

6 Apps To Kickstart Your 2019 Health & Fitness Goals
Every year, millions of people make health and fitness-focused New Year's resolutions. Whether those goals include losing weight, hitting the gym consistently, training for an upcoming event, or just eating healthier, so many people start off the year strong only to have their resolutions disband into nothing by the time April has arrived.
But fear not, because with these six apps you can still lose weight, train for your upcoming event, and eat healthier without having to sign yet another gym contract. With these apps, you'll be able to track your fitness, nutrition, and everything else without having to break the bank. Say goodbye to the hassle of having to find a gym, nutritionist, and personal trainer. And say hello to the fitter and healthier you. This year, with the help of some of the best fitness apps in the game, your New Year's resolutions to be fit and healthy will be as easy as hitting a button.
Best Fitness Apps 2019
Best Fitness Apps For Tracking Fitness:
Home Workout - No Equipment Needed (Fitness Level: Beginners and Up)
Overall Free for Users: Android, IOS
The Home Workout app provides daily workout routines for all your main muscle groups. With just a few minutes a day, you can build muscles and keep fit without ever having to step into the gym.
The app has workouts for your abs, chest, legs, arms, and butt, as well as full body workouts. Even though it just takes a few minutes a day, it can effectively tone your muscles and help you get six pack abs at home.
All the workouts are designed by experts. With animations and video guidance for each exercise, you can make sure you use the right form during your sets. In addition, the warm-up and stretching routines are designed to make sure you exercise in a scientific way.
Subscription Benefits: Ads are removed for $5.98. The rest of the app is free for all beginner, intermediate, and advanced users.
PEAR: Personal Fitness Coach (Fitness Level: Intermediate and Advanced)
Overall Free for Users: Android, IOS
The PEAR Personal Fitness Coach app provides users with an array of guided workouts for all fitness levels and intensities that adapt based on your performance. The app plays well with a variety of fitness trackers and devices, allowing you to keep track of your performance and share metrics with other fitness apps. And the best part? The PEAR mobile training intelligence system puts personal coaches right in your ear that are available inside the app.
Subscription Benefits: The premium subscription, $5.99/month, gives you unlimited access to the workout library and extra features.
Best Fitness Apps For Tracking Nutrition:
Lose It! (Nutrition Knowledge Level: Beginner and Up)
Overall Free for Users: Android, IOS
The Lose It! app is a great tool to have on your journey because of its simplicity. Best known for its meal tracking, Lost It! uses its huge food database to break down meals by breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. In this app, users are capable of logging food, scanning barcodes, and photographing their meals.
Subscription Benefits: With a premium subscription, $29.99/year, users can get access to more nutritional stats and dietary trends.
Lifesum (Nutrition Knowledge Level: Intermediate and Advanced)
Overall Free for Users: Android, IOS
Lifesum makes gauging your overall nutrition and health easy peasy, giving you comprehensible lifestyle tips and adjustments based on your eating habits. After downloading the app, you'll be required to take an assessment — this includes questions about your cravings, weight loss goals, diet roadblocks, general preferences — to find out which diet plan best suits your goals, schedule, and lifestyle. Then, the app will start providing recommendations to help you start making healthy changes and dietary decisions. The app can also act as a lifestyle coach by reminding you to eat and drink water regularly throughout your busy day.
Subscription Benefits: A premium subscription, $44.99/year, will get you even more detailed nutritional analysis and let you sync with other fitness apps.
Best Fitness Apps For All-Around Tracking:
8fit (Fitness Level: Beginner and Up)
Overall Free for Users of: Android, IOS
For an all-around comprehensive fitness planning and tracking, 8fit has it all. 8fit creates custom exercises and meal plans based on your goals, your current stats, and, more importantly, your preferences. The app goes more into detail with preferences, asking your goals, the number of workouts you'd like to do each week, how many meals you'd like to eat each day, how much variety you need in a nutrition program, and how you prefer to prep your food.
During the meal plan, you can even select the days you'd like to grocery shop for ahead of time and the app automatically generates a shopping list based on the recipes that you'll prepare on those days. And when it comes to logging workouts, there's a variety of endless options so that you can track accurately. In addition, there is an array of preset workouts, which is fantastic for the beginner users.
Subscription Benefits: The Pro edition, which is $59.99/year, includes even more custom workouts and more personalized plans.
Trifecta (Fitness Level: Intermediate-Advanced)
Overall Free for Users of: Android, IOS
Trifecta is an ultra-comprehensive app that specializes in functional fitness training, meaning it provides beneficial workouts whether you're at home or on the go. It's unique among fitness apps because it caters to the workouts and diet of CrossFitters. The free version provides you with daily WODs, a nutrition tracker, and useful tools like a kilos-to-pounds converter and CrossFit box finder. However, make sure you're careful while using this app. Although beginner-friendly, it is recommended that you start regular workouts before jumping into this app.
Subscription Benefits: With the premium version, $49.99/year, you get a comprehensive workout log, movement log, and in-depth diet tracking.
