The fitness apps are the answer to conquering your fitness goals

Wanting a fitness regime but not getting the time or place to work out at a gym? Uncomfortable to be initiate fitness in a room full of flexing jocks and janes? Wanting some personal attention to make that start you have been delaying for long? Or simply wanting to get into a schedule comfortable to you or completely designed by you. Then fitness apps are the answer you’ve been waiting for. And for those who are already in the fitness zone these apps allow you to remain fit at your fingertip.

So here’s a shout out to all those who inhabit the fitness world – how about having the privilege of having a live-in trainer who could put you through the paces at all time of the day and night: Help you choose the healthiest options at a restaurant, travel with you as you mark the world with your footprint and give you important tips to lose weight after having binged at the New Year or Holi party. Sounds incredible? But it isn’t. Today there is a range of fitness apps doing just that — for free or at less than one-fourth the cost of a personal trainer!

Hatim Kantawalla, co-founder and chief product officer, Mobiefit Technologies, says: “Studies suggest that about 60 per cent people enrolled at gyms don’t use the facility. The motivation, costs and logistics are the main hurdles — and I have experienced this personally. The urban lifestyle is such that we want to but are not able to keep fit.” The idea of Mobiefit was essentially to stay fit without spending money.

The app has three different kinds of workouts. Mobiefit Run trains you to run 5 km in 30 minutes. The second, Mobiefit Walk is for those who are starting their fitness journey or recovering from an injury and the last, Mobiefit Body, helps to work out the entire body with zero equipment. There are 50 sets of exercises which you can do without using any equipment. There are 22 programmes which increase in intensity. The app also has a wide data bank of knowledge on common problems like back issues, diabetes, cardiovascular problems etc for you to access. There are injury prevention tips for people who are going to start running. More specific cases are discussed via a Skype session.

The app’s tools calibrate every activity – including how many kilometers a person walks/runs and the calories burned during this period. There are videos for indoor workouts and you can also log in the food that you eat to know your calorie intake. Only the 10k programme – where one learns to run 10 km in 60 minutes non-stop in three months carries a one-time fee of Rs 299.

Another app, Obino, was the outcome of its founder’s personal experience from battling weight. Ritu Soni Srivastava, the woman behind Obino, enrolled with a specialist to lose the 26 extra kilos that she had piled up during pregnancy. She decided to discard the specialist guiding her midway. While following the programme she lost seven kilos in three months and later she lost another 12 kg in six months by following her own thing.

To help others, she launched Obino, a doit-yourself app in August 2014. When users started coming back with queries, Srivastava got fitness experts on-board. Obino’s free version offers calorie counts of different foods and reminders (to drink water, to carry a snack etc). There are two paid programmes. The one which develops a diet and fitness plan, without a human interface costs Rs 499 per month. In the second one, which costs between Rs 999 and 1,799 – depending upon the number of months enrolled for, the user is connected with an expert at all times. The expert crafts a programme keeping in mind the user’s lifestyle problems.

As far as fitness apps go, one is spoilt for choice. Another app, Fitso, offers workout videos, a tracker that calculates the calories consumed and the distances covered during a run or while cycling. You can key in your fitness goals and it suggests workouts, which steadily increase in intensity. The app was launched by three IIT Delhi engineers — Saurabh Aggarwal, Rahool Sureka and Naman. The trio who are from the institute’s 2011 batch started the app after researching the existing products in the market.

The paid version of the app offers the option of a personal trainer and you can choose from a nutrition, running or fitness expert. “Most people can’t afford a personal trainer. In a gym, on the other hand, the trainers cannot give personalised attention as they have to deal with 100-200 people. And it is here that Fitso scores, as it can give you personalised attention at a marginal cost,” says Aggarwal. The trainer monitors your activity for the entire week, suggests the next week’s plan and resolves queries over the phone.

But if online training isn’t your cup of tea, Housejoy, can send trainers home! The app registers your statistics – weight, height, BMI as well as the problems and goal and sends a trainer depending on it. A course of 12 sessions with the trainer costs Rs 6,000.

Each app has its special feature, which can help you make a choice depending on what you are looking at. Fitso’s paid version allows the user to upload videos of his/her workout so that the coach can see it and ensure that the correct technique is followed during an exercise. Mobiefit regularly hosts competitions like squat, crunch or push up challenges and users can upload their videos and the winner is rewarded by Mobiefit. Housejoy offers a trial session with the trainer so that the user knows what a session will be like.

Obino, on the other hand, has the second largest Indian food data base with calorie counts. “You can inform the nutritionist of the cities that you are travelling to and the nutritionist checks the menus of the restaurants where you’ll eat and even suggest a meal through an email,” says Srivastava. It also creates a chat group with a main and a back up coach, a nutritionist and also your spouse – if one wants to.

So with the fitness app now in your palm, there can be no reason not to achieve your fitness goal. So go for it now.