Tag: Health & Fitness »

Thanksgiving is very nearly upon us. What better way to keep the kids happy than by giving them the opportunity to smash up food, while also learning of the benefits of moderation? That's precisely what Smash Your Food offers all year round, and with a new Thanksgiving focused pack, too!

Working in collaboration with certified nutritionist, Marta DeWulf, the app lets kids mess around with their virtual food, in order to see how much sugar, salt and oil there is in their favorite foods. Alongside that, the app teaches them why they should eat tasty treats in moderation rather than to excess.

We had a word with Marta about exactly how she came up with the idea behind the educational app.

"While teaching nutrition in the classroom, I noticed that kids had a hard time grasping the concept of how much sugar are in common foods. When I asked 'How many cubes of sugar are in one can of cola?' They didn’t know. Then when I told them that there are eight, that didn’t seem like a lot to them. Once I was able to show them the actual amounts and compare it [to] their allowance for a day, they started to understand what is a lot and what … it means to them."

As she explained, by teaching them such things, "…their answers became more realisti I knew we needed to literally show kids what is in the foods they are eating. I was inspired to create games and tool that kids and families could use to help have a better understanding of their current food choices and learn alternatives of these high calories foods …[thereby] helping them live healthier lifestyle."

Don't worry, Thanksgiving fans, Marta did offer us some great tips on how to eat a little healthier this holiday season. Namely, to "use low fat cream" where possible, "cut the amount of sugar in half", when baking. Also, and this is the hardest one, try to portion your plate out and don't fall for the "eyes are bigger than your stomach" issue. Marta makes "a dish of roasted vegetables, pumpkin soup and peaches topped with a delicious chestnut puree," for her Thanksgiving meal which sounds pretty tasty to me!

For those looking to learn more, Smash Your Food is available now for free. It's pretty insightful, but make sure you still enjoy that tasty dinner this Thursday!

We've looked at some pretty intriguing games from Mojo Bones and Simogo, but this time round, it's the turn of a more exercise-focused app developer in the form of Six To Start.

What is Six To Start?: Six To Start describes itself as next-gen storytellers. Made up of a variety of different staff from backgrounds as diverse as the theatre and neuroscience, the company works on online games, as well as apps for iOS, each with the focus on storytelling as well as providing memorable experiences. One glance at the team page on the company site ably demonstrates just how varied skillsets the team offer.

What is Six To Start most famous for?
Zombies, Run! One of the most successful Kickstarter projects in recent times, Zombies, Run! manages to make running (or walking) fun by adding a zombie twist to proceedings. Stick your headphones in as you run and an immersive audio adventure kicks in, distracting you from the aches and pains as well as telling a fantastic story, courtesy of award-winning novelist Naomi Alderman.

What's next on the horizon?
There's been a steady stream of new content for Zombies, Run! since it launched earlier this year but CEO Adrian Hon has promised us that a new app, Zombies, Run! 5k Training, will be out in the near future, aimed directly at beginner runners. New updates for Zombies, Run! will continue, also.

Anything else I should know about Six To Start?
Yup! We asked Adrian Hon how Zombies, Run! came about.

148apps: What was the inspiration behind creating Zombies, Run?

Adrian: It came from a couple of places - I've been a runner for a long time now, but it didn't come naturally! I only really got into it with the help of gadgets like the Garmin Forerunner GPS watch, which at least helped you see how much you were improving. The problem was that they didn't make running any more interesting or fun, and even when GPS tracking apps became commonplace, no-one seemed to be making running games for smartphones, so it was something that I've wanted to do for some time.

The other half of the inspiration came from our co-creator and writer Naomi Alderman, who fairly recently joined a running club. When they asked people why they'd joined, some people said 'to get fit', others 'to lose weight', but one person said, 'to survive the zombie apocalypse'! We put two and two together, and that's where Zombies, Run! came from!

148apps: What’s your favourite thing about iOS development?

Adrian: There's a lot to like - the solid development environment, the consistency across devices (although the iPhone 5 does make our life a little more difficult!), the comparative smoothness of publishing on iTunes Connect, and the absolutely massive potential audience. It's not perfect, but it's very good.

