The Best Pedometer Apps for iPhone

I have washed, lost, and flushed my FitBit enough to know that something that tiny and able to hide is not a good combination for my forgettable memory. Sigh. As much I love the FitBit, it just does not work for me. That is why I am on a quest to find some of the best fitness tracking apps on the market. Easy, you say? Not so. Turns out that there are very few good fitness tracking apps out there that stay on after the app is not in use and do not eat your battery to an inch of your phone's life by 10 am.

If you have an app other than these that you have found and seriously love. Please, please, please tell me. I am still looking for that holy grail in health monitoring, fitness tracking. That is, until the Apple watch comes out. Then we can forget all of this and wear our health on our sleeve. But, that is a whole 60-90 days away and I seriously doubt all of us who want one will be able to get it day 1.

Pedometer++

As far as turning your phone into a pedometer, the Pedometer++ app has to be my favorite so far. I would love to love Apple's health app but there are days where it will log nothing and days when it is right on the money. Pedometer++ always works. So, a few things I love about Pedometer++ is the pretty interface that has a graph showing your daily steps over the past week, the fact that it imports the correct numbers from Apple Health. Because it is importing from your Health app, it also knows steps, altitude changes, and daily step goals can be changed. This app does not use up tons of battery as well. 

If your Health app already works great, you may not need this. If, however, you would like something simple that shows you results and rewards you for your efforts, this could be the best app yet.

Breeze

Breeze is pretty, simply, and give your a spirit animal depending on your activity. The app tracks the past 7 days and has a great interface to help you see how far your are from reaching your goals. Although it does not show altitude, it does show you your month by month history so you can see how many steps you have walked in a month.

Something interesting that Breeze does is show you your longest activity. This means the longest amount of time your were in movement without stopping and resting. No, it is not necessary, but it sure is fun to look at!

If you do not have an iPhone 6, some other great apps include Moves and Runtastic's Pedometer app. Unfortunately, there are a few bugs that need to be fixed for the iPhone 6 before either can be taken seriously. 

What are some of your favorite fitness tracking apps?

Weekly Planning

As part of my new years goals, I want to eat healthier, eat out less, and have a better schedule of food. That being said, this week was the first week in about a year that I have planned out our meals for this week. I was able to get everything but the seafood for the entire week and am already noticing a difference in this house's food eating.

We are, of course, eating healthier; but I think we are also eating more and with fewer calories! It has also helped our family get on more normal eating schedule. This is a super big deal!

The best part is that the whole meal planning only took about 30-minutes and I was able to get everything for the next week in under 15-minutes from the grocery store. We have also saved time on running out to get food daily and just trying to figure out what to eat.

Since this is new and exciting to me, I thought I might share our meals this week with you. Each day we are eating 5-6 meals, three being larger and two being snacks. Sometimes there is also a dessert involved. For me, that is usually cereal since I could eat cereal for eternity and be happy!

Of course, it is not completely healthy or 100% homemade yet, but that would be a fantastic final goal!

Sunday

• Breakfast: Eggs and fruit
• Lunch: Meal replacement shake or turkey sandwich
• Dinner: Salmon and Kale
• Snacks: Light Greek yogurt parfait (I will be putting this up on the blog this week, so good!)

Monday

• Breakfast: Meal replacement bar
• Lunch: Chef salad
• Dinner: Blue Apron meal
• Snack: Kale chips

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Eggs and toast with green tea
• Lunch: Spinach, blueberry, and banana smoothie with flax seed
• Dinner: Caesar salad with shrimp and lentil soup
• Snack: These yummy balls!

Wednesday

• Breakfast: That same Greek yogurt parfait but bigger!
• Lunch: Meal replacement shake
• Dinner: Blue Apron meal
• Snack: Sliced apples

Thursday

• Breakfast: Meal replacement bar
• Lunch: Egg or turkey sandwich
• Dinner: Blue Apron meal
• Snack: Toast with almond butter

Friday

• Breakfast: Meal replacement shake
• Lunch: Meal replacement bar
• Dinner: Shrimp tacos
• Snack: Celery with almond butter

Saturday

• Breakfast: Overnight oats
• Lunch: Caprese salad
• Dinner: Vegetable Stir Fry
• Snack: Fruit parfait. it is sooo good!

