Deep down inside, we all know how important it is to try to live a healthy and active life, but actually making that happen everyday can often feel like a chore.

The truth is you don’t need a personal trainer or a gym membership anymore if you want to stay on top of your activity.

You don’t even need to purchase a wrist-worn fitness band.

In fact, the smartphone you already have in your pocket can track activity and help you meet your fitness goals.

The best activity tracking apps use the motion detectors built into your phone and don’t rely on any additional hardware.

They make it easy to set and monitor goals that work for you, and motivate you along the way with timely information about your progress.
Fitness tracking apps won’t put you on the podium at a fitness competition, but they can kick off a number of habits that help you live a healthier life. There are a lot out there, but when all things are considered, one stands out.

The Winner: JAWBONE UP

What it is: The app that gets all that right and even goes a few steps further is UP by Jawbone. You might already be familiar with UP as a wrist-worn activity tracker but the brains of the operation are actually found in its companion smartphone app. Using your phone’s built-in sensors, UP collects all the data it would get from a dedicated tracker, provided you bring your phone along for the ride. Best of all, the UP app is completely free to use.

What it does: UP learns from the data it collects and can automatically send a helpful nudge when you’re having an off day, or a thumbs up for exceeding one of your goals. You can also set up custom notifications for when you’ve taken a certain number of steps as well as scheduled progress reports for a more detailed overview of your days.

Unlike most trackers that start everyone out at the same 10,000-step-per-day goal, UP cleverly suggests a good place to start with your goals by showing you where other people with the same height, weight, and age averaged. It’s a simple feature, but it goes a long way to ensure that UP feels more like an aid than an annoyance.

Monitor: In addition to monitoring your activity, UP can also keep a log of all of the food you consume. Logging every meal is a chore, but UP tries, and mostly succeeds, at solving that problem by giving you several very fast and easy ways to input what you eat and drink. In addition to a manual search of UP’s database, there is a scanner that can quickly find any prepared food or drink item with a barcode. A list of restaurants nearby allows you to add whatever you’ve just ordered to your food log with a few taps. All of this adds up to an app that feels fun and light while being very powerful and flexible.

The Runner up: GOOGLE FIT

What it is: For a simpler experience, you’ll want to check out Google’s own Fit app. The Google Fit app takes a more pared down approach to tracking, asking only to set up a single goal for your daily activity. With its home screen widget you can quickly check your progress or dive into the app to see how your current day compares to your average. It has a home screen widget to track your steps, and if you have an Android Wear smartwatch, it will read the heart rate and activity data from that.Fit doesn’t have the coaching features or helpful reminders of UP, nor does it offer a way to track the food you eat. For those reasons, you might find it to be just too simple to really be effective. Google has yet to release the Fit app for any other platforms either, so you if you switch from Android to another smartphone, your activity data and history won’t come with you.

OTHER TOP FIT APPS

Strava Running and Cycling GPS: If you’re a hardcore runner or bicyclist, you should be using Strava. You can track your run or bike ride with GPS and see your exact route along with detailed info like pace, elevation changes, power, and cadence. But it’s really designed to be a companion to workouts or specific activities, not as a monitor for your everyday step count.

Nike + FuelBand: If all you care about is seeing is how hard you trained today, it’s very hard to beat Nike+ Fuel. It can’t track what you eat and drink, and it won’t allow you to keep an eye on your sleep cycles.

Microsoft Health: Like our top picks, the Microsoft Health app is designed to be a companion to its dedicated tracker, Microsoft Band. In the service of being extremely simple, Health only tracks your activity and exercise and provides a fast dashboard for you to check in on throughout the day.

iTMP Technology Digifit iCardio: Digifit is mostly made to be a detailed journal of workouts or specific activities, not a behind-the-scenes activity tracker. But it lets you start recording basic info about your workout with a lot fewer taps than most other apps and gets out of your way when accessing the raw data.

JEFIT Workout Tracker Gym Log: JEFIT wants to be your one go-to app for all things fitness and exercise but ends up feeling cluttered, slow, and confusing. One thing it does do well, however, is help gym-goers stick with a set routine by allowing you to create a custom exercise schedule.

Feedback: rachnal@fijisun.com.fj