Where can I find out more about Six To Start?
Quite a few places. The Six To Start website is a good starting place, there's also the Twitter page. For more zombie based updates, check out the official Zombies, Run! website and its Twitter account. And, of course, we'll keep you informed on any updates and the progress of Zombies, Run! 5k Training

Many of us live in increasingly busy times that mean we don't always have as much free time as we'd like, especially when it comes to finding that spare hour in the day to exercise. Dog owners also need to find the time to take care of their beloved pooch and ensure they're well cared for and well trained. Why am I reminding you of all these responsibilities? Because, fortunately, there's an app that combines the two!

It's called Thank Dog! and it comes from the people behind Thank Dog! Bootcamp, an exercise bootcamp that also ensures your dog is well trained.

The bootcamp routine is the brainchild of Jill and Jamie Bowers. Jill Bowers explained it better than us when we asked her how it all came about: "I’ve been a dog trainer for 11 years and during that time, I became 40 pounds overweight. I have a Doberman who loves to exercise and when I decided to finally lose the weight, I joined a bootcamp. I got so into the bootcamp style workout, got trained for a fitness dvd due to my success story of losing 40 pounds. My poor pup didn’t get the exercise she needed (she got a little hefty after a while too, ha!) because my dedication to my own fitness regime made me too tired. So, long story short, I needed to change that and created the nation’s first obedience and fitness bootcamp for dogs and owners."

The bootcamp has been a great success with Jill taking personal training certification and working with a bootcamp instructor to ensure the class was perfect for both dog and owner alike. As Jill knows, "dogs learn faster with repetition and consistency" as well as while having fun so classes were "made up of 10 min intervals and it’s a total of 30 minutes of cardio and 30 min of strength training". Jill's own dog, Quinn, is now "the most exercised dog on the planet", thanks to this, as you can see from the photo.

The next logical step after setting up the bootcamp was to create an app in the form of Thank Dog! Mobile.

Currently available for free, with additional content unlockable for $2.99, the app combines cardio training, strength training and the all important dog training. It's all exactly how things would be if you attended the Thank Dog! urban bootcamp.

Users are taught through 20 1 hour routines to exercise at the same time as training their dog important obedience commands, while still having fun, of course. A resistance band is required alongside the app but that's all that's needed to get fitter. Exercises include things such as doing shoulder presses while commanding your dog to stay or jogging while ensuring your lovably mutt is staying near your heel.

It all sounds like a fantastic idea to me and Dog Whisperer himself Cesar Milan has also backed the program. Why not give it a go for yourself? Let us know how you - and your doggie - get on!

Take a look at your iPhone's camera. It doesn't look that special, does it? Sure, it's great for taking snapshots and documenting your life, but you'd never expect it to keep you healthy, would you?

Thanks to the hard working folks at MIT, that perception should change with the release of Cardiio.

The app turns an iPhone into an accurate, touch-free heart rate monitor and it actually works. Using the phone's front camera, it analyzes the amount of light reflected off your face then measures the pulse from that. It sounds a little like magic but there's some clever science behind it.

Every time your heart beats, more blood is pumped into your face which means more light is absorbed and less is reflected away. The app figures things out from that and accurately. It's as simple as that.

Not convinced? We checked in with Ming-Zher Poh who has been working on the technology since 2009. Ming-Zher started work on contact-free heart rate sensing technology during his Ph.D at MIT. After completing his research and gaining his Ph.D, he decided it'd be a great idea to translate that to the iOS market and help people along the way.

Since January, Ming-Zher and digital health startup incubator Rock Health, have been hard at work on refining the technology and producing a fantastically useful app. Cardiio is the result of that hard work.

The app is immensely user-friendly, with it possible to check your heart rate at any time (providing you're in a well lit area). A daily dashboard and weekly and monthly summaries ensure you'll always know your heart rate. Cardiio also reports on how that correlates to your fitness level and, slightly unnervingly, suggests a potential life expectancy based on such figures. Even better, it's so unobtrusive, unlike many other heart rate monitors.

