6 Easy Fitness Hacks and Apps That Will Save Your 2017
Whether you’re trying to lose weight or working towards a race, marathon, or competition, here are a few tips and tricks for staying focused on fitness in 2017
You don’t need to pay out for a personal trainer or a gym membership to make good on your resolution to get fit in 2017. We’ve put together a selection of top fitness apps and hacks which — if you’ve got just a couple of spare minutes every day — will get you on the road to getting fit this year.
Get in the Habit
Don’t set yourself grand goals and then feel bad about yourself when you haven’t run a marathon by January 31. If you go for an all or nothing approach to getting fit, there’s a good chance that if you miss one fitness session you’ll think you’ve failed your resolution and won’t bother with the next one.
Instead, make small changes to your life that you can fit in easily and repeat on multiple times a week. Researchers from University College London found it takes an average of 66 days to get into a habit — for better or worse. They also found that forgetting to do something one day didn’t significantly impact people’s ability to build a habit, so don’t use not doing something today as an excuse for not doing it tomorrow.
Take a Data-Driven Approach to Dieting
If your goal is to lose weight in 2016, but don’t know where to start, then it might be a good idea to get to grips with where your calories are coming from. Using a food tracker, such as MyFitnessPal can help you keep tabs on what the main sources of calories in your diet are. For the first few weeks of January, every time you eat or drink something, pop it in MyFitnessPal until you get used to it. The app will display pie charts showing how many calories are in everything you’ve eaten and if you’ve been getting a healthy balance of protein, carbohydrates and fat in your diet.
Now you’ve got that data about you own diet, you can start to make clear steps to cut down on problem areas. If white wine intake is a sticking point which is a large glass has 180 calories, for example, then start off by cutting down on that before you start to work on different areas of your diet.
Work Fast and Often
Do you have seven minutes to spare? If you said “Yes,” there’s no excuse in squeezing in a super-quick workout into your daily routine.
There are loads of seven-minute workout apps available for iOS and Android that will guide you through a short, intensive work out that combines cardio and resistance training. Seven minutes is about how long it takes to make a cup of coffee so you could even follow your workout with your morning brew if you want to start your day on an ultra-efficient high.
Take Up Yoga
You don’t need any fancy equipment, not even a mat, to take up yoga. Just clear a bit of floor space, put on some comfortable clothes, and prop up your phone or tablet somewhere within viewing distance to get started with a beginner’s yoga course.
Track Your Progress
Studies have shown that workouts don’t have any effect on your body if you’re not tracking them, and sharing the results on your Facebook news feed.
Okay, so that’s not at all true, but tracking how your fitness is progressing is a great way to set yourself targets and see how you’re improving. There are plenty trackers for running, weight training and every form of exercise in between. When you achieve a goal, make sure to reward yourself too. Take some time out
New year’s resolutions are often so focused on physical health that it’s easy to overlook that squishy bit between your ears. Meditation apps such as Headspace can help you take some time out of the day to reflect and focus on your priorities and may also help with your sleep and concentration.
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