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The Best Free Health and Fitness Apps for Your Smartphone

We use our smartphones for everything. Communicating via text and voice calls, keeping a calendar, saving contact information, playing music and surfing the Web are just a few of the myriad of tasks available at our fingertips. But have you ever thought about how you can use your smartphone to help you achieve your health and fitness goals? The key is to download the right mix of apps to motivate you, track your progress and provide helpful suggestions. Here are some recommendations:

Gym Pact

Gym Pact offers a monetary incentive to work out. You make a weekly exercise or diet pact and establish an amount of money you will pay out if you don’t meet your goal. If you do meet your goals, you earn cash for yourself! If not, you forfeit that money to others who have met their own goals.

Fooducate Nutrition Scanner

Trips to the grocery store just got easier with this app, which scans a food’s barcode, provides nutrition facts and, when applicable, suggests a healthier alternative. Fooducate has a database of over 200,000 unique products.

MapMyRun

MapMyRun uses GPS data to track and map your runs, and share the information with your social network, if you choose. More than 9 million runners use the app, which conveniently runs in the background while you play music or listen to a podcast. MapMyRun also provides information about the length of your workout, pace, maximum speed and distance.

If you like the tracking capabilities but aren’t crazy about running, the MapMyFitness app (also free) supports a wide range of activities, including walking and cycling.

The Johnson & Johnson Official 7-Minute Workout

Have you heard the buzz about the full-body workout that only takes seven minutes? Johnson & Johnson’s app coaches you through moves like push-ups, planks, crunches and triceps dips. Regardless of your fitness level, this app will get your heart pumping with its user-friendly interface — all you need is a chair and less than 10 minutes!

MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal is a must-have for anyone who wants to track diet and exercise habits. With a huge database of foods/beverages, the app will help you track what you’re eating. It will also show you how many calories you’re burning through exercise and other activities.

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