Anyone who has tried losing weight knows the struggle is real. Unhealthy options are everywhere and busy work schedules can make it hard to find time for exercise. In that case, your smartphone can be the perfect tool for getting and staying in shape. Think about it: It’s always with you, it lets you listen to music during your workout, and it provides you with many powerful and free apps at your fingertips. 

A fitness app can lead you through workouts without you having to pay the high price of a personal trainer, and using a calorie-counter app is as simple as sending a text. Here, The Week brings you a list of some best free weight loss apps that you can download to get in shape and lose weight by turning your iPhone or Android into a personal trainer and dietician.

Lose it! 
Lose It! wants you to lose weight while also enjoying the process. Simply telling it a little about yourself, will help it devise a custom weight loss plan, setting you a daily budget and goal to aim for. Its image recognition means it will identify the food you are eating automatically, saving you from entering it yourself. Also, it breaks things down according to nutritional information, giving you plenty of insight. The app’s insights section will tell you more about the food you’ve logged, including which foods are helping your progress and which are not.

MyPlate Calorie Tracker 
From the people behind Livestrong.com, MyPlate Calorie Tracker hopes to be the most user-friendly option for losing weight. The app helps you find out which foods you eat contain the most calories, allowing you to set personalized daily calorie goals. You can also keep track of your water intake, and create custom goals for your macronutrients and micronutrients. Meal reminders can also be set. This is perfect for those who have erratic eating schedules. 

30 Day Fit Challenge Workout – Lose Weight Trainer 
This app guides you through a series of exercise that you can do without any guidance and equipment. But this 30-day workout challenge is very effective in helping you kick start your fitness, improve your health, and transform your body. The exercises are simple – from jumping jacks to planks – but will give you a good workout, if done without a break. Also, because it takes less than 10 minutes to do, you really won’t have any excuse to not exercise anymore. 

Daily Burn
Figuring out where to start your workout goals can be hard. Daily Burn provides assessment tools to help. The app guides you through recommended fitness goals and provides over 800 individual workout videos. Each day a new Daily Burn 365 workout is released. These are designed for fitness beginners. And the app’s newest update lets you save your favorite workouts too, making it easier for you to go back to it when you want. 

Pact 
Need a little extra motivation when it comes to eating healthy or hitting the gym? Earn cash for every healthy move you make with Pact, which has you set weekly goals and then decide on an amount you will be willing to pay if you don’t reach those goals (your money then goes to users who did accomplish their tasks). Even if you don’t score major money, the motivation to not lose money should be enough to get you into gear. This is perfect for those of you who are looking to exercise in pairs or in a group. 

Fitocracy
Fitocracy helps you “slay the laziness dragon.” The app’s goal is to make fitness fun. It lets you earn points, unlock achievements, embark on adventures, and beat quests. There are workouts and nutrition plans by expert trainers and you can get motivation from other users to see what works for them. This app feels like playing a game which is probably why it will prove to be quite effective in helping you lose weight. 

Calorific
What does 200 calories look like? Calorific can answer this question with more than 180 images. The aim of calorific is to help users better manage their food choices by providing visuals of foods and beverages in 200-calorie servings. You can’t track your food intake on this app, but it is helpful when lacking in motivation; seeing just how much fruit you can eat in place of that donut is likely to sway you toward the former.

My Diet Coach
My Diet Coach brings the fun to weight loss. Not only can you track your food intake and physical activity, but you can also set challenges and earn rewards, including clothes for your very own avatar. Another feature that’s really fun is the ‘panic button.’ Available on the “pro” version, users are encouraged to tap the panic button whenever cravings arise for unhealthful foods. Type in the name of the desired food and add a photo, and the app will provide some tips to help you avoid eating it.

Diet Assistant – Weight Loss
This is another free app that will deliver you a range of meal options to suit the diet you are on, whether it be vegetarian, pescatarian or high-protein, among others. You need to enter some information about yourself, including your target weight, and the Diet Assistant app will then assist you in achieving your goal. There are dedicated shopping lists per diet plan, nutritional facts, meal and weight entry reminders and a built-in BMI calculator, as well as a weight graph so you can track your progress.

The Complete 5:2 Diet
The 5:2 diet suggests that you eat what you like for five days of the week, up to 2000 calories for women and 2500 for men, while for the other two days, women consume just 500 and men consume 600. There are plenty of apps that relate to this particular diet but the Complete 5:2 Diet app brings you a four-week recipe and exercise plan that will track your calorie intake and work outs. It features over 140 recipes to try, with a choice of six meal plans for the fasting days and the workout plans link to exercise videos to make sure you are doing things right. 
 

 
• virtual