Every January, fitness resolution energy for the New Year is sky high. But when weeks turn into months, those motivations often disappear. Before you know it, you’ve rebuilt everything you lost and the unfortunate cycle of shame and guilt continues.
There is no judgment here. I’ve been through the same crisis countless times throughout my life, gaining and losing weight, giving up and trying again and again. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve managed to keep my fitness goals relatively stable, and I still have a lot to learn.
However, over the years of using, testing and reviewing fitness technology, including a wide range of fitness trackers and smartwatches, I’ve found that the right apps can make the whole process a whole lot easier. And in some cases – and without exaggeration – they have changed my life.
The best apps help relieve your already tired brain, increasing your chances of success. They often sync with your devices, integrate with other services you use, and provide clear insights so fitness feels less like a guess and more like something you can control.
With that in mind, here are a few apps I recommend to help you stay on track, no matter what your goals are.
MyFitnessPal
When it comes to nutrition tracking, MyFitnessPal is consistently among the best thanks to its huge food database and broad integration support. The app makes calorie and macro logging easy with barcode scanning and an extensive searchable food library, making it easier for you to pay attention to what you eat.
MyFitnessPal also works well with a variety of devices and services you may already use. It integrates with fitness ecosystems including Garmin Connect, Fitbit, Samsung Health, Apple Health, Google Fit and Android Health Connect, so steps, workouts and estimated active calories are synced with your nutrition goals, reducing the effort of manual entry.
Whether you’re dieting, building muscle, or just want better insight into your eating habits, MyFitnessPal will help you turn hard-to-define goals into manageable goals and will greatly help you stay on top of your diet.
Download MyFitnessPal:Android | iPhone
NutraCheck
NutraCheck’s calorie counting experience leverages a US or UK-focused food database of hundreds of thousands of verified items – from supermarket brands to common restaurant dishes. You can also create your customized meals by entering your family recipes with ingredients, quantities and serving sizes, keeping track of the basic meals you eat each week.
For me, NutraCheck has changed my life and helped me lose around 38kg over the course of a year. In combination with a kitchen scale for weighing food and ingredients, I was able to reliably determine a daily calorie deficit for the first time ever, without the usual guesswork. It was a transformative experience and I continue to use it every day to maintain approximately the same weight (or mass or mass, depending on my goals).
Like MyFitnessPal, NutraCheck isn’t alone. It syncs activity data from trackers like Fitbit and Garmin (steps, workouts, and active energy) and can connect through Apple Health to pull exercise metrics from other apps and devices, making your calorie balance more accurate.
This ability to see your diet and exercise in one place – without having to manually enter workouts – is what makes NutraCheck so sustainable for everyday use and is why it remains part of my routine even after years of tracking. Logging your food quickly becomes a habit, and for naturally unintuitive overeaters like me, it’s a real game-changer.
Download NutraCheck:Android | iPhone
Garmin Connect
If you’re like me and use Garmin hardware – be it a watch, a heart rate sensor, a scale, or all of the above – Garmin Connect becomes the central hub for your fitness ecosystem. It aggregates activity metrics, training load, sleep quality and body measurements in one place, providing a more comprehensive view of your health and performance over time.
What I like most about Garmin Connect is the big picture. It’s not just about training today – you can look back over weeks, months or even years to see trends and real changes in performance, recovery and activity – and that historical context keeps me motivated, especially when short-term progress feels slow.
If I go on a diet and lose weight slower than I hoped, I can look back to see where I was a month ago, see the downward trend line, and remind myself that I’m still on the right track, and it’s all a marathon, not a sprint.
Garmin Connect also integrates with external platforms, automatically syncs workouts with Strava for social networking and performance tracking, and connects to providers like MyFitnessPal and Nutracheck to automatically lull your daily activity data. This allows each app to do what it does best while also contributing to your larger fitness picture
Download Garmin Connect:Android | iPhone
RP strength
RP Strength, formerly known as Renaissance Periodization, is an American fitness and sports nutrition company that offers evidence-based training and diet tools online. It is best known for its science-based approach to strength training and body composition, pioneered by sports scientist Dr. Mike Israel is directed.
One of RP Strength’s flagship offerings is the RP Hypertrophy app, a strength training platform designed to help users build muscle through progressive overload and structured workouts.
The platform features pre-built training plans and a growing exercise library of technique videos, giving users a clear progression model to follow in the gym. The workouts are based on Renaissance Periodization methodology and help you increase volume, adjust load over time, and track sets and reps to support muscle growth.
RP Strength’s tools are more specialized than general fitness apps and focus on hypertrophy (muscle building) rather than comprehensive activity tracking or wearable integration. According to scientific evidence, persisting with training leads to an increase in muscle mass, making it ideal for those seeking a fuller bodybuilder aesthetic.
It’s also worth noting that RP Strength’s broader software ecosystem includes a separate RP Diet Coach app with nutrition planning and tracking features, although this is a standalone app.
Download RP Diet Coach:Android | iPhone
Strava
Strava is consistently recommended for its mix of activity tracking and social engagement, especially for runners and cyclists. It tracks GPS-based workouts—including pace, distance, elevation, and routes—and overlays them with historical and trending views, making progress feel realistic and fun.
What sets Strava apart from most other providers is its community and challenge ecosystem. Users create segments, share activities, and participate in challenges that turn routine workouts into small goals worth pursuing—a powerful motivational tool if you value connection and accountability.
Strava also integrates well with Apple Health (incorporating Apple Watch-recorded workouts) and Garmin Connect (automatically importing recorded sessions once accounts are linked), creating a flow of activity data that updates without additional effort.
Download Strava:Android | iPhone
Nike training club
Not every fitness goal needs spreadsheets and data – sometimes what you need most is direction. Nike Training Club delivers this with an extensive library of guided workouts that include strength, mobility, cardio, HIIT, yoga and more, all led by certified trainers.
Workouts can also be integrated into Apple Health so completed sessions contribute to your daily activity totals along with steps or exercises recorded elsewhere, making it easier to track overall movement without manually consolidating apps.
If planning workouts typically bogs down your fitness program, structured content—from individual workouts to longer plans—removes that hurdle and makes it easier to maintain consistency.
Download Nike Training Club:Android | iPhone
However, it’s not just apps that can help you achieve your health and wellness goals. Here are our top tips for using your fitness tracker to get fitter than ever in 2026.
