Are you looking for the best walking apps to try this year?
If so, you have landed on the right page! Here, we share with you the nine best walking apps to help you track your steps, manage your weight, and record your walks. Walking apps are hugely beneficial if you want to get serious about your walking activities.
But before we go to our list, let’s have a brief discussion first on the benefits of walking.
Benefits of Walking
Walking burns calories and strengthens the heart.
One of the best ways to burn those unwanted calories in your body is through physical cardio activities like walking (and running). You can lose and maintain weight, depending on how many calories you have burned.
Likewise, cardio exercises reduce the risk of heart disease and other undesirable illnesses. Study shows that walking 30 minutes a day can lessen the chances of having coronary heart disease by 19%.
Walking helps in regulating blood sugar and blood pressure levels.
Research from the American Diabetes Association suggests that taking time to walk 15 minutes, three times a day, can actually lower blood sugar levels. Moderate exercises allow your muscles to use more glucose while regulating your blood sugar.
Moreover, health professionals and experts agree that taking short, 10-minutes walks, three to four times a day, can significantly reduce your blood pressure levels. This is because, when you walk, your heart circulates more blood, which delivers oxygen to your muscles.
Walking boosts energy and immunity levels.
Studies show that a 30-minute walk can substantially bolster your immune system, thereby progressing the way your body reacts to viruses and bacteria. If you can’t find time to exercise regularly, walking can still do the trick.
In the same manner, when you feel tired and exhausted, a good way to relieve stress and boost your energy is through walking. Experts say that walking helps increase the levels of the hormones you need to stay active and alert.
Walking improves mood and enhances the cognitive system.
According to research, walking is one way to reduce anxiety levels and get rid of depression and other negative thoughts and feelings. It promotes the release of endorphins, the hormone that relieves the body of stress and pain.
Additionally, walking has been linked to enhanced brain function. Health professionals say that slightly moderate to moderate walking can actually diminish the risk of having cognitive impairment, especially at a very young age.
Walking develops muscle strength and physical stamina.
Walking is one of the best practices to prepare your body for strenuous exercises. It builds endurance, making you more comfortable whenever you start training or practicing. Hence, it can be a good pre-workout exercise.
If you are not the type of person who has a lot of time to exercise, you can consider walking every day or several times a week as an alternative, to still stay fit and healthy.
Now you know the benefits of walking. If you want more information about the good things it can do for your body, click here and check a more comprehensive list of walking’s benefits.
Now let’s get to our list!
9 Best Walking Apps
1. Fitbit
The Fitbit app is one of the world’s leading apps when it comes to health and fitness. It has tons of features that help monitor your daily exercise routine and nutrition intake, and also has services that diligently record your progress and achievements.
Fitbit primarily tracks your steps and the distance you cover on a daily basis. It also shows how many calories you have burned for the day, and how many hours you were active. You can spot trends over time so you can create new plans to maximize your time doing exercises.
Furthermore, this particular walking app helps improve and maintain your other health indicators, such as sleep, food, and workouts. You can set sleep goals, create bedtime reminders and wake targets, and even review your sleep trends. For your food, hydration, and workouts, you can log them in the app, see your stats, and review the impact they have made on your health.
The Fitbit app is available in both a desktop and mobile version. This means that you can see your progress wherever and whenever you want. If you are looking for an all-around health app, then this one is definitely a must-try.
2. MapMyWalk
MapMyWalk is a descendant of MapMyFitness, one of the leading mobile health tracker apps in the world. It is powered and developed by Under Armour, Inc., one of the leading brands when it comes to sports apparel, shoes, and accessories.
MapMyWalk has tons of excellent features that help monitoring your steps and track the calories you burn. It even offers advanced running metrics such as foot strike angle, stride length, and ground contact time.
Similar to Fitbit, this app has the ability to track and record your workouts. These include cycling, running, cross-training, gym workouts, and even yoga. Moreover, it offers real-time audio coaching to help maintain your pace, duration, and distance whenever you run or walk.
In addition to mapping your walk, this app provides deals for games and challenges. You can compete with other MapMyWalk users, and work to reach a common target goal. Prizes are usually Under Armour products.
3. Argus: Calorie Counter and Step
Argus: Calorie Counter and Step claims to be the “only free all-in-one health and fitness app.” Indeed, it is 100% free, and all you have to do is sign up and then get started with your weight goals instantly. The Argus app primarily features a calorie counter with a barcode scanner and a huge food database.
Aside from the step tracker, the app also boasts a heart rate measuring feature and calorie-burning, video-guided workouts. It also has a sleep monitoring system called Sleep Time that provides techniques on how to sleep better. Most importantly, it offers personalized weight-loss plans that you can use to determine what kind of food you should consume and how many calories you should burn.
One of the most exciting features of this app is its low battery usage. It is designed to save your phone’s battery for other important activities. The app also has a global social network where you can share your goals, achievements, and stories.
