Diet and exercise are the only winning combination of solutions for people trying to lose weight. Apps are a way to track progress, keep you accountable, educate you about your choices, and make it fun. There are tons of apps out there. You can easily find the ones that match your specific lifestyle.
Whether you have an underlying condition contributing to your reduced mobility or reduced activity, keep in mind that any activity is better than nothing. You may not be able to do what you used to do, but you can do something. Whether you are new to starting out by walking daily or if you are a seasoned exercise enthusiast, there is an app for you.
Here is the rundown of our top 30 out of two categories: Activity Tracker Apps and Diet Tracker Apps.
14 Activity Tracker Apps
Holistic Fitness Activity (runners, cyclists, swimming, hiking, gym training)
Strava lets you use your smartphone or smartwatch to track running and bicycling miles with GPS. You can use Strava to map out a course and share it with friends. Strava also comes with a heatmap of the most popular places to run or bike in your area.
Overall Fitness Tracking
Apple Fitness Plus allows you to subscribe to thousands of fitness videos for workouts ranging from HIIT to tai chi. It also offered guided meditations. Add biometrics with an Apple smartwatch.
For Runners
Nike Run Club. The NRC app offers guided runs, training plans, a pace tracker, a running log, a distance tracker powered by GPS, and more. And it's free!
For Walkers (3)
PacerPedometer. Very easy to set up, and free, but you need to carry your iPhone everywhere, and there is no distance measure.
Pedometer ++. Use your iPhone as a step counter. Export your data to Excel or Google sheets for analysis. By far the most aesthetically pleasing user interface of any pedometer app on the market. Free, but $1.99 to remove advertising.
StepsApp. Very easy to read. Has a Today widget that tells you where you are on your way to your daily goal. For $1.99, you can download the PRO version which also allows you to track calories.
For Swimmers
MySwimPro lets you locate pools near you and check out their hours before you leave your home. It offers a huge variety of workout plans, and video coaching to help you improve with each workout. It has multiple personalization features to keep your workouts from becoming boring.
For a Budget
Daily Workouts offers video instruction for hundreds of 5- to 30-minute workouts. There are workouts for abs, arms, glutes, legs, and full body, perfect for a basic home gym. There are ball, stretch, kettlebell, and Pilates workouts. There is also a Simply Yoga option with dozens of 20- to 60-minute routines. All videos are in HD.
For Apple Watch
Zones for Training empowers you to set the pace of your training on the basis of your real-time heart rate. Zones supports 70 kinds of workouts, including running, walking, cycling, treadmill, and weights.
For Beginners
Sworkit offers a proprietary combination of strength, cardio, yoga, and stretching workouts. Compatible with Apple Health, GoogleFit, and My Fitness Pal. But doesn't dynamically adjust to your fitness levels as Touchfit and FitStar do.
For Weightlifting
JEFIT Workout Planner Gym Log offers step-by-step instructions for over 1400 exercises. Log your training with one click. Available for smartphone and watch.
For Meditation
"Be kind to your mind," Headspace advertises. Its courses are well-organized and easy to navigate. There is an extensive library of courses you can unlock during your free trial.
Personal Fitness Coach
PEAR Personal Fitness Coach offers hundreds of fitness videos across dozens of modalities. The app first asks for your gender, weight, height, and date of birth. Then it offers you hundreds of programs with a search tool to find exactly what you are looking for. Scheduling takes several steps, but this app is easy to use once you get started. While it doesn't provide an actual coach, it customizes a solution for you based on your individual needs.
For Quick Workouts
The 7 Minute Workout promises to work all your major muscle groups and give you a meaningful aerobic workout in just seven minutes. Personalized to your fitness goals, this app is now available on Apple Watch,
16 Diet Tracker Apps
Overall Food Tracking
Lifesum is the best food tracking app for people who have specific dietary needs: keto, kosher, low-fat, low-carb, vegetarian, vegan, and more. Lifesum also helps you integrate your diet with other healthy lifestyle changes.
Diet Support
MyNetDiary free weight loss, diet, and nutrition assistant integrate with Siri for easy recording of food and water intake. The premium version includes a barcode scanner.
For Weight Loss
Lose It! logs diet data with an iPhone. My users note that it "gives you enough calories to lose weight and feel satisfied."
For Keto
Carb Manager is a low-carb and keto diet manager. Included are 50,000 low-carb and keto recipes.
Best for Simplicity (2)
Control My Weight gives you a daily calorie target and tells you when you have met it. Available for free on Google Play, this app also comes with a premium version that tracks calories burned in exercise.
Calory tracks calories, macronutrients, and water effortlessly. You can tell where you are with your daily calorie consumption at a glance.
Best Features
My Fitness Pal boasts a huge food database and cross-platform compatibility. It works on any smartphone.
Best Free Features
Lose It! gives you all the features you need to track the foods you love. But it consistently underestimates calorie counts.
Best Completely Free
FatSecret provides calorie counting tools and online support for free. Compatible with iPhone and Android, this app comes with an online community of 35 million dieters.
For Multiple Diets
Cronometer is great for customization. You can enter foods not in its database. Many users consider it the low-cost alternative to Noom.
For Weight Loss
Noom advertises itself as a tool for losing weight without dieting. It costs $90 per month, but it comes with two weeks of personal coaching with a nutritionist and access to an online community once your diet is fully underway.
For Building Healthy Habits
LifeSum, which we also list as best overall, is the best app we could find to integrate better habits, like exercise and sleep, into your lifestyle.
For Diet Quality
MyNetDiary offers Siri integration and barcode scanning for easy logging of your daily intake. It is the easiest way to make sure you are getting micronutrients while limiting your calories
For Nutrition Education
Fooducate is easy to use and has an intuitive interface. It's a good way to get started learning about what you are eating so that you can begin to make better choices.
With these apps, you can make the changes you need for a healthy life at a healthy weight. There is literally an app for everyone at all fitness levels to help you get started learning healthy habits and maintain those habits for the long term.
