There’s an App For That!

 There’s pretty much an app for everything these days and one that I’ve come across on my health journey is My Fitness Pal. It isn’t overly complicated or high-tech; in fact it’s just a simple calorie counter. However, it’s a calorie counter that you can download as an app for your phone. For those who don’t have a smartphone, never fear. You can also access My Fitness Pal online. 

 The app only takes a few seconds to download and is pretty user-friendly. When you first download it, it asks a few questions to help personalize it (e.g. height, weight, occupation). This information is necessary to ensure the numbers the program calculates are accurate to your body. The app will the ask you what your weight loss goal is. I chose the goal of losing two pounds a week. After I was done, it calculated that 1, 200 was the number of calories I could eat each day to achieve this weight loss goal.

 Now, one of my favourite parts of this app is that it has a huge food database. Whenever you eat, you are supposed to enter information into your daily diary. You do this by selecting food from a database, which has all different types of food and their nutritional information. My Fitness Pal has complete menus for almost all fast food places as well as for many grocery store brands. This makes entering your food very easy, and ensures calorie counts are accurate.

Another fantastic thing about this app is that it gives you your nutrient intake. This means you can see that you’ve only received 30 percent of your daily iron or vitamin A. This is especially important because when getting healthy people often forget about nutrients and focus solely on calories and fat.

Overall I have to say this app is great. You do still have to have the will power to not eat unhealthy foods, but when you see how many calories you’re actually consuming, it’s my experience that it makes eating healthy easier. Also, having an app makes it unbelievably accessible and gives you no excuses for being lazy; after all I do need something to do while I’m waiting for my next life in Candy Crush.

For more information on My Fitness Pal check out:  Lifehacker and iTunes.

Allyson Knappers

Allyson Knappers is a second year student of the Professional Writing Program, and a native to the Ottawa area. Although a seemingly quiet young woman, Allyson loves to find the humor in life, and prefers to spend most of her time laughing with her friends. Allyson has an assortment of random interests, the most prominent of course, writing.

Follow on Twitter | Also check out:  health.com and My Fitness Pal