine is also important to achieve the best results. That’s why, MyFitnessPal gives you the best of both worlds – acting as a diet and exercise coach (5).
It surpasses all competition by providing an in-depth understanding of how the portions of food you consume daily can pile up compared to one another. The MyFitnessApp tells you the amount of protein and fat that you consume as well as a deeper understanding of portion control (6).
This app comes with a database of more than 11 million foods, along with a barcode scanner for you to add entries to your food log. It also comes with a recipe importer, which evaluates home-cooked meals. This feature is especially helpful when trying to have an accurate picture of your current eating habits (5).
Plus, it includes over 300 cardio and strength workouts for a more well-rounded approach to your health and fitness. It also partners with other apps like Apple’s HealthKit, as well as Gramin, Fitbit, and MapMyRun – all of which accurately tracks steps and workout routines (5).
Being the best app for fitness, MyFitnessPal also has an awesome online community that provides support, encouragement, and advice. Although having premium membership entails a 10-dollar fee per month or 50 dollars a year, MyFitnessPal does contain many features for free – making it the best bang for the buck (5)(6)!
Fooducate Nutrition Tracker
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars (4)
Android rating: 4.4 stars (4)
Price: Free (with in-app purchases) (4)
Making the necessary healthy choices while grocery shopping is important for weight loss, although it can be overwhelming. But, not to worry! – Fooducate can help you navigate all products at the grocery store easily at your convenience (2)!
If you are looking to improve your nutrition yet don’t know where to start, Fooducate works as a great informational tool that helps people to become more aware of their nutrition. It uses a simple grading system for various foods, offering insightful tips on what to look out for when shopping. Generally, it is an app designed to help you make smarter decisions about your food by suggesting healthier alternatives (5). For instance, if you scan a specific type of yogurt and find that it contains a lot of added sugar, the app will show you some healthier yogurts to try instead (2).
Using Fooducate is very easy as well (5). As a “nutrition scanner,” Fooducate allows you to simply scan a food’s barcode and receive detailed information about it, including its nutrition facts and ingredients (2). To get a clear picture of the nutritional value for the food item, it offers you a letter grade ranging from A+ to D-. Along with this letter grade is an explanation why the product did receive the grade it did, which includes its nutritional content (5). The good news is that it lets you scan over 250,000 product barcodes (2).
Another unique aspect of this nutrition scanner is that it informs you of unhealthy ingredients that are usually hidden in products, including trans fat, added sugars, MSG, artificial coloring or sweeteners, unhealthy additives, and high-fructose corn syrup (2) (5)(6). By doing so, the app helps you to make more informed decisions at the grocery store (5).
Beyond scanning products at your local grocery store, it also functions as a health tracker – offering insightful diet tips and providing delicious and healthy recipes (5). More specifically, it offers you 50,000 recipes and informs you on what to look for in a nutritional label, so you can prepare nutrient-rich foods and store them in your pantry and fridge. To do so, you can simply scan the label and view a list of ingredients of the product, along with a comparison of its health grade to other options. Beyond food, you can also track mood, sleep, hunger levels, and fitness (1)(6).
Best of all, the app has an active community with users each sharing tips and suggestions with one another on a regular basis. That type of is tremendously helpful for anyone who is struggling to eat healthier and lead a better all-around lifestyle (5).
The app is free to download, and its in-app purchases start at 0.99 dollars to 89.99 dollars (2). Overall, this top weight-loss app is a great companion to setting up your nutrition plan and a creative and fun way even for a non-dieter to improve their menu (3).
WW App
iPhone rating: 4.8 stars (4)
Android rating: 4.5 stars (4)
Price: Free (with in-app purchases) (4)
Weightwatchers Reimagined, or “WW” app, is considered as one of the most highly-rated apps for weight loss. It gathers all the best aspects of the program in a convenient spot – providing you access to a lot of food and fitness trackers, thousands of recipes, and a very supportive community (4). You can sync its features to any smart watches or devices to convert daily steps into points (1).