4. StepsApp Pedometer
The StepsApp Pedometer app solely focuses on counting your steps and tracking your walking habits. It has over 10 million users, and is available in six different colors. Additionally, the app has voiceover features available in more than 20 languages, making it useful for people from all over the world.
In addition to counting your steps and measuring your burned calories, the app also features weekly, monthly, and yearly charts. These charts help you set your step goals, as you can clearly see your improvements as time goes by. It also saves your weekly report so you can quickly access your step history and trends.
If you are looking for the easiest way to track your steps without a bunch of other features getting in the way, this could be an excellent option. With its simple design and interface, there is no way you won’t be able to understand and enjoy it.
5. GoogleFit
GoogleFit is a health project from Google in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Heart Association (AHA). It mainly features a system called “Heart Points,” in which you are recommended a set of goals or physical activities to keep your heart strong and body healthy.
As evidenced by the system’s name, GoogleFit aims to help people reduce the risk of developing heart disease by encouraging physical activity. It believes that the key to being generally fit and well is in the way we structure our daily routines. Based on your activity goals, it comes up with recommendations that can have a positive effect on your health.
The app features customized coaching provides actionable tips for your health activities. It also has a journal feature where you can manually record your goals and achievements. GoogleFit not only records your steps, but also other activities like swimming and running.
6. Apple Health
Apple Health is Apple’s version of a health app that consolidates that data from your iPhone, Apple Watch, and all other third-party apps that you use to track your health progress. It is like a journal that serves as your go-to resource whenever you want to see a summary of what you have been up to in terms of health goals and physical well-being.
Apple Health has four unique features that make it different from the rest of the health apps: highlights, charts, an organizer, and a sync system. The highlights feature determines your favorite metrics and “highlights” them for you. This means you don’t have to search the app before you can find what you are looking for.
The charts feature allows you to see your trends over time. You can review your progress in a given day, week, month, or year. Meanwhile, the organize feature sorts all your data and stores it in the right categories. This way, it is easy for you to just select the category of the record you want to see. Lastly, the sync system allows your device to sync your data with all your other health apps so they are also up to date. There is a catch, of course—this app is available only to Apple users.
7. Walkmeter Walking & Hiking GPS
Walkmeter Walking & Hiking GPS is recommended for walkers and runners. It offers a number of features, including maps, graphs, intervals, laps, zones, splits, training plans, and a lot more. It also allows users to record an unlimited number of workouts in any form.
Like any other walking app, Walkmeter allows you to keep track of your activities on a calendar or by routes and activities. Bar and pie charts are available, as well, for those who find them easier to use. You may also record your heart rate, speed, and cadence, and configure your distance, time, and elevation.
Walkmeter is a pretty simple app that offers basic, core features to users for free. If you want to get the best out of the app, however, you might want to pay for the Elite subscription. You will have to pay through iTunes, as most of the app’s services are connected to it.
8. Pacer
The Pacer Pedometer & Step Tracker app is simple, powerful, and fun. It is pretty simple and easy to understand, so you don’t have to be a tech genius to navigate it. But it is also powerful and fun, so you get what you are looking for from the experience.
The designers created the app’s interface in a straightforward way so you can successfully track your runs, walks, and rides. They created four categories where you can easily access the information you need to reach your activity goals.
The app offers personalized fitness plans, which include guided audio and video workouts. These workouts are designed to help you lose weight, get toned, and stay active throughout your healthy living journey. Moreover, they are developed by pro trainers in the sports and health industry, ensuring their effectiveness.
Pacer can be linked to FitBit and MyFitnessPal. Since it is only a step counter, you might want to pair it with other health apps that cover more health activities. If you connect your Pacer app to these other partner apps, there is no need for you to buy a separate step tracker.
9. Charity Miles
Charity Miles has rather unique features compared to other walking and step tracker apps. Instead of counting your steps for the benefit of your health, the app’s mission is to record your physical activities in order to contribute to charity. It has a dual purpose—to keep you fit and healthy while raising funds for a good cause.
The app is connected to your phone’s internal pedometer and GPS, and tracks your distance whenever you use any of the fitness tracking devices installed on your phone. If you are using FitBit, for instance, your Charity Miles app works whenever your Fitbit tracker starts counting steps, or any other physical activity.
You also choose which charity you would like to contribute to. You have the option to do the fundraising alone or with a group.
For every mile you finish, there is a corresponding monetary donation that will be given to the charity of your choice. Is there any better way to help you stay motivated to count your steps and burn those calories?
Conclusion
Starting a walking program is a great way to improve your health and lifestyle. Click here for a comprehensive guide on how to start such a program. Then, choose a walking app from this article and get started!
If you are already a walker and currently looking for a walking app that helps count your steps and track your physical activities, we hope that the apps we have shared above were helpful. You might decide to try a few of them and see which one could work best for you.
Have you already tried one of these apps?
We’d like to know which one, and would love to hear about your experience. Comment in the field below and share your story with us.
