Back in January, I (along with thousands of others across the world) made a commitment to myself to start living a healthier life. Of course, this is much easier said than done, but I’ve found great success with the help of two little apps. The first, Fitbit, tracks all my workouts whereas the Pact app has motivated me to actually do those workouts.
Fitbit
I received a Fitbit for Christmas a few years back, used it religiously for a couple of months and then lost it deep down in my dresser drawers. However, with spring break looming and a New Year’s Resolution to start working out more, I decided to go rummaging through the mess that is my dresser to find my Fitbit. Once I got back into the habit of wearing this small purple band on my wrist, I couldn’t believe I ever stopped wearing my Fitbit. Not only does it keep track of all of my steps, the calories burned, and my heart rate, but the app tells you how many hours you slept and how many minutes you were awake or restless throughout the night. It tracks your “active minutes”, which is simply periods of moderate activity done for ten minutes or more, you can log your water intake and meals, and weight loss summary. The Fitbit app is the one-stop-shop for all your fitness needs, and it provides helpful tips throughout the day to keep in shape.
Now, four months after I brought my Fitbit out of hibernation, I still wear it every day. I love seeing how many hours of sleep I get each night, (though sometimes those numbers can be a bit depressing), and it does motivate me to get up and moving more each day. I’ve gone to the gym late at night simply to hit 10,000 steps, refilled my water bottle more so I can hit my daily goal, and avoided eating Thin Mints simply so I didn’t feel obligated to log another snack.
Pact
This app pays you to work out and eat healthy. Seriously! It’s the most motivational app I’ve ever used, and has truly encouraged me to start working out more. There are three types of Pacts (a gym pact, food logging pact, and veggie pact) that you can commit to each week. For the Gym Pact, you can select the number of days you will work out in a week, and then select the monetary stake you’re willing to pay if you don’t make your pact. The app has a GPS tracker so you can check in when you go to the gym, it counts your steps (10,000 is equivalent to one work out!), or you can sync the app with other fitness apps (I’ve synced it with my Fitbit). If you want to log your meals, the app is paired with MyFitnessPal, which allows you to keep track of the food and the nutritional break down of your meal. You can select how many days in a week you want to log your food and set the weekly monetary stake. The Veggie Pact encourages users to eat healthier by asking users to take a picture of the full serving of fruits or vegetables they’re eating, and submitting it to the app. Other users vote on whether or not the picture meets the requirements (must be a fruit/veggie, a full serving, and must be obvious it’s being eaten), and you can pick how many photos you plan on submitting each week to set the pact. Also, each week you can change your Pacts, or take a break from logging anything at all, so it’s super flexible!
Whenever you complete a Pact, you are rewarded based off the number of days committed and completed in your Pact. So if you meet your Pact, you receive a cash reward for each day committed, paid for by other users who didn’t meet their Pacts. So far, the most money I’ve made in a week is four dollars; obviously it’s not a “get rich quick” app. But, it all adds up, and the mere prospect of being charged five dollars at the end of the week motivates me to head to the gym just to get those ten thousand steps, or log my dinner.