It is a weight loss system based on points, so food is not off limits. After taking a personal assessment, you will be matched with a food plan wherein food choices will be suggested based on your preferences. Using the app, you can track your points and foods as well as other aspects of your health, such as sleep, water intake, and activity (6). As a nutritional science-based system, it will guide you towards a healthier diet (4).
More specifically, you use the barcode scanner and a huge database to track what you eat and monitor y0our fitness goals using the activity tracker (4). You can also use the WW app to log your workouts (or connect a wearable device), connect with coaches 24/7, and socialize with the online community (3).
As per C.P.T. and owner of Kick@55 Fitness based in Chicago, Rebecca Gahan, you can track your food and fitness progress while also chatting with others in the community for motivation and support (1). The app comes with its own social media-like feature with it, where other people share their tips, challenges, and even their photos. Thus, it connects you to other people on a similar journey (6).
From its traditional IRL group setting, WW has now evolved with different membership options: basic with digital access to the WW site and app, another option with digital access and virtual workshops, and a third option with digital access and personal coaching (3).
An iOS reviewer mentions, “With the ability to walk into a grocery store, scan a barcode and instantly know the points value of a food, I can shop healthy and proactively without fear. I can also pair my activity tracker so I know the value of each activity I complete (1).” Plus, Oprah and Kate Hudson love the app, so it may be definitely worth a try (3).
Ella Davar, RDN, mentioned that, if you are looking to learn more about making smart food choices, you can use another app or plan that focuses more on the quality of ingredients, unlike WW’s point system (6).
Lose It!
iPhone rating: 4.7 stars (4)
Android rating: 4.6 stars (4)
Price: Free (with in-app purchases) (4)
If your goal is to have a healthier weight in mind, Lose It! Is the app for your needs. After placing your profile details and goal weight, the app will calculate your daily calorie budget (4). It lets you quickly and easily input foods that you have eaten to calculate your caloric intake for the day, and the app is intuitive for anyone to use (5).
Calorie-counting can be tedious, that’s why the app comes in handy to do the math for you. Input what you ate or plan to eat, and allow the app to do the calculations for you (6).
With its versatility and smarts (5), Lose It! allows you to track your food, weight, and activities to reach your goal. Its features include barcode scanning, using Snap It to track how many calories a food contains by taking a photo, and a status bar to count macros. (4)(5). It also includes a helpful water tracking feature that reminds you to stay hydrated throughout the day. With the help of all these features, you are able to easily add what food you ate today either by selecting it from the app’s extensive database or by scanning the barcode on a product purchased at the store (5).
For the social aspect of the app, an active community of users are helpful in providing you support and feedback. Plus, the app even comes with games and challenges where you can take part in as well, which does a nice job in providing you extra motivation (5).
Registered and licensed dietitian Allison Childress, PhD, recommends the app for it allows you to set a goal, track daily food and exercise, and connect to other fitness apps for comprehensive metrics (6).
On that note, she says, “The premium version offers community support from other users, and another cool feature is that you can take a picture of your food and the app will bring up the nutritional information for it (6).”
A Takeaway
In the digital market today, you can use many helpful apps to support your weight loss goals in 2021. A lot of them utilize tracking tools to monitor your weight, exercise habits, and food intake, while others provide you guidance for making healthy choices and grocery shopping or eating out (2).
A lot of weight loss apps come with components that aim to increase your motivation, which includes community support, point systems, and tools that help you track the progress that you have made over time (2).
Although there are several benefits to using weight loss apps, some do have their own cons. For instance, some people may find them to be overwhelming, time-consuming, or problematic for their mental well-being (2).
Given the many apps and features available, consider trying out these options and see which ones fit your weight loss goals and needs (2).
References:
- https://www.prevention.com/weight-loss/a20468312/best-weight-loss-apps/
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-best-weight-loss-apps#_noHeaderPrefixedContent
- https://www.shape.com/weight-loss/tips-plans/best-free-apps-help-you-lose-weight
- https://www.healthline.com/health/diet-and-weight-loss/top-iphone-android-apps#lose-it
- https://www.businessinsider.com/best-weight-loss-apps#best-free-app-3
- https://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/a19976103/best-weight-loss-apps/
