The 10 Best Fitness Apps That Are Free

Whether you're trying to lose weight, track your steps daily, or monitor your eating habits, fitness apps help a great deal when trying to achieve that goal. Below are 10 free apps that you'll be sure to love. Download and test them out!

1. MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is a free smartphone app and website that tracks diet and exercise to determine optimal caloric intake and nutrients for the users' goals and uses gamification elements to motivate users. In a Consumer Reports diet rating, MyFitnessPal was rated the best free program (with 83 points) in overall satisfaction, "maintenance, calorie awareness, and food variety".

2. NIKE + Training Club

The Nike+ Training Club app (Android, iOS) features workouts designed by professional athletes and celebrities. Workouts focus on strength, endurance, or mobility and offer three levels of difficulty. The app’s audio cues let you focus on the workout instead of the screen; Nike+ Training Club can also be streamed onto a television using Apple TV, Chromecast, or an HDMI cable. After completing a workout, users can share customized photos or posters with the Nike+ community. The app syncs with Nike+ Run Club to keep track of your runs; you can also manually enter activities such as basketball, gym training, or tennis.

3. Charity Miles
Earn money for charities every time you run, walk, or bicycle by using the free Charity Miles app. Corporate sponsors (whose information you'll see as a backdrop image in the app) agree to donate a few cents for every mile you complete. Browse the app's list of charities, find the one that you support, and then hit the road. When a lot of people use Charity Miles, those little bits of money add up.
4. FitStar
FitStar creates custom workouts for you based on your fitness level. You start by doing a few workouts with the app and you give it feedback as you go about which exercises were too tough, too easy, or just right. The app uses that information to create a routine that challenges you in all the right ways. FitStar was purchased by Fitbit in 2015 and now works with some Fitbit devices. The in-app coach is former NFL player Tony Gonzalez, a beefy workout buddy who is nothing but a bundle of positive, cheery feedback, and absolutely no excuses.
5. Lose It!
The free website and app Lose It!, designed for counting calories and logging exercise, can help you lose weight, especially if you tend to eat name-brand American foods. Lose It!, which has been around for years, has an incredibly strong community of supportive people to help you stick to your goals. Lose It! is compatible with a long list of other fitness devices and apps, including Nike+ FuelBand, Fitbit devices, Runkeeper, MapMyFitness, and Jawbone UP, so you can import your calorie intake and balance it effortlessly against your calorie expenditure.
6. SworkIt
Sworkit coaches you through workout routines that are designed to meet your goals, whether it's to improve your cardio health, become more flexible, increase strength, and so forth. Within sections, you can choose to work on certain parts of your body, too, such as doing a strength workout that focuses on your core. One extra feature I like is that Sworkit's includes music options from Spotify, so you can stream a premade workout mix. Paying for a Premium account unlocks even more workouts.
7.Map My Fitness
Under Armour’s Map My Fitness (Android, iOS) logs more than 600 different fitness activities and syncs with more than 400 devices to give users a complete picture of their athletic performance. Users can search for nearby running routes or share their favorite routes. Map My Fitness saves data on pace, distance, and calories burned for GPS-based workouts; you can use this data to set new personal goals. Through the Map My Fitness community, users can join challenges as well as motivate friends. The latest versions of May My Fitness are compatible with Android Wear and Apple Watch. Premium versions of the app offer personalized training programs and the ability to monitor heart rate zones.
8. Fooducate
More than just a calorie counter, the Fooducate Weight Loss Coach (Android, iOS) helps steer people toward real-food diets. Fooducate can be personalized depending on activity level, dietary goals, desired weight loss, or health condition. Users track food intake and exercise as well as sleep, mood, and hunger levels — all of which affect what you eat. Scan a barcode at the supermarket and Fooducate will tell you if that item contains unhealthy additives such as sugar, preservatives, MSG, or artificial sweeteners; the app will also recommend healthier options. In-app purchases cover specific dietary needs such as food allergies, low-carb diets, and even diets for pets.
9. Daily Workouts
Daily Workout Apps has separate apps for ab, arm, cardio, glute, and leg workouts — and they all come together in Daily Workouts (Android, iOS). All told, this app features nearly 100 exercises, which are grouped into targeted workouts (five to 10 minutes) or full-body workouts (10 to 30 minutes). For each exercise, Daily Workouts includes on-screen instructions and a timer set to the length of the interval. The app works without an Internet connection. The full version of Daily Workouts adds workout types such as Pilates and kettleball, as well as additional workout routines.
10. Moves
In a nutshell, ProtoGeo’s Moves (Android, iOS) is a free alternative to low-end wearable fitness trackers. The app uses a phone’s acceleration, cell tower, and Wi-Fi location data to track a user’s daily walking, running, and cycling activity. (To save the battery, Moves uses GPS and phone sensors sparingly.) This information is presented in an easy-to-read timeline, with route maps saved and familiar locations such as the office and the local coffee shop flagged for future reference. Moves also displays this information in daily and weekly snapshots, which makes it easy to track your progress.