iPhone/iPod touch Must Have Apps

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by pylon

I can't say enough good things about myfitnesspal. I ballooned up to 250 pounds (my cut weight is 205) the last couple years after I blew out my shoulder, and had to quit hitting the weights, but forgot to quit the high calorie workout diet. I started using the app 2 weeks ago to track my diet/exercise routine. 10 pounds in two weeks lost. In the past when I have had to battle my appetite, I relied on Jenny Craig, and weight watchers frozen meals... expensive crappy food. The fact that the app is free and so effective if you follow it, blows my mind. And you can just buy normal food. 10X better than any other diet program out there at any price. I follow the recommended daily allowances, and my energy levels are through the roof, my skin is nicer, I am more alert.... I already feel 1000 X better only two weeks in.

To me this is one of those true "Technology that can really change your life." things. 20 years ago, you'd need to hit the library for hours, hire a dietician, and a personal trainer to get the same expert guidance.

Awesome, awesome, app.

I had awesome success with it too. Only trouble is when self control abates, and apathy sets in again. Gonna try it again soon. Great tool

[Russic]

Originally Posted by pylon

I can't say enough good things about myfitnesspal. I ballooned up to 250 pounds (my cut weight is 205) the last couple years after I blew out my shoulder, and had to quit hitting the weights, but forgot to quit the high calorie workout diet. I started using the app 2 weeks ago to track my diet/exercise routine. 10 pounds in two weeks lost. In the past when I have had to battle my appetite, I relied on Jenny Craig, and weight watchers frozen meals... expensive crappy food. The fact that the app is free and so effective if you follow it, blows my mind. And you can just buy normal food. 10X better than any other diet program out there at any price. I follow the recommended daily allowances, and my energy levels are through the roof, my skin is nicer, I am more alert.... I already feel 1000 X better only two weeks in.

To me this is one of those true "Technology that can really change your life." things. 20 years ago, you'd need to hit the library for hours, hire a dietician, and a personal trainer to get the same expert guidance.

Awesome, awesome, app.

Funny you'd mention this, I was literally jumping in this thread to recommend it. My wife and sister decided to challenge each other to a month of eating non-processed foods, and because my wife didn't want to do this while I sat around eating all the fun stuff, I was volunforced to do it too. I've always heard the claim (mainly from my sister-in-law) that eating cleanly will help you drop pounds even without caloric restriction and I've always called BS. I took this as a challenge and used myfitnesspal to prove to them that the claims were garbage.

If you're curious, I learned that in a way we were all right. Cutting out processed foods does in fact help you to lose weight because it constricts your calories naturally. By only eating quality food I was blown away at how rarely I felt incredibly hungry. I'd end a day having eaten 1300 calories and really not feeling all that hungry at all. On days when I'd get to a more normal 2000 calories I didn't even feel good. Ended up losing 8 lbs in a month which was pretty shocking considering I didn't really exercise in any capacity.

The app though is excellent. I love that as you tally food it begins to recognize patterns. After entering something like a burger in various parts (bun, meat, bacon etc), the next time you enter "bun" the rest of the included parts pop up at the bottom in a "commonly paired with this food" section. Really helped get stuff into the app quickly.

Also worth noting is that it's one of the first fitness apps to plug into Apple's new Health Kit. It's pretty rough right now as it seems to tabulate daily calorie intake really well one day, and then not at all the next, but once the bugs are ironed out I see great potential.

[pylon]

Yeah, I find with the right foods, I am tapping out at 1600-1700 calories a day, and not feeling hungry at all. I have hit the weights again, albeit lighter, and am putting a minimum of 45 minutes into cardio 5 days a week, so I am getting the best of both worlds right now.

I have invented the super energy lunch of champions. A tub of organic spinach leaves, topped with 4 crushed hard boiled eggs, and dressed with 3 tablespoons of half fat mayo. Comes in at around 420 calories, and you feel like you could run a marathon for about 4 hours after eating it.

[psicodude]

+1 for how awesome MyFitnessApp is. I am down 14 lbs. in 2 months by using the app. The best part is the crowd-sourced database which has just about every food and restaurant known in it. The only exception, of course, is restaraunts that don't publish their nutritional info. I love having the ability to scan a barcode of something as well, just makes it so easy.

I will just add that the Android version comes with a widget that makes it even easier to use. Awesome!

[Flames89]

Anyone have any updated recommendations for iPhone apps or, even better, games?

Recent games I played the crap out of were
- Stealth Inc.
- Retry
- Twodots