Under Armour has a series of “Map My…..” apps. From cycling, running, walking, hiking, and even dog walking, you can track your workouts and keep a record of them to review in the future. In the series, they also have an app, “MyFitnessPal”, you may be familiar with if you have ever had a nutrition coaching appointment with Molly, our Registered Dietitian.
Map My Ride, Map My Hike, Map My Run, Map My Walk, and Map My Dog Walk
These apps are a great way to track your fitness progress over time. The apps will show you your stats including, distance, speed, splits, altitude gained, and more. The goal setting feature allows you to check off each exercise as you complete it. For an extra few dollars a month, you can even have a virtual trainer who will coach and motivate you to push yourself a little bit further than you thought you could go on your own.
The reason this app series lost 1 star is due to it’s reliance on an internet connection. When you are just running around the neighborhood or walking your dog in the park, all features work to their full ability. Although, especially when using the Map My Hike app, it only works half of the time. When you set out on a hike, the area is usually remote with little to no cell service, rendering the mapping app useless. Another downside is the apps drain your battery. Make sure you have a fully charged phone before setting out for an exercise. It is no fun when you are miles away from your house, your phone dies and you have to run back without any music or ability to call someone in an emergency.
MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal is a food diary that allows you to visualize what you eat during the day in order to stick to your fitness goals. The best part of Under Armour’s app series is that all of the fitness apps connect to the nutrition tracker. This means when you have burned 500 calories on your run using the Map My Run app, MyFitnessPal will reflect this increase in energy needs for the day. With the free version, you are able to make sure you are meeting your calorie, protein, carbohydrate and fat needs to enhance your performance or help with a weight loss journey. The food database is pretty extensive, including a bar code scanner to help find foods faster and ability to add your own recipes or even add a recipe weblink to let MyFitnessPal analyze the meal.
This app lost 1 star due to its’ calorie advice. When you sign up for the app, it asks several questions, and usually calculates a calorie range of 1200 calories or so. Our nutritionist reports that most people need more calories than this 1200 calorie level, especially athletes. MyFitnessPal can be a great program to help stick to your calorie goals, but we recommend setting up an appointment with our dietitian in order to determine your individualized nutrient needs. Once you have these numbers, you are able to change the settings of the MyFitnessPal app to customize your nutrient goals.
Overall, these apps are Highland’s Health & Wellness approved. We recommend downloading these free apps, in order to start tracking your fitness goals today!