15 Best Health Apps for Food & Fitness

The best health apps to help you strike the right balance of motivation without it feeling like a chore.

Calorie counting

The key to losing weight is simply working at a calorie deficit – burning more than you consume. Conversely, if you’re trying to gain muscle, you’ll use these apps to measure macros (carbs, protein, fat) and ensure you’re eating enough. To make the whole meal logging process a little less tedious, all these apps have barcode scanners.

Lifesum | iOS, Android | Free/£2.99+ per month

My favourite at the moment is Lifesum, which includes the same basic features as MyFitnessPal while running smoothly and being more visually appealing. It has a quick and easy barcode scanner, and the ability as with the others to add your own food and meals.

Samsung Health | iOS, Android | Free

Designed by Samsung, this app is a totally free, all-in-one solution for tracking meals, water, exercise, caffeine, steps, and much more. I’ve used it for months and it’s entirely ad-free and every feature – even micronutrients – is available for free! Although there’s no barcode scanner yet sadly, so I sync S Health and Lifesum together for the best of both worlds.

MyFitnessPal | iOS, Android | Free/£3.33+ per month

MyFitnessPal is the most popular app for its comprehensive feature set (although some are premium), the ability to link to exercise apps, and awesome barcode scanner.

Running

Frankly, you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to running; it largely depends on what brand/ecosystem you prefer, because many of them, such as Runtastic, have a suite of other apps to cater to your every fitness need.

Strava | iOS, Android | Free/£3.75+ per month

Strava is a challenge-based, running club-centred app, allowing you to analyse various segments of your run (or cycle) in detail. There’s also a good chance your fitness-freak friends use Strava, so bear the social side in mind too.

Adidas Running | iOS, Android | Free/£3.75+ per month

If you’re not bothered about challenges, then I recommend Adidas Running as being the best overall experience in a very crowded market. Others are Endomondo and MapMyRun.

Samsung Health | iOS, Android | Free

One of Samsung Health‘s many features is being able to track runs, as well as walks, skiing, tennis, yoga, and literally everything else. It works very well and is completely free.

Nike Run Club | iOS, Android | Free

At the moment I use Nike Run Club because it goes with the Nike workout app, and it has the nifty bonus of tracking how many miles each of your running shoes have accrued! I may well switch to one of the others at some point, though.

Workouts (ordered from lightweight to serious):

Sworkit | iOS, Android | 30 day trial/£6 per month

A paid app, I like how Sworkit has a range of strength, cardio, yoga, and stretching, any of which you can select and choose the exact length you want that workout to be. It also has long-term plans if you’re the commitment type, monthly challenges and more.

7 Minute Workouts | iOS, Android | Free/£2.39 ad-free

Seven minutes a day is supposedly scientifically proven to assist weight loss and improve cardiovascular function. This free app is great because it has both the classic, full-body 7-minute workout, and abs, butt, legs, arms, and stretching versions. There is also a 30-day challenge, and there is no monthly subscription fee.

30 Day Fitness Challenges | iOS, Android | Free/£2.69 ad-free

As the title suggests, month-long challenges target either full body, abs, butt, arm, or legs. They start short and ramp up as you progress. Being a 30-day challenge, you do ideally need time to work out every day.

Nike Training Club | iOS, Android | Free

Apart from the models’ trainers all sporting Nike gear, the app’s completely free. Nike Training Club offers 4, 8, and 12-week training plans, or individual workouts targeting specific muscle groups, which is what I use. You can select workouts based on difficulty, length, and equipment required (most are bodyweight only).

Just 6 Weeks | iOS, Android | £1.99

Again, this is a finite plan with a clear end goal: to get you fitter by slowly making you perform more push-ups, sit-ups, squats, bench dips, dips, pull-ups, and longer planks. It paid app but once you buy it, you own it! No subscription. So if you ever want to reach 100 push-ups in six weeks, give it a try.

Adidas Training | iOS, Android | 7 day trial/£4.42 per month

This is a 12-week personalised plan that you pay monthly for, but is cheaper than 3 months at the gym. It’s a step up from the other apps in terms of being for more serious users – workout plan with videos and a nutrition guide. I stopped using this after about 5 weeks because the workouts ended up lasting too long and because I’m such a weak quitter. Paid Runastic users get access to all their apps, which is quite a long list and includes the running app mentioned earlier – definitely worth a look!

Freeletics Bodyweight | iOS, Android | Free/£5.11 per month

The free bodyweight app grants access to a few single workouts that act more as a trial for the full workout program. Paid users can expect a personalised training plan with videos, as well as nutritional recipes and meal plan. The subscription also gives access to Freeletics Gym, which gives workouts and plans for use at the gymnasium, and their Freeletics Running, with its training plans and guided interval training. A feature I like is the “2×2” option, for those with only 2 by 2 meters of space. Bodyweight competes directly with Runtastic Results, and I haven’t used this enough to compare, but it does appear to offer a comprehensive package.

Cooking:

Yummly | iOS, Android | Free

Yummly takes the cake here as favourite overall app, as not only can users set dietary preferences and add ingredients to a shopping list, but it’s also visually appealing and boasts a huge catalogue of approachable recipes. The more you click ‘Yum’ the more it’ll tailor your suggestions.

Kitchen Stories elegantly resembles a cookbook for the more sophisticated, while SideChef has all the tile-based glory you expect, with the addition of hands-free mode which I could not get to work at all. Lastly, Tastemade features videos alongside all instructions for visual learners.

If you’re into socialising, Cookpad trumps the rest due to its rich library of user-generated recipes. You can publish your own, and like, comment, and otherwise interact with the community. Browse by diet, main ingredient, difficulty and more. The quality just doesn’t feel as premium, so if Yummly doesn’t float your boat I’d recommend just finding recipes on sites like BBC Food.

In Summary

With so many to choose from, these are just some of the best fitness apps (and I haven’t even gone into period trackers), but if you keep it simple and don’t overcommit to tracking every millilitre of water, you’ll be in a much better position to keep going.

Lifesum is great for food, as is Samsung Health (plus they sync together), and both track water so you don’t need a separate app for that.

All running apps are very pleasant to use, and it boils down to challenge-based enthusiast tracker Strava vs simple Runtastic. Ultimately, you just want whatever syncs to your watch.

When it comes to home workouts, they either focus on individual workouts or long-term plans – Nike fitness club is an intuitive and free place to start, and features appearances from major athletes. After all that exercise, cook up a storm in Yummly.