“MyFitnessPal is free, a MyFitnessPal account is free, and if you’re dedicated enough to stick with them, the positive effects they can have on your health are priceless.”

In today’s fast paced, highly mobile society it is often much easier and cheaper to eat fast food on the go than it is to spend the time and money to east fresher, more healthy meals. MyFitnessPal wants to make the switch to a healthier lifestyle easier by helping you track your calories and activity levels, set your weight-loss goals, and monitor your progress.

Losing weight and getting healthy is not easy. It’s even harder to do alone. But if you’re looking for assistance, putting the MyFitnessPal calorie tracking app on your iPhone (or iPad, it’s universal), is a great way to get keep you going in the right direction, and a great goal to consider for our Mobile Nations Fitness Month.

MyFitnessPal launches and shows you how many calories you can consume

After installing MyFitnessPal you have to enter your personal information. This helps create your calorie goal and intake needs for each day.  The first page that launches gives you your calorie goal, and once you start inputting foods and exercise into MyFitnessPal it will calculate your remaining calories available for the day. Directly below this you will see a news feed that displays your updates, as well as updates from any friends you may have added through the app’s social networking feature as well.

Easily add breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks to MyFitnessPal

There are a few ways to add food to your diary; the first is simply by clicking the Add to Diary button that appears right next to your remaining calories counter. From there you can either search for the food you are eating, or if there happens to be a barcode available, you can scan it right in. (MyFitnessPal does a good job finding most products.) The food database contains over 1 million entries for things as simple as an onion or slice of cheese to your favorite meal at Outback Steakhouse or the Olive Garden.

View a breakdown of each meal in your daily diary

In addition to logging the food you are taking in, it is equally as important to log any exercise you have completed for that day because that will help ensure that your calorie goal remains accurate. With over 350 different exercises in the application, logging the exercises you complete should take only seconds. Each day you can enter your weight into the application to help you keep track and on the right path. If you have a specialized fitness device, like a Fitbit, MyFitnessPal can interface with that as well.

Monitor your progress with a chart of your daily weigh-in information

Your weight will show in a graph so you can visually see if you are headed in the right direction or not. At the end of each day there is a button to complete logging your food entries for that day, and this will then pop up a message which gives you how much you would weigh in five weeks if you continued to eat and exercise the way you did that day.

In addition to the iPhone app, MyFitnessPal also works on the iPad. The iPhone is ideal for entering data while on the go during the day, but the iPad is nice for looking over and analyzing your progress when you have more time. You can also log anything and everything through the MyFitnessPal website so even if you don’t have your iPhone or iPad handy, you still have a way to stay on track.

The good

• Barcode scanning makes adding food quick and easy
• Links with popular fitness devices like Fitbit
• Social networking features help keep you motivated (peer pressure!)
• Also available for iPad and via the web

The bad

• Cardio activities are more confusing to add since you don’t always know the specifics of speed, heart-rate, etc.
• If a particular food is not in the database, adding it is difficult

The conclusion

MyFitnessPal is is free, the MyFitnessPal account is free, and if you’re dedicated enough to stick with them, the positive effects they can have on your health are priceless. It’s the dedication part that’s really important. You need to be completely honest about what you eat, how much you are working out, etc. If you’re looking to take better control of your weight or your fitness, get MyFitnessPal and get one step closer to a healthier lifestyle.

Free – Download now

Fitbit can help you keep on target with any physical goals by tracking such things as walking, yoga, or weight lifting as well as logging foods you eat, when you eat and more.

Talking with Fitbit at CES 2012, we got a better overall feeling about how they work with iOS. Check out the video above for the full details — it really is quite an amazing product, especially if you’ve got some new year’s resolutions to keep

Not content with merely making some of the best Bluetooth headsets and wireless speakers in the business, Jawbone expanded their product line this year with the Jawbone UP. A small, light bracelet, you wear it around your wrist and along with an iPhone companion app, it keeps track of how you’re sleeping, how much exercise you’re doing, and what you’re eating.

