I have an iPhone4 and it’s my techno baby (my wife and kid still come first) and it’s loaded with apps… FREE ones for the most part, mind you. Because if you’re like me, you love free apps because free is better and I pay enough for my using my phone already. Who’s got the time to sift through the thousands of apps available for iPhones? Not you. So, I decided to write about the free and best wellness (health, fitness, etc) apps I could find on the App Store.

You start by entering your age, gender, weight and weightless goals.

Then, it’s all manual from here on out. It’s a great app but you have to add everything you do. Add your daily exercises (among a multitude of choices), your food intake (you can save meals that repeat… for example I eat the same breakfast everyday).

You can monitor your progress and reach your goals. Although you enter each item manually, you can easily repeat meals at the click of one button (I have the same breakfast every morning for example and that makes it easy).

Another cool thing is that you can even find foods from known restaurants. Yesterday we had some in-n-out burgers and I just looked for that, entered it and it gave me the exact calorie number. pretty cool

You need a scale at home.

You need to be honest with what you do. Nobody else sees the results unless you enable the gamification aspect of the app where you compete with friends.

You have to everything manually… but it’s expected.

That is one awesome app. I don’t know about you but I’m lazy working out by myself. You got kids, a job, a wife? Me too! Right now I wake up early in the morning to do tid bits of exercise but it’s not nearly enough. I think RunKeeper will really help me get into shape…

Choose your program (run, walk, hike, bike, etc.), choose your goal, track your results… the app even motivates you to go out and exercise. You can also game it with your Facebook/Twitter friends.

You can even link this iPhone app to a heart monitor (don’t have one, they provide a link to where you can buy one).

I don’t really see any downside right now sincerely…

ShopWell is quite a nifty app.

Set your age group, goals, food interests and tastes, your allergies  and then shop like you would normally at any grocery store, pick out your favorite product, scan the barcode for it AND guess what happens? It gives you the OTHER products in the store that are a healthier choice according to your settings. You can even look at the best choices available in each category. All items are graded for you. It’s quite cool I have to say.

The real downside: like all the other “scanning apps around, it makes grocery shopping into an patience expedition… At least the first few times around until you can figure out what products are best. Once you know that Bread A isn’t good enough but Bread B is, next time around go directly for Bread B.

It’s a great app I think but limited in access.

You have access to only a few sessions and mostly for beginners… They are worth it though. The session includes music, videos (each pose is divided by a specific video). The production value of those videos is high. You can even choose the intensity of the session. pretty cool I have to say.

You only have access to a few beginner sessions. I consider myself an intermediate to advanced yoga practitioner and I need a bit more.

I could get their (very decently priced) Pro Subscription: 3 months is $10 and a year is $25… but  personally I won’t. But you should if you have an iPad… screen is bigger, tons of sessions. I think it’s worth it.

Personally, I’ve tried a few and even if I use all of them at some point, Epicurious is still the best one.

The interface is great, easy to navigate, with LOTS of seasonal recipes, good reviews, etc. one of the best things is this: If you are like me, you go to the store with an idea and you check Epicurious straight in the store. So, that means once you found your recipe you need a shopping list. Great, because it’s super easy to do that with this app with the click of a button. You can even check off items once you have them in your cart.

This app is awesome… no real downside, except when I cannot find that yummy recipe I am looking for.

Have I forgotten one?

Is there a better one that I did not include?

… Tell me about it in the comment section!

- Antoine Didienne -

Tagged: apps , fitness iphone apps , free iphone apps , health iphone apps , iphone apps