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The Best Health Apps For Android & iPhone
HealthTap – Best For Medical Questions
Got a medical issue and/or concern, but don’t want to go to the doctor? With HealthTap, you can access thousands of medical questions, complete with answers from actual doctors. Available for iPhone and Android, HealthTap is a must-have for anyone that is constantly Googling medical symptoms.
Best of all? All the answers are from actual medical professionals, so you know the information you’re getting is 100% legit. This means you can access what they’ve said and then make a decision about whether you need to pay a visit to your local, family doctor.
MyFitnessPal – The #1 Calorie Tracker
You are what you eat, right? Well, kinda. In terms of longevity, the most bleeding-edge longevity research suggests that eating less helps you to live longer – it switches on your survival genes, apparently. This is why fasting has become so popular. Either way, if you want to track what you’re putting in your body – and you definitely should – MyFitnessPal is 100% where it’s at!
Used by people like The Rock and any number of YouTube fitness celebrities, MyFitnessPal makes it super-simple to log, track, and monitor what you’ve been eating. It does full, daily break-downs of your macros and can even calculate your calorie burn from exercise. If you lift or train and you want to get lean, you need MyFitnessPal in your life.
Strava – Best For Logging Runs, Walks, Cycling
Running regularly is cheaper than therapy. This old adage is one of the most popular reasons millions of people run regularly – it makes them feel better, both physically and mentally. Running also torches through body fat like nobody’s business. Trust me, I know, because I’ve lost over 24 pounds in the last six months through 4-5 weekly 5-10KM runs.
And Strava, from my experience, is the #1 tool for tracking your runs. It will tell you how far you’ve gone, break down your pace on a per KM/mile basis, compare your runs, tell you how many calories you’ve burnt and a whole load more. The premium version adds even more support and data.
Strava is the most complete and robust run-tracking app on the planet, so whether you’re a cycling nut, a runner, or an avid rambler, Strava has everything you need to track, log, and monitor your progress. Hell, it even brings in competitive, local rankings when you go pro, so you can race other local runners/cyclists.
Couch To 5K – Best App For Learning To Run
If you’re out of shape, or even in relatively decent shape, picking up a running habit can seem pretty daunting. Running can be brutal, both physically and mentally. And the #1 reason most people quit is that they don’t feel like they’re making enough progress.
Couch To 5K is easily the best application for learning to run on the planet. Why? Because inside eight weeks it will guide you from struggling to run for a minute to running a full 5K. And best of all it does it so subtly that you hardly even notice you’re running. All you need is a decent pair of running shoes and you’re good to go!
One week you’re running for a couple of minutes and walking for a couple of minutes. A couple of weeks later, BOOM, you’re running 2K, then 3K, and then, finally, 5K! The process is painless and thoroughly rewarding.
I started running in April 2019, for instance, and since then I’ve lost 24 pounds of body fat and I can now run 13KM with zero trouble. At first, I sucked. But you get progressively better each month. Just download the app, follow the program, and six months from now you’ll be ready for a half-marathon.
Headspace – Best For Meditation
Most people don’t meditate. But those that do swear by it. Why? Because next to picking up a regular running habit and eating healthy, it is one of the best things you can do for your overall health, both physical and mental.
Regular meditation reduces blood pressure, eases anxiety, improves your memory, kills stress, and can even help with (or stop) certain neurological diseases. And best of all? Anyone can do it, it doesn’t take more than 10 minutes a day, and it’s 100% free.
And the best place to start your meditation journey is Headspace, an app for iPhone and Android that will take you through the basics of meditation until you’re a fully-fledged zen master. The initial sessions are guided, whereby you’re told how to meditate, then, as you progress, the voice stops and you’re left to explore your own consciousness.
Sleep Cycle – Best For Monitoring How You Sleep
Sleep is important. Poor sleep patterns have terrible effects on your health, causing everything from premature aging to increased stress and anxiety. For this reason, any health-conscious individual needs to be tracking and making sure that they’re getting solid, deep sleep.
How does one do this? Simple: you download Sleep Cycle for Android or iPhone, place the phone near you while you sleep, and it will track and monitor how well you’re sleeping. You can then look back into the data and find out where your weak spots are – mine is ALWAYS the weekend.
GymBook – The Best For Weight Training
DOWNLOAD: iOS
If you lift weights and you’ve been looking for an app that not only lets you track your sessions but also how to perform different types of lifts with perfect form, then GymBook is exactly what you need.
Inside GymBook, you can create your own workout splits, track your weights as you move up through them, and even try out different, more complex lifts with help from its library of lifting form gifs. The app is simple to use and a great addition to your training schedule.
In fact, this app has pretty much changed the way I train and log my lifts – I used to use the Notes App. Now, however, I keep track of everything inside GymBook. Why? Simple: it’s quicker to add data, it has gifs for form queues, and it lets me more easily track my progress.