Live at CES 2012 we talk to Jawbone about the future of UP, the updated they’re pushing out, and why they feel mobile lifestyles encompass more than the traditional product lines.

• Jawbone UP app — Free — App Store link

Japanese news site Macotakara reported last week that Apple has supplied Made For iPhone accessory makers with a new authentication chip using Bluetooth 4.0 and the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol, making it easier to setup and authenticate devices for use over the dock connector and Bluetooth with a specific push for fitness and health-related apps.

It was previously speculated that this new authentication system would support Bluetooth for carrying content over AirPlay, but The Verge was able to squash the rumor with a bit of clarification from Apple. Instead, Apple wants more MFI accessory makers to use the new spec in devices like the recently-released Jawbone UP and similar hardware. The process will make it easier for users to configure wireless devices by connecting to WiFi networks and grabbing Bluetooth configuration information, ultimately requiring little effort on the user’s part to get everything up and running.

The Bluetooth Accessory Protocol was introduced in iOS 5, but only around 2 percent of MFI accessory makers are actually utilizing the new stack. Hopefully this new authentication chip will bring wider adoption to less tech-savvy iOS users, but we’ll have to wait until we start seeing supporting hardware pop up in the market.

Source: Macotakara via The Verge

The highly anticipated iPhone fitness accessory, Jawbone Up, will be available this Sunday. A colorful wrist band with built in sensors and a vibration motor, Jawbone Up is designed to track your eating, sleeping and exercise patterns.

Up is a tool designed to improve your lifestyle and it is designed to work with the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch via an app that can retrieve the information recorded from the wrist band; strangely via the 3.5mm headset jack. The app can then tell you a plethora or information and help you move more, sleep better and eat smarter.

• Use the UP wristband and iPhone app to track your steps, distance, calories burned, pace, intensity level, active vs inactive time, GPS routes and more.
• Program your UP wristband to vibrate on your wrist to remind you to move when you’ve been inactive for too long. You control the interval and timeframe.
• Put your wristband in sleep mode to automatically track your hours slept, deep vs. light sleep, awake time and overall sleep quality.
• Replace your noisy alarm clock with UP’s silent Smart Alarm; it vibrates on your wrist and intelligently wakes you up at the ideal moment in your natural sleep cycle just before your desired wake time.
• Say hello to your new food journal. It’s as easy snapping a photo and responding to prompts about how each meal makes you feel.
• UP gets to know you by asking how you feel after each meal. Over time, you can use your responses to help discover which foods make you feel your best.

The Jawbone Up will be available from Sunday November 6 online as well as in Apple Stores, Target, AT&T and Best Buy. The Jawbone Up Band comes in three sizes and will cost $99. The app is available as a free download.

App Store link

Source: Jawbone

Garmin has announced an iPhone fitness app called Garmin Fit and also an accessory called the ANT+. The fitness app will allow users to track their workouts including pace, distance, time and calories burnt. It can also map your runs and automatically uploads your data to Garmin Connect which is a web community for Garmin Fit users.

The ANT+ adapor clips into the 30 pin dock connector on your iPhone and it can then connect wirelessly with various Garmin accessories such as a heart rate monitor and even a foot pod senor. The foot pod sensor allows users who are using a treadmill or similar to track speed, distance and even run cadence.

“Garmin Fit is the ideal solution for users who are new to the fitness tracking landscape and for those looking to stay totally connected,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “To be able to utilize Garmin’s powerful fitness accessories with the same device that plays music, makes calls and uploads workouts automatically to share and analyze, makes Garmin Fit a must have app.”

The Garmin Fit app is available in the App Store for and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The ANT+ adaptor is available directly from Garmin at a price of $49.

[App Store link]

Zombies, Run! is about making the thrill of running even better with a game and a story delivered through your headphones. We’re making running more fun, more exciting, and more addictive for everyone from couch-to-5k newbies to weekend joggers and marathon runners. And Zombies, Run! works anywhere – in a park, along a beach, in the city, even on treadmills!