It's all too easy to want to bury your head in the sand or simply not consider how something as crucial as your heart is performing. Ming-Zher Poh's research has gone a huge way to ensuring this doesn't happen, all for the price of $4.99.

The app is out now. If you want to read more on the research conducted and the science behind it all, check out MIT News Office and Ming-Zher Poh's page at the Institute.

Technology continues to amaze and impress with how it can improve people's lives. A perfect example is that of Glooko and its mobile health services. The company offers a way for diabetes sufferers to monitor their disease through the use of an iPhone logbook app.

The app and accompanying cable based hardware is FDA compliant and automatically syncs with the user's blood glucose meter. Users can then track their readings easily with the information simple to inform healthcare professionals, either in person or via an email based PDF summary.

The app offers further functionality with the ability to add meal tags and notes to readings, giving users a convenient way of checking out exactly what is influencing their blood sugar levels and how. There's even a food database that stores nutritional information for all the user's favorite food.

Ultimately though, the true benefit stems from the ability to track everything on the move and without having to worry about where else to store such information. After all, iPhone users tend to have their iPhone on them at all times, right?

The app is compatible with many popular blood glucose meters so should prove useful to plenty of diabetes sufferers.

The Glooko Logbook app is available now.

SPECIAL GIVEAWAY: Want your own copy of MotionX Sleep? The developers have given us a link that will send you a unique code to redeem for a FREE copy of the app. Simply click right here to enter. Offer available to US iTunes account holders only.

When I first took a look at MotionX Sleep, I was fairly impressed with all the sleep-monitoring app’s handy functionality. However, that was then. Now MotionX has added a laundry list of new features and tweaks, making it even more formidable in the world of iOS lifestyle software.

Along with a bunch of minor optimizations, a number of features have been directly improved thanks to customer feedback. MotionX Sleep now offers an “audible placement test” to make finding the best spot for the special pillow alarm much easier. The alarm itself has also had an interface tweak, making it easier to set. Sleep history and other statistics can be viewed in one, seven, or thirty-day summaries to give users better detail on their sleep habits. This info can also be shared on Facebook and Twitter as an effective way of convincing our mothers that we are, indeed, getting enough rest.

The Smart Sleep Cycle Alarm has also been improved by way of allowing users to adjust their wake-up window, including new sounds, and adding an optional vibration. Finally, the interface has been adjusted to make certain features easier to customize. The 24/7 Daily Step Counter can be turned on or off from the main menu, and undesired sleep recordings can be deleted straight out of the sleep log.

It’s the little improvements like these that go a long way. While MotionX Sleep was a worthwhile investment for health-conscious iOS users before, it’s even more useful now.

As someone desperate to get fit, I've been an avid user of the Fitocracy website since its beta launch. I've also been keen to gleefully discuss it with anyone willing to listen and been eager for an iOS app. So, the announcement that it's been launched for all to use, and alongside an iOS app is pretty exciting stuff.

Fitocracy turns getting fit into a game of levelling up and watching the experience points shoot up. It's an ideal gamification model for those who need a gentle kick to get them to pursue their goals.

Besides simply offering users points and level ups for completing numerous fitness based tasks, there are achievements to gain and quests to complete. With a huge support network of other users, it's pretty satisfying to compare progress with others and race friends to the next level up.

Everything about Fitocracy is free with both website and app linking together nicely. Give it a try and watch how you get excited to see what routines invoke the biggest gains.

Good weather season is here and, along with that, the urge to look good and get in shape for it. One such way is through new workout app Pushing Weight.

Pushing Weight is designed for beginners to intermediate levels and dispenses with teaching users how to do relevant moves, instead focusing on providing a means to log and plan workouts.

Essentially, it means that the user can track and visualize their workout patterns, working out what works best for them. Training frequently rewards the user with a streak for each session they complete, represented by charge bars that fill up. It's a neat touch that helps users check at a glance what they need to work on to keep those bars full.

For those in need of an easy way of tracking their workout routines, Pushing Weight is an ideal and easy to use solution.

It's out now, priced at $2.99.