10 Best Fitness Apps for iPhone and Android Phones

We all try to lead a healthy life. We eat good food; buy diet food, solutions, equipments and many other things. In short, we spend a lot of money to get you in shape. But most of the time it is numbers that matters. All things are evident if you know how much exercise you need to do, how much calories you have burn, how much energy and nutrition a food contains. These below apps can help to get something similar. These given below apps are absolutely free (since you have already spent enough money on other health related things) and will help you to track your daily diet, exercise, workout etc.

1. Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker by MyFitnessPal

MyFitness Pal is PC Magazine Editor's Choice Selection and Wired Magazine's Editor's Pick for Lifestyle Apps for counting your calories with features like 1,700,000+ food database and counting, Over 350 exercises, setting goals, reports etc.
For iPhone
For Android 

2. Lose It! – FitNow

Lose It by FitNow Inc will help you lose those extra pounds from your body. The users have lost more than 12lbs by average. The app comes with great interface, database of food and activities, recipes and many more things.
For iPhone
For Android

3. Nike+ Running

Nike Inc has this greatest app ever for running. It helps you to map runs, track progress, get motivation, set and reach goals and lets you do many more things.

For iPhone
For Android

4. Relax Melodies

Developed by Ipnos Software, Relax melodies help you to sleep and to relax. The app has features like 41 High quality ambient sounds, mixing your favorite songs, timer system, volume and songs adjustments etc.
For iPhone
For Android

5. Workout Trainer

Workout Trainer is developed by Skimble and is your guide for exercises with audio, photo, video instructions and will help you with 1000s of free workout.

For iPhone
For Android

 6. Meal Planning by Food on the Table

Food On the Table has helped more than 1Milion people with creating grocery list, planning and selecting meals and helps you get the best from the store by saving time and money.
For iPhone
For Android

7. MedSpace

Medspace can help you with 24-7 with all health related issues; from WebMD’s Symptom Checker, Drugs & Treatments, First Aid Information and Local Health Listings. Additional features also help you in many more ways.
For iPhone
For Android

8. Fitness Buddy FREE : 300+ Exercise Workout Journal

With more than 300 exercises, Sky Health has launched this app with detailed description, animation, tracking and assortment for all workouts.

For iPhone
For Android

9. Fooducate by Fooducate

With this app, Fooducate can help you to make healthy choices for your diet. You can scan groceries and products and know what it contains. The app has been  featured in Oprah's O Magazine, USAToday, NYTimes, WSJ, Lifehacker, Gizmodo and on ABC, FOX, NBC and more and the app contains more than 200,000 unique UCPs.
For iPhone
For Android

10. Free Abs Workout

Ab Workout is 5 - 10 minutes daily ab routine that helped more than one million men and women to get better abs. The app has great interface, video and timer settings, follow along instructions and many more things.
For iPhone
For Android




If you still feel that these apps are not enough, check here a list of more than 50 free apps for health and fitness.

5 Unhealthy Habits that is Making You Fat

You were thin and had athletic body during your school days. You used to boast how you could eat anything and how healthy you were in those days. But suddenly, you have been packing kilos and pounds in your body. It has, all of a sudden, become difficult to manage the weight issue for you. You do your daily activities...job, college may be, some extra evening fun time, but you are still wondering "Why am I gaining weight?"

If this is your story, then there are few things that you need to manage to get back to shape and to get healthy. By following these simple given below 5 tricks you can easily manage and lower down your weight.

Insufficient Sleep: Sleep is one of the most important things that we do. Right amount of sleep helps you to maintain body and appetite balance. If you are lacking sleep and tend to stay awake for longer hours, you are bound to feel hungrier even if you had a full meal. Also there are other disadvantages associated if you lack sleep. Another side effect that is related with lack of sleep is fat accumulation. So, make sure that you sleep good for at least six to nine hours depending on daily activity so that you can let your body take the necessary step to lower your weight.

Alcohol: Unless you really need a drink, try to avoid alcohol consumption. By taking alcohol, you are adding more calories to your body that your body does not require. Over a period of time you start getting fat. Social drinking does have its own benefits like lowering down stress levels, making you feel light and relaxing body and mind, but over-drinking can add unnecessary body weight.

Missing Breakfast: The most important meal of the day is breakfast. By skipping breakfast, you run metabolism of your body out-of-tracks. This secrets more insulin when you consume food later potentially adding weight to your body, even when you are missing a meal. Therefore, make sure to make daily breakfast a morning routine to avoid gaining weight

Eating Anything: In many fields quality and quantity both matters. Same goes for food. You need to watch what you eat and how much you eat. Proper food diets can help you grow stronger, increase immune system, make you healthy and increase your lifespan, but a bad eating habit can have adverse effect. Therefore, it is necessary to eat healthy meals.

Skipping Exercises: You need to get off the couch and TV, or PC, or your other entertaining gadgets and give this time to exercise. Hit the gym, go for a walk, cycling, swimming and other activities can help to burn extra calories, lower fat, grow muscles and makes you stronger. And not to mention looking good and feeling confident is an added benefit of exercising.

Make these small changes and you can get a healthy lifestyle in your daily routine that can make a big impact on your physical and mental state. Give it a try for few weeks and you can see mircle happening without pills or dieting.

Eat a Rainbow to Stay Healthy

The first question that pops to mind is what does 'Eat-a-rainbow' refer to? It simply means that you should eat different colored fruits and vegetables.
By eating different fruits and vegetables you get different essential nutrients and vitamins that helps you to fight diseases and stay healthy. Given below is few of the benefits of each colored fruits and vegetables and why you should use them in your daily diet.

