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Feel the burn with fitness software

Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke

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We may be in the tail end of the northern summer but that’s no excuse to let that beach-trim body go to ruin. Stay fit through autumn and winter and you’ll find it much easier to be in shape for next summer! With this in mind, I’ve been taking a look at the many programs and web apps out there which are dedicated to training and fitness. I’m not talking about yoga software or feel-good positive thinking sites: this is about the software which screams “No pain no gain!” at you when you’re flagging. Not literally of course, as that would be awful.

Open Fitness (Windows)

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Open Fitness is an excellent app for Windows that helps you keep records of all your training sessions. With sections for diet, supplements, cardio, competition and more it’s definitely aimed at the committed user who already has a regime worked out.

CalorieKing Nutrition and Exercise Manager (Windows)

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For a focus on diet, look no further than CalorieKing. It includes an impressively fine-tuned system designed to help you control your consumption of not just calories but also sodium, saturated fat, cholesterol and more. Its drag’n’drop interface and smart graph output make it one of the more visually impressive in its class.

Diet & Exercise Assistant (Palm OS)

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With tons of features for such a portable fitness program, Diet & Exercise Assistant is a popular choice for Palm owners. Use it to track calories, weight, exercise, diets (like Atkins), and even tells you when you’ve eaten too much! If you don’t have a Palm, go and buy one and then install Diet & Exercise Assistant on it.

Total Fitness (Blackberry)

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Another mobile app, Total Fitness packs similar features to Diet & Exercise Assistant but on Blackberry phones. Personally, I prefer its graphs and exercise database. Mobiteq, the developer of Total Fitness also produces specialist tools for runners and cyclists, aimed at boosting performance and motivation.

Traineo (web)

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Traineo is one of the most popular online apps for people interested in getting fit and staying fit. With its trademark ‘total calories burned’ counter, fun statistics and bright, modern design Traineo is obviously enjoyable to use… but it’s popular for a good reason: an easy-to-use interface, library of fitness guides and advice and more make it hard to resist.

Fitday (web)

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Fitday is the mother of all fitness websites. Boasting well over 2 million members, this site has a proven track record for helping people manage their nutrition, calories, exercise regimes, weight and so on. That said, we feel that Fitday could do with a bit of a revamp. Its old-fashioned design doesn’t stand up too well next to younger competitors like Traineo or PEERTrainer. Also, the constant bugging to spend can be a bit of a nuisance.

So there you have it – with this many options (and there are plenty more out there), there’s just no excuse for letting yourself go!

Tom Clarke

Tom Clarke

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