The Water Challenge

Well, today is the first day of our slim down challenge!! I am so excited to get this started, we have so many fun things planned for the next couple of weeks that I simply cannot wait to get going on- let alone the prizes!!! It will be soooo great!!

As many of you know, one of the big parts of this challenge is drinking tons of water each day. Really, we will be drinking well over the daily minimum (which most people still do not drink daily) and seriously giving our bodies some hydration. This will give you more stamina, a better complexion, less dry skin (so needed in the winter!), and help clear out toxins that our bodies may be holding on to.

A little tip for those who, like me, hate water- put some lime wedges or cucumber in it. This will help with the taste and reduce bloating. Win, win!

Slim Down Challenge

Good Morning!! I wanted to give a quick reminder that our Slim Down Challenge starts in just two days!!! I am so happy with how many people have contacted me to be a part of it and know that this is going to be such a great new event in the new year for the P+K community!!! In case you missed it, here are the details below :)

Oh, and this picture? I just love it! And, we can use it as a reminder that spring is right around the corner. Houses are not the only things that need a good cleaning, sometimes our bodies' do as well!

The Challenge

The goal of the Slim Down challenge is to help give our bodies a restart after the holidays and possibly, days, weeks, months, or years of eating less than healthy. This is a six week challenge that will start next Thursday, January 15th and end the first of March. In order to complete the challenge you will need to:

Buddies

Every challenge participant will be paired with a buddy. If you have a friend who would like to do this with you, they can be your buddy. If not, we can pair a buddy for you! Either way, let me know so we can count you as participating.

You will check in with your buddy each day. It does not have to be much, just a quick idea for a workout or something that might encourage them. The buddies are meant to be quick encouragers, nothing more :)

Eating

Eat 5 small meals per day. Two of these meals should be a meal bar or meal replacement shake. These are the bars and shakes that I take and what I STRONGLY recommend you taking yourself since they are filled with all the right proteins, low in carbs and fat, and high in vitamins and nutrients. All the vitamins in these are organic (something no other brand can boast!). If you, however, would prefer to take your own, that is no problem.

Drinking

Drink 128 oz of water per day (If you weigh less than 140 pounds, you can drop those ounces down to something closer to 100 per day if you like)

Vitamins

A big part of this challenge is making sure you get all the proper nutrients. For this, you must be taking a multivitamin each day.

Again, I highly, highly recommend these vitamins since they are 100% organic, all parts are grown instead of synthesized, and this company handles every part of the product from growth to packaging. These are simply the best vitamins I have ever seen. They have never had a recall on any product and boast an absorption rate 3x higher than any other vitamin on the market.

Exercise

Simply enough, increase your physical activity. This could be anything from trying a new workout or running a bit farther than you usually do. We will be having weekly challenges on the blog to help with this part of the challenge so as long as you are doing the challenges, you will be set for exercise!

Side note: I would recommend increasing your average daily steps as part of this challenge. Walking more is so good for our joints and helps decrease the dreaded bloat!

Get Started

1. There are one or two simple steps to get started on this challenge. The first would be to e-mail me at PandK.contact@gmail.com and let me know you are wanting in! Also let me know if you have a buddy already or if you need one. I will add you to our Facebook group and make sure you are in for all the prizes- this is what you will get for simply following the program for the six weeks!
2. Next, you will either need to order the products, or make sure that you have your own in stock. I can say from experience that these products will make a difference in your results. But, again, purchase of anything is not necessary. Here is everything you may need:

• Multivitamin $85.90 for a 30-day supply
• Glucosamine for joints $63.80 for a 2-month supply
• Meal Replacement Shakes $51.48 for twelve
• Meal Replacement Bars $40.15 for fifteen bars

1. Start encouraging your buddy! Again, the challenge goes from January 15th to March 1st. In this time you should loose weight, gain muscle, and feel refreshed and renewed by the end!