The Kickstarter program is still open for a few more days; so if you want to be one of the first to get involved with this exciting new game, you still can. There are various pledge options available to suit all. Unfortunately you will have to wait until February 2012 for the game to be made available.

Source: Kickstarter

Patently Apple has uncovered another very interesting Apple Patent application. This time it is an integrated Fitness Center app that it has been working on for quite some time. Nike also appear to have had some involvement in the development as one illustration lists “The Nike Training Club Class”.

The app covers all aspects of a workout including stats gathered from smart equipment as well as a unique social networking element that works within a particular fitness center or city limits. The app will help you find workout buddies or work as a motivational tool.

Apple’s patent describes the possibility that the iPhone will one day include a single, seamless application that will introduce new customers to a fitness center and motivate these new customers to keep returning to the fitness center as active members.

[Patently Apple]

RunKeeper Pro has been made available to everyone for free today. The offer lasts until the end of January 2011 so don’t delay, go and grab yourself a copy of this fantastic app for free.

In an effort to encourage more people to get off the couch, and as a show of appreciation to the RunKeeper community for your terrific support for the last two and a half years, we’re making the RunKeeper Pro app (usually $9.99 USD) free to download now through the end of January!

What more do you need to kick-start your fitness goals for 2011!

[iTunes Link]

Gym Technik says they were built for Blackberry, but are now on the iPhone “due to popular demand”:

Gym Technik is an innovative online service that uses the lastest in cutting edge mobile technology to connect your iPhone to your fitness routine. Members of this service can define their entire workout routine on the Gym Technik website, and when at the gym – The iPhone, pointed at the Gym Technik mobile website, allows for tracking of exercise stats in their routine, visual exercise guidance, and references to previous workout stats. All of this information synchs automatically to the members’ web account where they can view their progress on informative charts and graphs and optimize their routine as necessary.

So, if you’re a switcher and want to bring the service with you, or just looking for something to help keep you on track with your workouts, this might be work a look. Let us know!

More pics after the break…

The iTunes App Store is faring well and apps are flying off the virtual shelf, but lest we forget, web apps used to be the only game in town for anything 3rd party on the iPhone (unless you jailbroke your iPhone – you rapscallion you). There is a plethora of web apps that iPhone owners use day-in and day-out. The internet is a big place, but fortunately people like Kelly Sonora are happy to share tips like www.NursingDegree.net, where writer Christina Laun has posted “iFit: 50 Coolest Fitness and Health Apps for the iPhone.”

There are numerous apps listed, including categories like fitness Tracking, Calculators, Diet and Nutrition, Working Out, Relaxation and Inspiration, Medication and Diagnosis, and Miscellaneous Health. Some links may be broken, but for the most part, Christina Laun has compiled an impressive treasure trove of fitness web apps that are designed for access from the iPhone.

Check out web apps like MyNetDiary and FitReach for keeping track of your workouts, diet, and manage your weight goals. BMI Calculator and Daily Calorie Calculator can be used for approximating your Body Mass Index and the number of calories you should be ingesting each day. Food Information Database and iPhone Diet are apps you can use on your iPhone to get nutritional information from your favorite restaurants and manage your diet and monitor your nutritional intake.

With Pump10, you have access to view numerous workout videos on your iPhone; view workout videos while you are at the gym. FitSync is a good way to keep track of your workouts online and select workout programs. These are all just a few of the 50 apps listed; visit the site from your iPhone and try them out for a more healthy you!

That’s it for this week’s Tip.  Thanks again to Kelly Sonora for the lead and Christina Laun of www.NursingDegree.net for the article. If you have a tip of your own that you would like to share with the rest of us, please leave a Comment or you can email me at: brian.hart@tipb.com.

Disclaimer:  Tip o’ the Week makes no guarantee, express or implied, that any tip found herein will be new or particularly useful to the reader (and working your iPhone’s accelerometer in one hand and eating a Twinkie in the other do NOT “cancel each other out”).