The Best Fitness App Honorable Mention:
If you want to get more bang for your buck, for $8.33-14.99/month, consider the following app:
Aaptiv provides trainer-led audio workouts for a variety of workout styles and goals, complete with accompanying music playlists.
Users can select from more than 2500 workouts in hundreds of fitness classes, whether for running, cycling, high intensity interval training, 5k, or marathon training, this app makes it easy to stream training routines or download to your phone for offline use.
Workouts can be configured for distance, duration, intensity, and calories burned. In other words, if you're willing to spend the money, this app is worth every penny.
Featured image by Getty Images.
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Taysha Robinson is a writer and high school English teacher, based in metro-Atlanta. A self described philomath, you can find her reading books and articles of every genre, attending educational conferences, and hiking wherever the terrain will allow.
Smile, Sis! These Five Improvements Can Upgrade Your Oral Hygiene Instantly
This article is in partnership with Sensodyne.
Our teeth are connected to so many things - our nutrition, our confidence, and our overall mood. We often take for granted how important healthy teeth are, until issues like tooth sensitivity or gum recession come to remind us. Like most things related to our bodies, prevention is the best medicine. Here are five things you can do immediately to improve your oral hygiene, prevent tooth sensitivity, and avoid dental issues down the road.
1) Go Easy On the Rough Brushing: Brushing your teeth is and always will be priority number one in the oral hygiene department. No surprises there! However, there is such a thing as applying too much pressure when brushing…and that can lead to problems over time. Use a toothbrush with soft bristles and brush in smooth, circular motions. It may seem counterintuitive, but a gentle approach to brushing is the most effective way to clean those pearly whites without wearing away enamel and exposing sensitive areas of the teeth.
2) Use A Desensitizing Toothpaste: As everyone knows, mouth pain can be highly uncomfortable; but tooth sensitivity is a whole different beast. Hot weather favorites like ice cream and popsicles have the ability to trigger tooth sensitivity, which might make you want to stay away from icy foods altogether. But as always, prevention is the best medicine here. Switching to a toothpaste like Sensodyne’s Sensitivity & Gum toothpaste specifically designed for sensitive teeth will help build a protective layer over sensitive areas of the tooth. Over time, those sharp sensations that occur with extremely cold foods will subside, and you’ll be back to treating yourself to your icy faves like this one!
3) Floss, Rinse, Brush. (And In That Order!): Have you ever heard the saying, “It’s not what you do, but how you do it”? Well, the same thing applies to taking care of your teeth. Even if you are flossing and brushing religiously, you could be missing out on some of the benefits simply because you aren’t doing so in the right order. Flossing is best to do before brushing because it removes food particles and plaque from places your toothbrush can’t reach. After a proper flossing sesh, it is important to rinse out your mouth with water after. Finally, you can whip out your toothbrush and get to brushing. Though many of us commonly rinse with water after brushing to remove excess toothpaste, it may not be the best thing for our teeth. That’s because fluoride, the active ingredient in toothpaste that protects your enamel, works best when it gets to sit on the teeth and continue working its magic. Rinsing with water after brushing doesn’t let the toothpaste go to work like it really can. Changing up your order may take some getting used to, but over time, you’ll see the difference.
4) Stay Hydrated: Upping your water supply is a no-fail way to level up your health overall, and your teeth are no exception to this rule. Drinking water not only helps maintain a healthy pH balance in your mouth, but it also washes away residue and acids that can cause enamel erosion. It also helps you steer clear of dry mouth, which is a gateway to bad breath. And who needs that?
5) Show Your Gums Some Love: When it comes to improving your smile, you may be laser-focused on getting your teeth whiter, straighter, and overall healthier. Rightfully so, as these are all attributes of a megawatt smile; but you certainly don’t want to leave gum health out of the equation. If you neglect your gums, you’ll start to notice the effects of plaque buildup, which can irritate the gums and cause gingivitis, the earliest stage of gum disease. Seeing blood while brushing and flossing is a tell-tale sign that your gums are suffering. You may also experience gum recession — a condition where the gum tissue surrounding your teeth pulls back, exposing more of your tooth. Brushing at least twice a day with a gum-protecting toothpaste like Sensodyne Sensitivity and Gum, coupled with regular dentist visits, will keep your gums shining as bright as those pearly whites.
This Minimal Nail Design Is One Of The Fall's Biggest Mani Trends
What's a classic manicure look getting a fall 2023 aesthetic update? Look no further than the micro-French nails that are trending this fall. Minimal nail art ideas are in, and the super thin lines within the micro-French nail trend scream minimal chic when it comes to nail design choice.
If you're wondering exactly what to request from your nail tech, according to Cosmopolitan, there's been "a rise in micro-French manis on square nail shapes." And if you are in need of a little nail inspo to bookmark for your next appointment, we have you covered on that front, too.
Keep scrolling for design ideas for your future set of micro-French nails.
Micro-French Nail Art Ideas
Micro-French Fall Nails
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Fall Micro-French Nails
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Featured image by Tatsiana Volkava/Getty Images