1. White and Brown: onion, ginger, mushrooms, jicama, bananas etc are very few of the long list that you can include in this color. The reason why these foods have white and brown color is presence of Anthoxanthins and health promoting chemicals like allicin. These activate natural killer B and T cells reduces chance of heart diseases, cancer, hormonal imbalance and maintain cholesterol level.

2. Blue and Purple: eggplant, purple cabbage, blueberries, purple grapes and many more are colored blue or purple. These are famous for antioxidants that make you look beautiful. Nutrients and anti-oxidants helps to repair cells, stay healthy, detox the body, lower blood pressure and keeps the digestive system healthy.

3. Green: Green leafy vegetables are ever popular for their health reasons. It contains nutrients such as chlorophyll, fiber, lutein, calcium, folate, vitamin C, calcium, and many more! Fruits and vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, honeydew, green apples, grapes, lime, and other leafy vegetables keeps your bones and teeth strong, boost immune function, prevent osteoporosis and have many other health benefits.

4. Orange and Yellow: Carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkins etc comes under this category. Having these in your diet helps you and your heart to stay healthy, strengthen immune system and lowers chance of getting cancer.

5. Red: Red food contains plant pigments called lycopene and anthocyanins that help to fight cancer, prevent cell damage and makes you healthy. You can find these essential nutrients in red apples, beets, tomatoes, red peppers, red onion and in many other foods.

You can have fruits; make smoothie and juices in breakfast. You can use sliced fruits and vegetables in snacks or you can use green salad, fruit and vegetable sandwich, wraps, soups etc for dinner. The choices with these natural nutrients (Read: Best Natural Nutrients in Daily Diet) are endless and creative, depending on what you like.

Lifesytle for a Healthy Life

Many people may eat well, exercise daily, but still may be living a dull and a non-healthy life. If you are one of these people then the problem is not with your diet or body, but with your lifestyle. Along with food and exercise, a healthy lifestyle is also equally important to get and remain healthy. Some of these simple fundas can help you to stay healthy in easy and in a better way.

Stop Smoking: The very simple statement like Smoking Kills is enough to know the bad effects of smoking. The more you smoke, more you developed a chance of cancer or heart related diseases

Walk Daily: Simple routine of walking for about 20 to 30 minutes can bring a drastic change in your life. Walking strengthens the muscles relaxes mind and body, set your lungs free and make you more energetic as well as reduces the chances of heart diseases.

Never Sleep over a Backache: Many doctors and physicians advice that people who take to their beds with backache recover slow. You should avoid and try to sleep less during the recovery phase of backache as it can help you recover faster. Other activities of the day can be continued ina normal way.

Drink Water: Body toxins find a way out of your body through water. Also water helps skin to stay healthy and fit more effectively than any other skin treatment creams. Water intake can depend on your body, routine and surrounding temperature. The best to guess a water level is by having a urine observation test. If the urine color is yellow, it means you need water. Drink enough water to keep the urine colorless and it indicates that you are taking enough water.

Socialize: Your friends, family, relatives and neighbors are your place of mental relaxation. Socializing regularly helps to improve memory, increase concentration and helps your mind to stay healthy. And obviously, a healthy mind makes healthy body.

Sing and Hum: Singing and humming are two things that you can do to relax your body and mind. It helps to reduce blood and heart related problems, improves breathing and muscle tone. Humming also increase ventilation in the sinuses.

Sleep Well: The most important part to keep you healthy and fit is sleeping. Sleep improves immune system, relaxes muscles and mind. Depending on your daily routine and body, you need to sleep can range from 6 hours to 9 hours daily.

Create a Hobby: Hobby cultivates mind and body to grow in a better way. Find yourself a hobby from writing to singing and playing musical instruments to dancing. You can have any number of hobbies from drawing, gardening, bonsai cultivation, sewing, photography to designing to many others. Find what interests you and you can relax your mind with it.

These easy things can be done along with good diet and exercise, and it will definitely keep you healthy and strong.

Best Natural Nutrients in Daily Diet

Many of us wonder and even think that the best thing would be not to worry about the health and to remain fit. Well, you can be fit and healthy naturally. You'll need to just keep the focus on the food you eat. Some of the given below food are rich in nutrients and can help you to lower down your weight.

Monosaturated fat helps you to slim by avoiding fat to get into the mid section. Monosaturated fat is found in Avocados, Macadamia nuts, and olive oil.

Green tea is great source of EGCG (Epigallocatechin gallate). EGCG acts as antioxidant and help in reducing weight by increasing thermo genesis by burning those-extra-calories.

Raspberry ketones are main source for increasing the muscle production and by burning fat. The best source of Raspberry ketone is raspberries.

Oily fishes are main nutrient sources for muscle gain and losing fat. Fishes contain Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) that can stop the growth of young fat cells. If you are vegetarian, then algae-based DHA supplement does the same for you.

A dilute form of acetic acid can help in lowering weight. A study done in Italy shows that even adding small amount of neutralized and native vinegar can help to depress glucose response on body by 31%. The best part is you can get acetic acid in the form of vinegar from any store.

Protein from beef, poultry, fish, dairy, or soy are weight loss rock stars and are always recommended globally.

Another globally known substance is Caffeine.  Choose black tea over green tea or light roast coffee over dark roast. Caffeine blocks the breakdown of camp (which mobilize stored fat) and in turn help in burning energy.

Raw fiber from sources like oat meal can help as great source of nutrient. Fiber slows down digestion and allows sustained energy and blood sugar.

With all these great source of nutrients in your diet, you can definately shed some pounds from your body or gain some muscles