5 apps to improve your health

Charity Miles

Cost: Free

Available on: Android, iOS

What I really love about this app is that you earn money for charities every time you run, walk, or cycle. Corporate sponsors (whose information you’ll see as a backdrop image in the app) agree to donate a few cents for every mile you complete. Browse the app’s list of charities, find the one that you support, and then hit the road. When a lot of people use Charity Miles, those little bits of money add up. Running and walking earns 25 cents per mile, while bicycling earns 10 cents per mile. As the end-user, you don’t have to do anything at all to make sure that money reaches your charity. Charity Miles handles that part. This should give you some real motivation to get moving.

Sworkit

Cost: Free

Available on: Android, iOS and Amazon

Sworkit is a fitness app that takes you through five 60-minute strength, yoga, Pilates and stretching workouts requiring no equipment. It strives to provide the simplest way to get a workout in anywhere, anytime, with no room for excuses.

The Sworkit custom workout builder allows both novices and professionals (e.g. physical therapists, personal trainers, physical education instructors and doctors) to create and share custom routines from a growing library of over 170 different exercises.

MotionX 24/7 Sleep Tracker

Cost: $0.99 (approximately 68 pence)

Available on: iOS.

Getting the right amount of sleep has significant advantages on your health, weight loss and overall well-being. The advantage of MotionX is that it’s not just a sleep tracker — the app also includes a pedometer and a heart-rate monitor. There is a timed activity log for recording workouts and one for tracking body weight, as well as an option to set goals for the number of steps you want to take each day, and the number of hours to sleep nightly.

Lose it Weight Loss App

Cost: Free

Available on: loseit.com for android and IOS

Lose It helps you achieve sustainable healthy weight loss. This tool includes an app as well as a website so you can see your information on your computer as well.

You can connect to people, your various devices and food information that will help you lose weight with smart decisions. It helps you create a personalised weight loss plan with a goal weight, as well as total wellness and fitness.

Diet Hero App

Cost: $1.99 (approximately £1.37)

Available on: IOS

If you don’t want to count calories, there’s an interesting alternative that turns this activity from something you do after you eat, to a proactive meal planning-style approach.

You tell Diet Hero what foods you like and what foods you have, and the app will tell you how much to eat and what to eat. If you only have a few things handy at home the app can adjust so you don’t need to scramble to find something that may not be as healthy.

If something doesn’t sound good, you can choose to swap it out and the app will intelligently swap a protein for a protein and a carb for a carb.

With the information you share, including height, weight, gender, the amount of weight you want to lose and how fast, the app will tell you what to eat and how much to eat so you can meet your goals.